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: Graham Rahal will attempt to qualify for the 94th annual Indianapolis 500 May 30 thanks to a little help from his father, 1986 Indianapolis winner Bobby Rahal.
Though Rahal Letterman Racing is not fielding an entry in the IZOD IndyCar Series this season. it will enter the No. 30 Dallara Honda for the month of May with the second-generation driver at the wheel.
“I am thrilled that Graham is joining us for the Indianapolis 500,” said Bobby Rahal, whose team does field a full-time entry in the American Le Mans Series. “To have watched his career grow from the first day in karts and now to be there side by side with him as he tries to win Indy for himself and for our team is a dream come true for me.”
Graham Rahal competed in the two most recent Indy 500s driving for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. Rahal has driven in three IndyCar races in 2010 for Sarah Fisher Racing, scoring a top-10 finish at St. Petersburg (Fla.) in his first start of the year.
Winners: Denny Hamlin deepened his love affair with The Lady in Black Saturday night, winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Showtime Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
With the victory — his third of the season and 11th of his career — Hamlin became the first driver since Mark Martin in September 1993 to sweep both NASCAR events at the l.33-mile facility after dominating Friday’s Nationwide Series Royal Purple 200.
While Saturday marked his first Sprint Cup triumph at Darlington, the victory only furthered Hamlin’s impressive record at the track deemed ‘l’oo Tough to Tame and the site of his debut with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2004. In 10 NASCAR starts at the track, Hamlin has four wins, three poles. Nine top-10 fmishrs and five top fives. His lone finish outside the top 10 was a 13th in last season’s Southern 500.
Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota paced the field four times for 104 laps Saturday night, taking the lead for the final time on a late-race pit stop and held on to win the 367-lap, 500-mile event by 1.908 seconds over polesitter Jamie McMurray.
“I knew from the first run of the day that we had a really strong race car from that point, it’s all about conserving your equipment for the end of the race,” said Hamlin, who handed JGR its
second-straight triumph after teammate Kyle Busch won the previous weekend at Richmond (Va.) lnt’l Raceway “We chose to take four tires more than a lot of guys did during the course of the day, so you saw us go back to 10th, eighth at times, but we always kept good ti.res on the race car at all times. That set us up for a charge to the front.”
30 Years Ago — 1995
News: Officials said this week that the fire which destroyed the warehouse for SCCA Enterprises, Inc., the wholly owned subsidiary for the Sports Car Club of America which oversees the Denver club’s Spec Racer program, should not have a major effect on the parts supply for the singleseat, befendered category.
“There were parts in the pipeline before,” reported SCCA President Nick Craw, “and there will be parts coming along at a continuing rate, so I don’t see any serious difficulties.” The fire, which 2 weeks ago wiped out the subsidiary’s building and stock of parts, apparently started in an electrical junction box.
There were no injuries in the Friday blaze, which forced the relocation of the operations for SCCA Enterprises to the parent group’s headquarters in Englewood, Colo., a Denver suburb.
The Spec Racer class, part of the SCCA’s National Championship arena, and originally powered by Renault engines, is currently in the process of switch to Ford units. Reportedly, the latest shipment of Ford parts, under the program handled by Jack Roush Racing, had not yet been received by the time of the fire, and thus was spared.
Winners: Team Menard weathered the weather, and a second-day challenge, to win both ends of the run for the pole of the 79th running of the Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last weekend.
Scott Brayton won the pole position at a less-than-expected 231.604 mph in the Quaker State Lola/Menard on a day that was peppered by rain and shortened by a wet race track.
It was his own teammate, Arie Luyendyk, on whom Brayton set his sights in overcast conditions that might have been under FAA visibility minimums.
Luyendyk had just run the Glidden Lola/ Menard at 231.031 to claim the pole in a session that saw 11 cars qualified in the 75 minutes of qualifying time available.
When Brayton was finished, the much-modified BuickV-6-engined cars were aligned 1-2 on the IMS grid for the first time since 1985. Brayton said he knew early in the run that he had a shot to top Luyendyk.
“When I came down for my warmup and ran 39.54 (seconds), I knew the potential was there to run in the 38s,” he said. “I knew that if I didn’t maintain the pace, that means don’t slip and fall because the air was so thick today and if you lost any momentum anywhere, you were going to fall off. I gave it everything I could and it just came due.”
Brayton, whose 14 starts at Indianapolis are the most among active drivers, is on the front row for the second time.
60 Years Ago— 1965
News: NASCAR President Bill France Friday reaffirmed possibly the most controversial decision he ever has made as boss of the world’s largest stock racing car organization-the rules won’t be bent in order that Chrysler made cars will return to racing in 1965.
France, following an informal meeting with top brass from Darlington Raceway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, said: “We will not change the specifications of this year’s racing cars merely to accommodate Chrysler. The rules arc the same for all manufacturers (Chrysler, Ford, General Motors.) When Chrysler feels they can compete, under the rules, they are more than welcome at any of our member tracks.”
France ruled out Ford’s high riser racing engines and Chrysler’s hemi-head power plant declaring them to be out and out racing engines. France declared at the time that he was
seeking a return to the original concept of “stock car” racing.
Chrysler promptly withdrew its factory backed cars from 1965 competition and haven’t backed down. Neither has France.
Friday, France was host to Bob Colvin, president of Darlington Raceway, and A. C. Goines and Richard Howard of Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“We talked about problems mutual to all or us,” France said. “But they were mainly interested in coming here to see the Fox Chevy practice on the speedway.”
Ray Fox, the Daytona Beach master mechanic, has built a racing Chevrolet slated for its debut in
the Charlotte World &00 May 23. However, the car developed mechanical trouble and didn’t run.
In answer to reports that attendance is off at major NASCAR events this season, France said: “We haven’t had time to evaluate the attendance figures yet. It’s still early in the season. I would like to point out, however, that at the Daytona 500 we had the second largest crowd we’ve ever had with the worst weather. (Fred Lorenzen won the rain-shortened race called after 336 miles.) Atlanta had its 500 miler postponed a week because of rain and had its second largest crowd ever. Bristol and North Wilkesboro, both big races for us, were postponed because
of rain and both still drew good crowds.”
Winners: The fastest qualification day in Indianapolis history Saturday saw four-time national champion A. J. Foyt produce new one and four lap records to win the pole position for the 49th running of the Indianapolis 500-mile race in a spectacular day of record breaking.
A total of 21 drivers qualified over the weekend, Sunday’s action being as dull as Saturday’s was exciting.
A huge crowd, estimated at over 200,000 by some newsmen were brought to their feet again and again Saturday as an unbelievable session of record breaking was engaged in by rookie Mario Andretti, record holder Jim Clark and finally Foyt.
With starting order determined by lot, Len Sutton, who was first out to practice May 1, timed immediately as the track opened for practice to be the first qualifier in his Jim Robbins-owned, Rolla Vollstedt-built Ford rear-engined car.
With nine other cars following Sutton, Andrettl rolled to the line In the Dean rear-engined car built in Phoenix last winter by Clint Brawner and Jim MeGee. His Ford engine singing a siren-like song, Andretti cut his first lap at 159.179 and with the crowd standing rounded out his four-lap run with a 159.405 record lap to set a new 10-mile mark of 158.849.
As he was being congratulated, Jim Clark of Scotland scooted his green Lotus Mark 38 Ford on to the track and moments later stole the honors from Andretti with four laps at over 160, with his 160.973 second lap being his best and an average of 160.729 winning his qualifying records back.
Before Clark was finished chatting with the press, A. J . Foyt had stalled the engine on his Lotus
Ford getting out or the pits and when he finally took the green flag, the fans stood in awe as he drove it deeper into the first tum than has ever been done before. When the first lap speed of 161.958 was announced the crowd nearly shouted the tops off the grandstands.
Foyt averaged the four laps at 161.233, to bring the one and four lap marks, “back to the United States,” he said.
