Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 90 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 15, 30 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
15 Years Ago — 2010
News: Apparently winning four-straight NASCAR Sprint Cup titles will get you noticed.
The Associated Press has named NASCAR’s Jimmie Johnson the Male Athlete of the Year. It is the first time in the 78-year history of the award that a race car driver has been named the winner.
Johnson received 42 votes from editors around the country who are members of the Associated Press. Tennis star Roger Federer (30 votes) and Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt (29 votes) were the only other athletes with double-digit totals.
Johnson won the award on the tail of his unprecedented fourth-straight NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.
He won seven races last season, a series high, in addition to dominating the 10-race Chase at the end of the season.
This is the third major award Johnson has received this offseason. He was also named the Driver of the Year by the Driver of the Year Foundation and the Eastern Motorsport Press Ass’n voted Johnson the Al Holbert Memorial National Driver of the Year.
Winners: Billy Wease completed a weekend sweep of the 12th annual Rumble in Fort Wayne midget event at the Memorial Coliseum Expo Center Dec. 27.
The 23-year-old Wease joined two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart as the only drivers to win both midget features in a Rumble Series weekend.
Wease inherited the top spot when racelong leader Adam Wilsdon struck a tire marker on lap 45 while trying to lap Brandon Knupp. Wease then held off Dave Darland over the remaining 16 laps, with David Gough, Joe Liguori and Jon Stanbrough completing the top five.
Darland kept the pressure on, once tapping Wease in turn four, until a red flag waved on lap 55 to untangle the wrecked cars of Knupp and Mike Fedorcak.
But Wease pulled away on the restart to capture the weekend sweep.
30 Years Ago — 1995
News: Goodbye Jerry Hauer. Hello Jack Long.
The Indy Racing League last week confirmed pre-Christmas rumors of IRL Commissioner Jerry Hauer’s departure from the organization and announced the 52-year-old Long would take over as executive director of the fledgling Indy car sanctioning body.
Long, president of Long Enterprises, Inc. of Phoenix since 1973 and former righthand man for Formula 1 czar Bernie Ecclestone in the U.S., was tapped by the Indy Racing League’s Board of Governors to serve as the league’s chief administrator until, according to a statement released by IRL, “ … the Board of Governors chooses to re-evaluate the office of the commissioner.”
“I have watched with great Interest the formation of the Indy Racing League, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with the IRL board to launch the Inaugural series in 1996,” Long said.
Long will report directly to the IRL Board of Governors — Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George, USAC President Dick King, former International Speedway Crop executive John Cooper, businessman Dan Cotter and banker Don Smith.
Winners: Mike Skinner survived Ron Hornaday’s final-lap challenge to score a narrow .75-second victory in the NASCAR SuperTruck Series by Craftsman Winter Heat 200 pickup truck race at Tucson Raceway Park.
Skinner’s triumph capped a hectic 30-lap battle which saw the pair trade the lead of the $40,000 event three times.
While Skinner slipped his GM Goodwrench Chevrolet under Hornaday’s Spears Motorsports Chevy pickup for the final time on the 187th lap, he still had to block his rival’s last-ditch bid after the sixth and final caution which ended with two laps remaining.
That caution, for Craig Huartson’s spin, stretched the scheduled 200-lap distance to 204. Skinner’s truck faltered slightly when the field restarted, allowing Hornaday to pull alongside momentarily, but upped the margin to a couple of lengths at the finish.
Skinner, running out of the Richard Childress Racing stable, averaged 66.043 mph. He won $8,225.
“I didn’t (dare) look In my mirror until I began the last lap,” said Skinner. “I wasn’t going to look
then but my boys (crew) said, ‘don’t worry about it, just drive the truck.’ We’ll have more of these (victories). I’m sure.”
60 Years Ago— 1965
News: More rear-engine cars, a formidable European contingent and an increase in the number of Ford-powered contenders in the 49th annual 500-mile automobile classic were predicted by Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials as entry forms for the event were mailed to members of the racing fraternity.
Entries will be accepted until midnight of April 15 and a field of approximately 60 is expected to compete for the 33 starting positions behind the Plymouth pace car on Monday, May 31.
The long supremacy or conventional front-engine American race cars powered by Meyer-Drake four-cylinder Offenhauser engines is in great danger or being terminated.
No car powered by anything except an engine of this type has won at Indianapolis since 1946; no foreign car has led the “500” field home since 1940; and no rear-engine car ever has been victorious on the challenging two-and-a-half mile rectangular course.
But at least 35 rear-engine entries are expected this year, including 10 or 12 from Europe, and Ford V-8 racing engines may be mounted in more than 15 of the cars.
Andy Granatelli also is planning to bring the supercharged Novi Specials back to Indianapolis in quest of the winner’s share of the $500,000 purse.
Winners: Scottish farmer Jim Clark, wearing a corset to protect his injured back, broke three records en route to victory in the South African Grand Prix. He drove a British Lotus powered by a rear-mounted Climax engine.
Clark, a former world champion bidding to dethrone current champion John Surtees of Britain, led from start to finish in the 85-lap race that is the first of the racing events counting in the 1965 driver point standings. He was clocked in two hours, six minutes and 46.1 seconds.
Surtees finished second in an Italian Ferrari, 29.5 seconds behind the winner.
Graham Hill of Britain in a BRM was third and Clark’s Lotus teammate, Mike Spence, was fourth, both less than a minute back of Clark.
Clark first smashed the 2.4-mile lap record by six-tenths of a second with a clocking of one minute, 28.5 seconds on the seventh circuit. He cracked it again on 34th in 1:28.8 and then astounded the crowd of 55,000 on the next to last lap when he whipped his Lotus around in 1:27.4 at an average speed of 100.33 miles per hour.
This was the first time an over- 100-mile speed was achieved on the South African Grand Prix circuit.
