“Boy, there was a guy who had about 14 different personalities,” Johnny Boyd said with a laugh, while talking about his friend Jimmy Reece. “He’d get on a health kick and become the epitome of the pope’s altar boy. Quit everything. The next time I’d see him, he’d be so tipped over he didn’t even know who I was.”
Reece, also known as “Go-Go” because of his effusive, over-the-top, excitable personality, was a trendsetter among his contemporaries. He was often the first to pick up on new clothing styles, hairstyles or the latest technology. Home movie equipment fascinated him, and, in fact, it was Reece who filmed Bob Sweikert’s fatal 1956 crash at Salem (Ind.) Speedway that runs on YouTube today.
Reece also possessed a rare talent in a race car. He was a six-time Indianapolis 500 starter, finishing in the top 10 three times.
Born in Oklahoma City, Okla., on Nov. 17, 1929, Reece grew up around the sport as his father raced for a time. Drivers were his heroes. He never wanted to do anything except drive a race car, and he got his start in a midget in Albuquerque during 1946. He lied about his age to race, finished third in the consolation and earned a whopping $3.80.
In 1947, the 17-year-old Reece, with his father’s permission, began racing midgets at Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City. Successful immediately, he moved quickly from cars with stock engines into the Offy-powered machines.
By 1950, he’d attracted the attention of fellow Oklahoman, car owner and wealthy industrialist Jack Zink. Zink not only put Reece in his potent midget but also purchased a stock car for the rising young talent.
Reece responded by winning the Texas State Midget Championship, and in 1951 the Taft Stadium Stock Car title. With nothing more than midget and stock car experience to his credit, Zink entered Reece in the 1952 Indy 500.
The team struggled with getting the car up to speed, but, with the pressure on, the kid put the ebony No. 37 Kurtis 4000 in the show on the last qualifying day and raced to a seventh-place finish.
After missing the 1953 500 in Bessie Paoli’s car, Reece raced six different cars on the Championship Trail. In pursuit of better opportunities, he spent the winter of 1953-’54 in California rooming with Don Freeland and Eddie Sachs, while working for Emmett Malloy’s construction company.
Malloy offered him a shot in his beautiful Wally Pankratz-built championship car, with which Reece performed well for two years, including Indianapolis. Then, typical of an era when driver assignments were in a constant state of flux, he switched teams.
Stellar qualifying runs at Indianapolis in 1956 and ’57, ninth and sixth quick, caught Zink’s attention, and Zink put Reece back in his car for the 1958 500.
Zink had won the 1955 and ’56 500s with mechanical guru A.J. Watson building the cars and turning the wrenches. Reece responded by grabbing the third spot in the front row, next to teammate Ed Elisian.
Ranked as a favorite for the win, Reece was a causality of the first-lap fiasco involving Elisian and Dick Rathmann. The hard-charging duo spun directly in front of him. He stomped the brakes, and Bob Veith hit him from behind spinning him into Pat O’Connor’s path. O’Connor climbed over Reece and flipped to his death.
Reece finished the 500 miles with an on-track time 35 seconds quicker than winner, Jimmy Bryan. However, a long stop for repairs after the crash relegated him to sixth place.
Constantly on the hunt for new talent, George Bignotti snatched Reece away from Zink for his Bowes Seal Fast team.
“It looked to me like he was going to be a hell of a winner,” Bignotti explained.
In their second race together, Reece put the No. 14 roadster on the pole for the Sept. 28, 1958, Trenton 100, and then diced with Johnny Thomson for second in the late stages of the race. Dead even as they stormed to the white flag, Reece dove under Thomson going into the first turn.
At that point, what happened remains uncertain. Don Freeland insisted that Reece’s throttle stuck. Regardless, the car never turned. It pounded the concrete, thrashed over the wall and twisted through the air for 150 feet. Reece was dead when help arrived.
This story appeared in the May 3, 2023 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
