Near the end of the season, the AAA ran a 100-lap sprint car race at Dayton. Though Webb detested the longer sprint car races, he was always strong on the banks. He drove a Vance car to second behind Bill Mackey and ended the season fifth in points, behind champion Duane Carter, Mackey, Troy Ruttman, and Jimmy Daywalt.
While Webb had dodged many on-track threats to his well being, it was while working in a friend‘s die-casting shop during the off-season that he suffered an injury that would threaten his career. The accident seriously damaged his hand and almost entirely removed his thumb. The hand was rebuilt with skin grafts from his stomach and he was informed by his doctor that, once fully reattached, he would never regain much use of the thumb and that it would be permanently cast in one position. So, Spider requested the doctor angle it so that he could hold a can of beer.
The injury kept him out of racing for the entire 1951 season.
In 1952, Webb once again found himself as a last-minute replacement for qualifying at Indy. This time, he was approached by Lou Moore to pilot an unfamiliar machine for the Blue Crown team. After a dispute over being asked to sign a contract — Webb never signed contracts, and insisted that all agreements should be made with a handshake — he qualified at 132.660 mph, an impressive time that the team assumed would put them solidly in the field. However, as qualifying progressed and times continued to climb faster, they soon found themselves on the outside looking in.
Spider suddenly found himself reuniting with the Brommes. The Brommes had failed to make the show in 1950, and Roger Ward had driven for them in the ‘51 running but had left the team for a better ride. Once again, Webb put the Brommes‘ Offy in the field. Once again, his day ended early, this time with an oil leak striking on lap 163. He was credited with a 22nd-place finish.
In 1953, Webb yet again put a car into the field at Indy — this time, the Lubri-Loy Special — and again failed to finish the race. That year‘s running was plagued by insufferable heat, with track temperatures topping 130-degrees, taking a toll on the entire field. Later dubbed “The Hottest 500,” 10 teams, including four of the top-10 finishers, called on relief drivers. The now 41-year-old Webb ran 111 laps before he could go no further.
Spider pulled in and climbed from the car as Johnny Thomson scrambled behind the wheel. Thomson was only able to complete 45 laps before he, too, pulled in and was relieved by Jackie Holmes, who dropped out 10 laps later with a broken oil line. Nonetheless, the run marked Webb‘s highest finish at Indy, credited with 19th-place.
Aside from the 500, Webb raced very little during that ‘53 season and shortly after Indy headed south, to Florida, to find work. The racing career was beginning to fade to an end, and it was time to begin thinking about a life after racing.
Unlike previous years, when May of 1954 rolled around Spider Webb was nowhere to be found in Gasoline Alley. But that would not prevent the Brommes from hunting him down — this time by telephone. Once again, the Brommes were unable to find a driver who could get their car up to speed and they needed Spider to weave his magic.
Webb sternly declined the offer. That is, until the Brommes added a $2,000 bonus if he could get the car into the field. Somewhat reluctantly, Webb drove to Indiana and, once again, put a car on the grid at Indy in a last-minute attempt, with less than 30 minutes remaining in qualifying. On race day, yet again, Webb was forced to drop out with mechanical troubles, unable to complete 500 miles.
The racing addiction is difficult for most racers to quit and, like a fly drawn to honey, Webb headed back to Indy in 1955. He ultimately accepted an opportunity to climb into Ed Walsh‘s roadster. Walsh‘s driver, Mike Nazaruk, had just been killed at Langhorne.
Webb was waved off twice by his crew on qualifying attempts that saw him running 138 mph, as Walsh feared that speed wouldn‘t be good enough to make the show. It turns out it would have been. Walsh‘s roadster didn‘t make the field, and neither did Spider Webb.
This time Webb was done racing for good. He moved to Norwalk, California and, with money he‘d had the good sense to put away from his race winnings, purchased some earth moving equipment in order to start a business before taking on some large construction projects including the Los Angeles Zoo. Webb retired to McMinnville, Oregon, where he passed away on January 27, 1990 at age 79.
In 1997, he was posthumously inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.
Travis Webb was a rare breed of rapscallion, amongst an already rare breed of superhumans that, almost casually, risked life and limb each outing during a frightfully dangerous era of open-wheel racing. He lived life to its fullest and somehow came out the other side. And, at least in part because of a car owner who dubbed him “Spider,” we still remember him today, 50 years after his passing.