The Curse of the Indy 500

1958's Tragic Legacy

Stan Sutton

• Publisher: Red Lightning Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781684350186
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

"[A] rich history built around the 1958 tragedy that claimed one of the Indy 500's most beloved drivers... evokes a unique and unforgettable era." —Dan Carpenter, freelance writer, former Indianapolis Star columnist On May 30, 1958, thousands of racing fans poured into the infield at dawn to claim the best seats of the Indianapolis 500, unaware that they were going to witness one of the most notorious wrecks in racing history. Seconds after the green flag, a game of chicken spiraled out of control into a fiery 16-car pile-up that claimed the life of 29-year-old Indiana native and rising star Pat O'Connor. The other drivers escaped death, but the tragic 1958 Indy 500 seemed to leave its mark on them: the surviving drivers were hounded by accidents and terrible crashes, and most would die at tracks around the country. But the tragedy also prompted new regulations and safety precautions like roll bars that would ultimately save hundreds of lives. In The Curse of Indy 500: 1958's Tragic Legacy, veteran sportswriter Stan Sutton profiles the ill-fated race and the careers of the drivers involved, highlighting their lives in the dangerous world of auto racing. "In all, the book offers an exciting story of the 1958 Indy 500 and a thought-provoking discussion of its aftermath." — Daily Journal "A meticulous contextual account of events leading into what possibly triggered the starting tension, what follows in the wake of the fiery first-lap death of Pat O'Conner, and what other Indy 500 tragedies have failed to get the notice generated on and following May 30, 1958." — NUVO

1

A Convoluted Account of the Crash

IN THE SPRING OF 1958 THE INDIANAPOLIS 500 COULD ARGUABLY CLAIM to be one of America’s top five sporting events. In the same category were the World Series, the Kentucky Derby, the next heavyweight championship fight, and probably the Rose Bowl. The Final Four basketball tournament carried less impact then, and the Super Bowl wasn’t even on the horizon.

The 500, the longest and most unique race until stock cars copied the format in the ’50s, prospered because of America’s growing fascination with the automobile. Fans that went to races in Model T’s were obsessed with speed and noise, not to mention danger. Critics of the sport, and there were many, often accused followers of attending races only to see accidents, and perhaps even fatalities. Despite 11 deaths in the first 10 years of racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, crowds continued to come.

Even two world wars failed to stymie the interest, although the 500 was abandoned from 1942 to 1945, and the Speedway was overgrown with weeds. When the race resumed it was popularized by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network. While obviously primitive, the IMS Network drew vast numbers of listeners who appeared to be mesmerized by the sound of racing engines.

There were few options available to the announcers except to occasionally give the standings, conduct a few interviews, and keep the microphones open to the sound of racing engines.

Much of the time was filled by announcers’ remarks such as, “That was Ted Horn,” or, “That sound was Rex Mays moving into the lead.”

On May 30, 1958, thousands of cars rolled into the infield at dawn, maneuvering for a prime spot where they could see race cars go past. In those days fans were allowed to construct scaffolding alongside their cars from which to better watch the race.

As the eleven o’clock start approached, tension mounted as in no other sport. Thirty-three cars lined three abreast suddenly lurching up to speed seemed to carry the risk of military battles.

One of the first-time announcers at the 1958 race was Lou Palmer, an Indianapolis radio personality hired to announce happenings in the third corner of the 2.5-mile track. The chief announcer was the golden-voiced Sid Collins, who was supported by five subordinates around the track. When an accident occurred, it was up to this crew to describe the incident.

Being a rookie, Palmer was assigned to the third turn, where the chances of a first-lap crash were considered less likely than in the first two corners. Although drivers are warned not to try to win the race in the first turn there was more concern than usual that pole-sitter Dick Rathmann and second-fastest qualifier, Ed Elisian, might take undue chances.

Palmer, who had lived in Indiana only five years, settled into his spot outside the third-turn wall. He couldn’t know how quickly bad things were to happen. Rathmann and Elisian began their duel with Rathmann jumping in front, but as the two front-runners approached the third corner Elisian pulled in front.

However, according to numerous onlookers, he failed to adequately slow for the turn and began a spin that collected Rathmann and put them both into the outside wall.

Several hundred yards into the infield a fan atop one of the scaffolds shouted to fans below, “There are cars spinning all over the third turn.”

Palmer, undoubtedly overwhelmed by the scene in front of him, began a convoluted description to his radio audience:

“And we’ve had an accident here! Car No. 5, the Zink Special [Elisian], is the first to wreck.

“Another over the wall [Jerry Unser]! And we’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six cars piled up here on the northeast turn! The 54 Novi [Bill Cheesbourg] into the infield … Car No. 19 [Johnnie Tolen] in the infield … 68 [Len Sutton] now down into the infield and it’s almost impossible to identify the others.

“Out of car No. 5, now, is Ed Elisian and, er, car 91 [probably 97, Rathmann] against the wall. That is all we can see at the moment.

“Further down the track there are still others. One car has left this track, Sid, and did go over the retaining wall. That’s all of the information we can give you at the moment. We will check each car for you and will report on all of them as soon as we can.”¹

What Palmer didn’t describe, but almost certainly saw, was the burning blue No. 4 car of popular Pat O’Connor. The crash of Elisian and Rathmann happened in front of Jimmy Reece, the third first-row starter. O’Connor, whose car started in the middle of the second row, had no place to go, and his car ran up on Reece’s, rolling over in the air and landing upside down with a loud clang before stopping on its wheels. The 29-year-old O’Connor was trapped, although probably already dead, in a burning car.

Of the 15 cars involved, eight couldn’t return to the race. Others continued with damaged vehicles, and only 13 completed the entire two hundred laps.

Jimmy Bryan, whose racing success peaked on dirt tracks, won his lone Indianapolis 500, but his biggest moment was spoiled by the day’s tragedy.

2

A Race-Day Shootout

UNTIL 1957 THE RACE STARTED WITH CARS LINED UP ON THE MAIN straightaway in 11 rows of three abreast. But in accordance with remodeling of the Speedway this was changed in 1957 and 1958, and in each instance things did not go as intended.

The primary improvement in ’57 was the construction of a new control tower at the start-finish line that replaced the outdated 30-year-old pagoda. Also, the pit lane was separated from the main straightaway by a concrete wall and grass strip that would help protect crewmen in the pits.

Race officials decided to line up the 33 cars in the pits and start them off in a single line. During the pace lap the cars would assemble in the 11-row formation. Previously, a single pace lap had preceded the flying start, but in 1957 officials added another warm-up lap, and that resulted in confusion in each of the two starts.

Elmer George, who was married to track owner Tony Hulman’s daughter, Mari, ran into the back of Eddie Russo’s car as the cars shuffled for a starting position, and both drivers were out of the race before it started.

George was a rookie at the Speedway in 1957 and was scheduled to start from the outside of the third row. He didn’t make the race again until 1962, when he started 17th and went out after engine problems surfaced on the 146th lap. His only other 500 was in 1963, when he started in the 10th row and went out after 21 laps, finishing 30th.

George raced champ cars throughout the 1950s and won one race. In a 1962 race in Phoenix, his car broke through a chain-link fence and injured 22 spectators.¹

Elmer and Mari had three daughters and one son, Tony George, former CEO of the Speedway and founder of the Indy Racing League.

Mari filed for divorce from Elmer on May 3, 1976, and on race day that month George went to Terre Haute, Indiana, and confronted Guy Trolinger, an alleged friend of Mari’s. Early the next day George died of multiple gunshot wounds. Trolinger was cleared by a grand jury, which ruled the shooting was in self-defense.²

3

May Was Busting Out All Over

IN 1958 DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER WAS PRESIDENT AND ELVIS PRESLEY was king. A postage stamp cost three cents, and schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, had been ordered to integrate. Life expectancy was a fraction short of 70 years.

The flattop haircut was still popular, and saddle oxfords were the shoe of choice for many teenagers. Kentucky had won its fifth NCAA championship, and the Yankees won the World Series in seven games. LSU, led by Billy Cannon, had been crowned as the best in college football.

A couple of hours south of Indianapolis the horse racing world was gaga over Silky Sullivan, a colt famous for coming from far behind to win races. Silky once won from 41 lengths off the pace, but in the Kentucky Derby he came in 12th out of 14 horses as Tim Tam triumphed.

In Indianapolis there were no Colts or Pacers, and only the minor league Indianapolis Indians provided professional sports. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a best-selling book, and Vertigo and South Pacific were popular movies. Indianapolis newspapers couldn’t write enough about Connie Nicholas’s shooting of her wealthy lover, Forrest Teel.

Within days of the Indianapolis 500 Charles de Gaulle was brought out of retirement to rule France, and the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was launched in the Great Lakes. In May large numbers of fans flocked to the track to celebrate the rite of spring and racing, a perfect marriage in Indiana.

Time trials traditionally drew the second largest crowd in sports, yielding only to race-day attendance. The Speedway never announced the size of its crowds, which probably caused the estimates to be inflated to as much as three hundred thousand on pole day.

Time trials stretched over two weekends, and in the 1950s the track’s one- and four-lap qualifying records could be broken multiple times. The first-day crowd had come to see a battle for the pole that had been developing throughout the opening week of practice. It would be a duel between Ed Elisian and Dick Rathmann.

Tensions built during the week before the pole winner was determined. There was the normal speculation about what speed would be needed to win the pole and about what it would take to make the 33-car field. Each year there were fans who thought cars were going as fast as they could go at the 47-year-old Speedway.

Bill Marvel, a longtime official with the US Auto Club (USAC), vividly recalled the week before pole day.

“That thing that happened at the Speedway started that month. I remember it just as well as I can see the sun shining” Marvel recalled. “Ed Elisian and Dick Rathmann, every evening they would go out and go fast. The other guy would go out and try to go faster, it was that way all month. The two of them, every evening. And that’s what led to that first lap, to that thing on the first lap of the race.”

Marvel, who began part-time work at the track in 1953, said everyone could sense a potential problem.

“Of course,” he said. “Jimmy Reece was caught up in front of them later that year and we lost him at Trenton. I used to run around with Jimmy, and he was like a brother whenever he’d come to the Speedway. You could see that something was going to happen. One of those guys was going to lead the first lap and that’s what it amounted to. It was so obvious.”¹

Pat O’Connor made his first appearance on the third day the track was open and turned a practice lap of 143.946 mph. The four-lap track record was 145.596, set in 1956 by Pat Flaherty.

“I don’t believe there’s a ceiling on speed here,” O’Connor said. “We should be doing 150 mph laps in a couple more years.”²

Pat was driving for the second straight year in the Sumar Special, the same vehicle in which he won the pole in 1957. He had put the yellow Ansted-Rotary Special on the outside of the front row in 1956.

O’Connor noted that the Sumar car had received an overhaul from mechanic Ray Nichols before the race. “It’s had a $5,000 tune-up and that’s hardly the kind you’d get at your neighborhood gas station,” O’Connor said.

The Sumar Special that O’Connor drove in 1958 was easily identified. Royal blue except for a wide white stripe down the middle, O’Connor’s race car had multiple exhaust pipes extending from the engine. Chapman Root of Terre Haute was the principal owner.

Three years earlier Root had brought a car to the Speedway with a revolutionary new look. Driven by Jimmy Daywalt, the car appeared much like a sports car, with fenders front and back. However, it wouldn’t get up to qualifying speed until the fenders were removed, giving the car an unfinished appearance. Nevertheless, Daywalt qualified it in the sixth row and finished ninth in the race.

Root and co-owner Don Smith used their wives’ first names in labeling the car “Sumar” (Sue and Mary).

Although high wind...