Miles of Indy Memories : Picking five of the most incredible 500s as the 75th is about to air

For racing fans old enough to remember Bill Vukovich, Troy Ruttman, Sam Hanks and Rodger Ward, their first link to the Indianapolis 500 was probably Sid Collins’ authoritative voice describing “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network.

The network was born in 1952 with 27 stations on line informing listeners how Ruttman won in J. C. Agajanian’s No. 98. By the time closed-circuit television first showed the race in theaters in 1964, 1,100 radio stations were carrying Collins & Co.

“The plain fact is, whether you are 2,000 miles away or just a few yards from the track, until you see the race through the eyes of Sid Collins and hear him tell it like it is, you just ain’t in on the big 500,” Frederic Birmingham wrote in a 1972 issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

Surprisingly, the first telecast of the race was well before radio, when in 1949 WFBM-TV Indianapolis made its debut with the 500 carrying live more than four hours of air time; an estimated 3,000 sets tuned in. It would be another 37 years before the action was shown live again.

Even though the 500 was already the largest single-day sporting event in the world, the Speeday network, fearful that live TV might hurt attendance, permitted only tape-delayed showings. At first, it was delayed a week and shown on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.” Later it appeared on the evening of the race.

The first live network race was 1986--the year it was rained out Sunday and postponed until the following Saturday before Bobby Rahal could slip past Kevin Cogan three laps from the finish to take the checkered flag.

Today’s race will be the 75th in the historic series, which began in 1911 with Ray Harroun winning in a Marmon Wasp equipped with the world’s first rearview mirror.

In commemoration of the 75th, we’ve selected five memorable races of the past 74:

1912--Ralph DePalma, driving the big No. 4 Mercedes, was as dominating a force as the Speedway has ever seen as he pulled two laps ahead of the field by the halfway mark. By the time he reached 190 laps--with only 25 miles remaining--most of the crowd was heading for the exits. DePalma was five laps ahead.

Five laps remained when the Mercedes began to lay a stream of oil around the track. DePalma cut his speed from 80 to 60 and eventually to 40 as he hoped to coax it to the finish line despite a broken connecting rod. Joe Dawson, cruising along with second place in mind, was signaled by his crew to pick up the pace. By lap 198 he had cut DePalma’s lead to three laps and what was left of the crowd was on its feet.

The Mercedes, starved from lack of oil, rattled to a stop at the head of the home stretch. It refused to move another foot. DePalma and his Australian mechanic, Rupert Jeffkins, climbed down and surveyed their plight.

“I guess it’s time to start walking, and we might as well take the car with us,” DePalma said. The two began the long trek, Jeffkins pushing the rear and DePalma pushing and steering. They were still 600 yards from the finish when the checkered flag waved for Dawson and the National, but the cheers never stopped until the disappointed and exhausted losers reached the finish line.

Out on the track, Ralph Mulford kept driving his oversized Knox around in circles. When Howdy Wilcox finished in ninth place, Mulford had another 100 miles to go. Prize money went to the first 10 finishers, but it was stipulated they must finish the 500 miles.

Long after the last customer was gone, and Dawson was eating dinner at his mother’s house in Indianapolis, Mulford was still driving. He was out there 8 hours and 53 minutes, but he collected his $1,200.

1960--Rodger Ward and Jim Rathmann had finished only 23 seconds apart in 1959 in a pair of A.J. Watson-built roadsters, and the next year they were back in new model Watson cars.

Rathmann led by 14 seconds at the halfway mark, but for the next 250 miles the lead changed 16 times between them as first Ward and then Rathmann edged their car in front. On lap 147 both pitted for tires, the first time in history that two leaders had pitted at the same time.

Three laps from the end, Rathmann ran the fastest lap ever in traffic at Indy, 146.128 m.p.h. He had qualified, running alone, at 146.371. Ward, conscious that strips of white were beginning to show on his right front tire, eased off the pace and conceded the win to Rathmann, reversing the order of their 1959 finish.

They were three laps ahead of the third-place car.

1964--No one who watched the first race on closed-circuit TV will forget the enormous fireball of flame and smoke that filled the huge theater screens seconds after the start. Dave MacDonald, a rookie sports car driver in one of Mickey Thompson’s rear-engine machines, skidded out of control coming out of the fourth turn and his car exploded when it hit the inside retaining wall. Eddie Sachs, blinded by fire and smoke, smashed head-on into MacDonald. Sachs’ car had a fuel tank in the nose, and in the holocaust both died. The race was stopped for one hour, 45 minutes--the first time a race had ever been halted at Indy because of an accident.

When the 26 surviving cars resumed the race, it was anticlimactic. Another fire, which erupted from the fuel tank of Parnelli Jones’ car during a pit stop, knocked the leader and favorite out of the race. With Parnelli out, A.J. Foyt went on to win his second of four 500s.

1982--Once the race got going, it turned out to be the closest of all as Gordon Johncock, at 45 a graying veteran of 18 Indy 500s, finished .16 of a second ahead of Rick Mears, the pole-sitter.

Seconds before the race started, an accident knocked Mario Andretti, Johncock’s teammate, out of the race when he was hit by Kevin Cogan’s spinning car. The incident took place as the field approached the starting line for the green flag. Cogan was in the middle of the front row, but as he accelerated a part broke and Cogan’s car careened into Foyt (on the outside of the front row) and ricocheted across the track into the path of Andretti.

After an hour’s delay, the race began. Johncock seemed to have a win in hand when he led Mears by more than 11 seconds--about a half-mile--with 12 laps to go. When Mears caught the slowing Johncock with two laps remaining, it appeared certain he would take the lead, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. The two cars pounded down the final straightaway together at better than 200 m.p.h. and as they hit the finish line, Johncock had less than half a car length advantage--after 500 miles.

1989--For the final 100 miles, Al Unser Jr., a second-generation driver, and Emerson Fittipaldi, a two-time world champion from Brazil, battled wheel to wheel, exchanging the lead five times on 220 m.p.h. passes. Little Al was leading with less than two laps remaining when Fittipaldi challenged him in tight quarters in the third turn. Something had to give, and it was Unser’s Lola, which went sliding into the outside wall after the two cars touched tires.

When Fittipaldi came around on the final lap to take the checkered flag, Unser had climbed from his broken car and was standing at the side of the track, giving the winner a thumbs-up sign.

“It was a case of two drivers who wouldn’t lift going side-by-side for a spot where only one car would fit,” Unser said. “This is the Indianapolis 500, the most important race in the world, and neither one of us was going to back off with only a lap left.”

The third-place car was six laps back.

1991--Who will win and what will happen? As the late Tony Hulman, whose family owns the Speedway, once said, “That’s what we hold the race for, to find a winner.”

ABC’s coverage of the Indianapolis 500 begins Sunday at 8 a.m. The race begins at 9 a.m. Paul Page, Sam Posey, Bobby Unser, Jack Arute, Gary Gerould, Dr. Jerry Punch and Jack Whitaker report.