The Official Blog of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

1983 Steve Chassey

He drove a car called the Genesee Beer Wagon. He drove for a rookie woman car owner. He is one of two Vietnam War veterans to make a “500” field. He sold insurance to teams for on-track crash damage.

Steve Chassey made his mark at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with three starts in the hallowed Indianapolis 500 and has stayed involved in different ways through the years.

He had a best finish of 11th in 1983, but he took a lot of different cars to the line, innovations, like the two-tone blue Jet Engineering Eagle, one of arguably the prettiest race cars ever to run on the 2 ½-mile oval.

“I was pretty proud of that,” he said of his ’83 finish. “In ’83, we finished the race with a stock block (engine).”

That was the Genesee Beer Wagon, fielded by Dick Hammond.

The whole experience at the Speedway is something Chassey treasures.

“Growing up in open-wheel  racing, that was the pinnacle of racing,” Chassey said of the Indianapolis 500. “In our careers, it’s what we all looked for. I love the Speedway. They treat me nice.”

Chassey built stock cars, then went into the service. He was scheduled to go to Vietnam as a communications specialist, but that changed and he became part of a howitzer battalion as a sergeant E-5. Pete Halsmer is the only other Vietnam War veteran to make the show at Indy. He was a helicopter pilot.

When Chassey returned to the United States from the war, he started racing sprinters, on his way toward the Midwest and Indy. In 1981, he drove for female car owner Lydia Loughery, but they failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

Chassey started the “500” in 1983, 1987 and 1988. After he retired as a driver, he went into the racing insurance business for on-track physical damage. Generally, at that time in the late 1980s, teams figured about a crash and a half per season in their budgets.

“At one time, we had 16 to 18 cars insured,” Chassey said. “There’s not one of the teams now that I know of that is insured for on-track crash damage now. They look at the premium and say, ‘I can buy a whole car for that.’ But what if you knock off the same corner four or five times during the season?”

Chassey moved from Indianapolis to Glendale, Ariz., in October. He was elected a year ago to serve on the Board of Directors of the Indianapolis 500 Oldtimers organization.

He would get back into insurance if he found a company that wanted to get involved in motorsports. And he’ll certainly be at the Speedway this month.

Billy Boat 1998

Billy Boat went through some trials and tribulations before he grabbed the pole position for the 1998 Indianapolis 500.

“We crashed in practice right before qualifying,” Boat said. “I knew we had the speed, but we had some other issues. I knew we had an awesome race car.”

The pole came when the legendary A.J. Foyt gave Phoenix native Boat his shot at Indianapolis.

But mechanical problems in the race kept Boat from Victory Lane that year. But the pole was quite an achievement, and kitchen magnets featuring his picture appeared the next year.

“Any time you can see the leader with 25 laps to go, you’ll have a shot to win it,” Boat said. “We had the best car in ’98.”

In 1999, Boat finished third, his best in seven starts at Indy.

“The third behind Kenny (Brack) was a great accomplishment,” Boat said. “In the heat of the moment, you always want to win.”

Boat joined IndyCar at a time when opportunities opened up for sprint and midget drivers around the country.

“That was always my goal,” he said. “I was at the right place at the right time. I was happy to be there. I did my own team with Cary Agajanian and Mike Curb in 2001 and 2002. But for 2003, the budget was going to go from $1.8 million to $3 million, so we just couldn’t do it.”

Boat was operating an automotive exhaust business in Phoenix before he came to the Speedway.

“I started Billy Boat Performance Exhaust in 1990,” he said. “Since then, I’ve taken a more active role in the company. We work on Corvettes, Camaros and BMWs, high-end performance cars.

“My son Chad was only 8 or 9 when I was racing Indy cars, and I’ve taken an active role in his racing. Now he’s living in North Carolina. He’s going to be 21, and he’s been running some NASCAR and ARCA. He hopes to be in the Nationwide Series next year.

“My brother Mike is still here doing sales for us. My daughter Trisha works in the social media department for Chip Ganassi in Charlotte. My other two daughters, Emily, 17, and Brooke, 18, are into cheerleading, and Brooke goes to Arizona State next year.”

Boat said his IndyCar Series victories at Texas were rewarding, and he was in Victory Lane with Foyt in ’97 when a scoring question arose and Arie Luyendyk came to Victory Lane with his team to protest. A.J. promptly shoved Luyendyk into a flower bed. Through a long audit, Luyendyk was declared the winner.

But Boat confirmed something that has floated around the paddock for a long time: A.J. still has the trophy.

Gary Bettenhausen 1980

It was a family affair that lasted for several decades, and the Bettenhausen clan became legendary at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It was also a sport that wasn’t kind to them. The family patriarch, Melvin “Tony” Bettenhausen, died in a practice accident in 1961 at Indianapolis.

Gary Bettenhausen followed in his father Tony’s footsteps to Indy and made 21 starts in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” His favorite race wasn’t 1972, when he led 138 of the 200 laps and fell victim late to mechanical bugaboos.

It was 1980.

“Probably more so,” said Bettenhausen, 71, from his Martinsville, Ind., home. “We took a 5-year-old car, started in the last row and finished third. We changed two tires the whole race, had no radios, so we used hand signals. It was an old Patrick car that Wally Dallenbach had driven.

“Sherman Armstrong already had four cars, and we really didn’t have any time in it. We changed the fuel injection and other things for Race Day, and it ran like a rocket.”

That was his best finish at the Speedway.

Bettenhausen was handicapped by a left-arm injury from an accident on the dirt mile at Syracuse, N.Y., but it didn’t stop him.

“A whole half of my career was with one arm, and I won the dirt title twice,” he said. “My first race back was a 100-lapper indoors at Fort Wayne, and I won it. I got smoother, and that helped me. The first couple years, I couldn’t drive it down the straightaway. As the years went on, it got stronger. For a while, I actually used Velcro on my glove to hold my hand on the wheel. I learned how to compensate.”

In 1992, the paddock was buzzing before the month of May even started. Bettenhausen was hooked up with Nelson Piquet as his teammate. Everybody wondered what stories would come out of the matchup of the sophisticated former Formula One road-racing champion paired with the master of the American dirt oval.

It was surprising. There weren’t any stories.

“It was quite an experience,” Bettenhausen said. “It took about five minutes to decide we liked each other. He’s a fun guy to be around. He called on my birthday or around Christmas two years ago out of the blue. His son is running NASCAR’s Nationwide series, and I watch him all the time.”

Gary B said he doesn’t miss racing in Indy cars.

“Nope,” Gary said, “not the way it is today with all the computers. Half the fun was getting a car set up.”

His brother Merle, who also raced, retired last year as marketing manager for auto dealer Ray Skillman. Sadly, his youngest brother, Tony Jr., was killed in a plane crash in 2000.

Gary’s twin sons, Cary and Todd, started a health-care business and patented an innovative tray that allows surgeons to have tools in exactly the right places when they come out of a sterilizer.

Sadly for his legions of fans, Gary said he doesn’t come by the Speedway anymore.

“It’s too hard on my legs and back because I’m not walking very well,” Gary said.

But the fans never will forget the popular Gary B.

Jack Hewitt 1998

USAC short-track legend Jack Hewitt was excited when he got to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, excited while he was there in 1998 and is still excited now that he has participated in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

When he reached the Speedway in 1998, he was more than moderately on top of the world.

“I only grew up 100 miles from there,” he said. “When you set goals in life … I wanted to drive sprint cars, wanted to race in Australia, which I did for 11 winters, and wanted to run the Indianapolis 500. That was my final goal. The first time I drove around the Speedway, I was thinking, ‘I have to be blessed.’”

Hewitt, from Troy, Ohio, was the “purest” of race drivers. He would drive anything, anywhere, all the time.

“I probably ran 150 features one year,” Hewitt said. “That’s the most I’ve ever done in a year. If I could’ve squeezed in a couple more, I probably would have.”

Two-time USAC Silver Crown National Champion Hewitt, now 61, drove the PDM Racing car in 1998 at Indianapolis as a 46-year-old rookie. He got a lot of help.

“I think I was in with a good bunch of guys,” Hewitt said. “Al Unser, Gary Bettenhausen … a lot of my heroes were there to help me. Johnny Rutherford took me around and told me it was a lot like Winchester. After he told me that, we picked up speed. Paul Diatlovich (owner of PDM) was showing me on the computer what I was doing and I was able to understand it better after JR talked to me.”

The first “500” Hewitt remembers was in 1963, when he walked past his father, who was listening to it on the radio. Parnelli Jones won that year and carried No. 98. Hewitt and PDM carried No. 98 at the Speedway in 1998.

Hewitt’s Indianapolis 500 career started ominously. He crashed on the first day, and the PDM crew rebuilt the damaged machine. He was back on track Wednesday.

“You never give up from your dream,” he said. “I got to hang out with Florence Henderson and Jim Nabors. I was so paranoid about pit stops because I didn’t want to kill the motor. If you’re a race driver, I don’t think it makes a lot of difference what you drive. It’s just another style of racing. In my whole career in sprint cars, I was smooth and patient.

“It was a dream come true. You have goals, and racing in the Indianapolis 500 was one of them. It’s just amazing how many get to do it. I got to be a part of it, and I got to race there. Basketball, baseball … a lot of people didn’t reach their goals. I’ve led a fantastic life.”

On Race Day, many of Hewitt’s fans from short tracks around the Midwest were on hand. Hanging signs from the grandstands is discouraged at IMS because they block the view of other ticket holders, but that didn’t stop Hewitt’s Heroes from hanging a huge bedsheet from the railing of the upper deck at the end of the front straightaway that sported the words, “Do It Hewitt,” a phrase frequently heard over the public address at American short tracks.

Hewitt became the oldest rookie starter in Indianapolis 500 history, a record surpassed only last year by Jean Alesi, 47. Hewitt started 22nd and finished a respectable 12th in the Parker Machinery entry, completing 195 laps.

“It was such a Hollywood script,” Hewitt said. “I ran all day.”

The year 1998 was a big one for Hewitt in another way as well. In the 4-Crown Nationals at Eldora, he won the midget, sprint Silver Crown and modified features.

“It was the most unbelievable achievement in the history of motorsports,” said USAC executive Dick Jordan. “Absolutely incredible. In four different cars … he even wore four different helmets.”

Hewitt suffered a neck injury in 1993, and a second injury in 2002 caused him to retire.

“I’ll be 62 in July,” he said. “I’ve had a wonderful career. I’ve been blessed. I’d still be racing to this day if I hadn’t gotten hurt.”

He developed a two-seat sprint car that he takes to various races so customers and VIPs can experience the thrill of short-track thunder.

“I’ve got a 5-year-old grandson and my son, Cody, who’s 29, ran a sprint car all last year and for having one arm, he did really fine.”

Buzz Calkins and crew.

Buzz Calkins will always be in the record books.

He won the Indy Racing League’s first race in 1996 at Walt Disney World when he held off Tony Stewart. It was the first IndyCar race for both, and there aren’t that many drivers out there who can say they beat “Smoke” in a competitive scenario on a racetrack.

“It was one of those days when everything was pretty much good all day.” Calkins said. “My engine was overheating, but we overcame that.”

Calkins always looked toward the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he made six starts, led four laps and had a best finish of 10th in 1998 for his family-owned Bradley Motorsports team.

“When I went there for the first time in 1987, when I walked into the place, I knew it was something I wanted to do,” Calkins said. “My dad bought me a go-kart when I was 14 years old, it started going well, and the rest is history. When I started out, it was my ambition to race in the Indianapolis 500.”

Calkins was always popular with the fans and those in the paddock.

At Indy for his first race there in 1996, he was talking to an INDYCAR official just outside the garage area, and the official suggested he go out to pit road and sign a few autographs.

“That’s where I’ve been for the last two hours,” he said with a smile.

After the duel with Stewart at Walt Disney World, Calkins asked public relations rep Jim Dinsmore if he and Tony had anything in common, that he’d like to get to know him better. Dinsmore knew both played pool, and the result was a charity 8-ball game at a casino in Las Vegas.

“That’s the thing I liked the most was the people,” Calkins said. “You guys, officials, mechanics, drivers. That’s something I’ll always look back on. I miss the people as much as anything.”

Calkins, from Denver, shared the first Indy Racing League season title with Scott Sharp. But he treasures the experience at Indy.

“I don’t think anything compares to it,” he said. “I don’t think anything compares to the first five laps and all the people who come out for it. I don’t think you can prepare yourself for it. It’s hectic, and I can’t think of too many things in life that can top it.”

He’s “retired” now although he said he runs a charity race every once in a while. Instead, Calkins  has gone from the track to the boardroom and family life.

“I got married and have three girls,” he said. “Bradley is 8, Marin is 6, and Harper is 3.” Two years ago, he was named president of Bradley Petroleum, a 100-year-old family-owned company.

“I won’t wear ties, but I wear a lot of different hats,” Calkins said. “When there’s a need someplace, I’m in it. I’m pretty much running the gas business, and we just signed a deal to build 12 Dunkin’ Donuts facilities in the next five years. That and real estate. It’s challenging and interesting.

“Between family and work, I don’t have time for anything else. I try to come back every year for the race. I’ve thought about (being a car owner), but with time constraints and I’d want to do it right.

“Maybe (in the future) I’ll have more time.”

It was a long journey in a short time.

Coming off the fourth turn in the Silver Crown race in the 1997 Copper World Classic, veteran Chuck Gurney had the lead. But unknown Jimmy Kite jumped under him and beat him to the line for the prestigious victory.

After he got out of his car, Kite came running down the frontstretch at Phoenix International Raceway to the delight of the crowd because he was looking for Victory Lane – and didn’t know where it was.

“Before that race, no one knew about that 20-year-old kid,” Kite said, “but afterward, everyone knew.”

Six months later, he was in an Indy car at Pikes Peak. And in May 1998, he came to the Speedway in search of his first “500” berth. But it didn’t start out well.

“It was the first year they condensed the schedule,” Kite said. “We tried to get as much running as we could. I crashed three times that week, the last on Pole Day. So I had to watch my crew rebuild the race car again and it was my first Indianapolis 500, and I wanted to make a good showing.”

Even after the crashes that first year, Kite finished 11th and made four more starts in the prestigious race. He was hooked up with PDM Racing for a time, but bad luck struck again.

On Bump Day in 2002, Kite and the PDM machine were fast enough. But they got caught at the head of the line when rain came and didn’t get a chance to qualify. For three hours, pictures and video were being shot of Kite, umbrella over his head, sitting down against the right front tire of his parked race car.

His last start at Indy came in 2005. He failed to qualify in 2007 with PDM.

But Kite still has no regrets and still aspires to compete in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,”

“I’ve got five (starts) and always will,” Kite said. “I told Davey Hamilton, who was 47 at the time, I wanted to run again and I was 37, so I figured I had 10 years left. It’s not like I’m not staying in shape. If you can get around Winchester in 13 seconds, you’re ready to step in an Indy car.”

Racing the Indy 500 was one of his goals as a youngster growing up in the Midwest.

“Every year, my dad would take me to qualifying day,” Kite said. “Then he got some suite passes for Race Day. I told him, ‘No, I’ll go to the Indianapolis 500 when I’m driving in it.’

“My first impression, it was a clear day, and I came off Turn 4 thinking ‘Man, that’s a long straightaway.’ I still get excited thinking about Turn 1. You go into Turn 1, it’s a handful.”

As a rookie in 1998, he was the target of the usual pranks.

He walked into a restaurant one night and saw a bunch of people. He stopped to talk, and one of them said: “Hey, you have to go talk to those two people at the end of the table. They have a ride for you.” So Kite hurried down and approached the people. Everyone started laughing.

The two people were Dr. Richard Burmeister and Starre Szelag of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Kite has kept very busy, running with ARCA and NASCAR’s truck series on occasion as well as the USAC Silver Crown and Sprint cars. The sprinters will be his May concentration with the Little 500 at Anderson and Winchester on the schedule.

But Indy is the place for Kite, now 37.

“I’ve been the last couple years, and I’ll definitely be there this year,” he said.

They called him “The Gas Man.”

It was a good name for Tom Sneva, because it encompassed all the drama, milestones, speed, humor … and a win in the 1983 Indianapolis 500.

He was the first to crack the 200-mph barrier at Indy with a lap of 200.535 in 1977. There was a time when he went slower.

He was an assistant football and basketball coach in Sprague, Wash., and was scheduled to be the baseball coach. But not enough kids turned out for practice, they’d already paid him to be a baseball coach so they made him assistant tennis coach. Since Sprague did not have a tennis facility, Sneva was assigned to drive the bus to another town each night for practice. It was good practice for him.

Along with that, Sneva competed on the rugged Canadian-American Modified Racing Association circuit before coming to the Brickyard.

In ’77, it was a harrowing route to the 200-mph lap for Sneva.

“We were going to go as fast as we could and we had a pretty good car, so we just ran two corners at a time so we didn’t show what we had,” Sneva said recently. “(Mario) Andretti was my (Penske) teammate, and he and some other guys were running 199s, and I was running 197.

“They put Mario’s setup on my car. But on Friday, the day before qualifying, I hit the wall. They worked long hours to put it back together, and they put my setup back on it.

“I was the ‘B’ driver, and we got her done. I couldn’t tell how fast I ran, but I knew it was a good lap because I used a little more throttle. Back then, you couldn’t run flat out all the way around.

“I can’t believe those early guys trying to run 100 miles an hour with skinny tires on bricks. Those were real men. Now they have less than half the horsepower we had in ’77 and a whole lot more technology. It was easier to run 226 in ’92 than it was 200 in ’77.”

In 1983, Victory Lane awaited Sneva, but it wasn’t easy. He was chasing Al Unser with rookie Al Unser Jr. in between them.

“We had a yellow late in the race, and Al got himself between me and his dad,” Sneva said. “As the fuel load went down, my car was faster, and theirs were slower. Mentally, it was tough to keep the patience until the right time.”

But he did and took his place on the Borg-Warner Trophy.

Sneva used every trick possible to try to gain an advantage on rivals at the Speedway. Teams started to cover their wings when their cars weren’t running, keeping wing angles secret, because Sneva walked up and down the pit road looking at the setups on other cars.

“You could get the ride height by slipping your foot under the front of the car,” Sneva said. “One day at the Speedway, there were some gals standing around the garage, and I gave one a tape measure and told her to go measure the side of (Johnny) Rutherford’s car. She went over there, and Steve Roby, the team manager, went nuts. Our whole team was laughing at ‘em.”

In 1980, Sneva’s experience as a bus driver became important. In Mexico City, there were buses to take drivers, mechanics, officials and the like back to the hotels in the city’s Zona Rosa from the track. A bus was loaded, and the driver wasn’t to be found.

So Wally Dallenbach slipped the brake, and Sneva saddled up the bus and drove the group back to the hotel.

“I called the bus company and told them where their bus was double-parked,” Sneva said.

The next week at Phoenix, Sneva was “served” with a “warrant” by a Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputy to appear in court in Mexico City regarding a stolen bus, causing laughter up and down the pit road.

Today, he isn’t really taking it easy at his Paradise Valley, Ariz., home.

“I’m racing quarter-midgets with my grandson,” he said. “I found out that being a mechanic is harder than being a driver.”

He also got involved in golf years ago, being a builder of The “500” Club links in Phoenix.

That led him to another project, building a golf cart, not just a routine golf cart.

“It’s got a 750 Yamaha, five-speed on nitrous in it,” Sneva said. “If I was going to be in the golf business, I figured I ought to have the world’s fastest golf cart.”

He returns for race weekend in May every year.

“I like to see the old timers and meet the new guys,” he said.

He started out as a fan and went on to order some tools through a catalog and bought a Formula Ford. There was unused space at the plant of the family company, Chelsea Milling in Chelsea, Mich., where he worked on it.

Thus started the career of Howdy Holmes. He went on to win a Formula Atlantic championship and make six distinguished starts in the Indianapolis 500.

He came on the Indy scene as a rookie in 1979.

“I was the only rookie to make the race,” Holmes said. “There were 14 who tried. The Indy 500 was always serious to me. But my career path was Formula One. There was considerable discussion about putting together an all-American team in Formula One. I went to The (Watkins) Glen in ’79, and everybody asked what I was doing. I didn’t know enough not to say anything and that went away.”

Holmes was a model of consistency at Indianapolis. In his six starts, his best finish was sixth in 1983 and his worst was 13^th in 1984. He finished in the top 10 four times.

In 1984, Holmes joined Team McLaren and went to the front of the pack.

“Tom Sneva and myself were with Teddy Mayer and Tyler Alexander, and we started fast, Holmes said. “I was second at Phoenix and tangled with (Bobby) Rahal at Long Beach. But we figured out those March cars better than everyone else early.”

The result was Sneva on the pole at Indianapolis, with Holmes alongside on the front row with a four-lap average of 207.970 mph. But problems struck early.

“At the start of the race, maybe the second or third lap, we had some sort of electrical problem, and the guys changed the black box and checked some other things,” Holmes said. “So I was out of contention.”

Holmes was skilled at all the varied circuits of Indy car racing in the 1980s. But he said oval racing was harder.

“Because the concentration is so much more.” Holmes said. “You’re on a road course, you have depth perception, changes, right and left turns, and you can make up for mistakes. On an oval, you lose momentum, your lap time is gone. You miss a corner on an oval, you’re into the wall.”

The diminutive Holmes also figured he had an advantage over some of his larger-framed competitors.

“Being short is an advantage,” he said. “It doesn’t take as much time for impulses to run from my brain to my foot.”

Today, Holmes is president and CEO of Chelsea Milling, which manufactures Jiffy Mixes, which grocery shoppers see most everywhere. He and his wife, Carole, have a son who also goes by Howdy and is handling marketing and communication for a Pirelli World Challenge team.

The elder Howdy returns to the Speedway each year.

“I come down to the first qualifying weekend and talk to all the mechanics and yellow shirts,” Holmes said. “For the race, I bring some employees down, we sit in Turn 1, and I’m kind of a host.

“Each year, I begin to realize what a big deal it really was to compete in that race.”

The Novi engine in 1964

Throughout its 100-year history, there have been many great cars that have competed in the Indianapolis 500 – cars that ranged from cutting-edge innovation to legendary performance. But it’s likely the most popular car in Indianapolis 500 history is one that never won the race – the Novi.

Ask any longtime fan that has come to the Indianapolis Motor Speedways in the last 60 years, and they will never forget the Novi. That’s because it was so loud it would leave the spectators ears ringing long after the race had concluded.

“It was a one of a kind car – it had a sound to it that never ended,” said famed Novi car owner Andy Granatelli. “The Novi had such a sound to it that whether there were 32 other cars in the race you could hear it above all the other cars. When the other cars were on the backstretch, you couldn’t hear them at all, but you could hear the Novi. The Novi had a sound to it that you wouldn’t believe. People would hear that car and say the hair on the back of their neck would stand up. It was unbelievable. I was in love with the Novi, which is why I bought them.”

The Novi was ahead of its time in many ways. It was a double-overhead cam V8 with a bigger bore and a shorter stroke that made its first appearance in the 1941 Indy 500 when Ralph Hepburn drove the Bowes Seal Fast Special to a fourth-place finish.

“That was 20 years before Detroit even thought about that and 50 years before they built the double-overhead cam so that was way ahead of its time,” Granatelli said. “The other cars turned 4,000 or 5,000 rpm, and the Novi turned 10,000 rpm.” [More]

Roger Penske, left, and Bobby Allison in 1973 at Indianapolis

Throughout his career, Bobby Allison has always been known as a “racer’s racer.” Even at the height of his stardom as a NASCAR stock car driver, Allison still competed at the local short tracks throughout the United States so that he kept in touch with “his people” – the grassroots race fans who idolized the leader of the “Alabama Gang.”

From the “grassroots,” Allison made it to the “hallowed grounds” by racing in the Indianapolis 500 in 1973 and 1975 for famed team owner Roger Penske. And while his NASCAR career was legendary, earning him a place in the second induction class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame this week, his time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway did not include similar success.

“My Indy deal was not really very good,” Allison said. “Donnie’s was great, and mine was just the opposite. The first time there I blew up on the pace lap. That was a heartbreak, especially after devoting a month to it and missing three NASCAR races to get the preparation done. Two years later, Roger Penske begged me to go on back, and I gave it another try. I actually led the 23^rd lap in 1975, but then the car had all kinds of problems. It got a lap down from a bad fuel leak and I was getting my lap back at halfway, and then the engine blew up again.”

Allison’s brother, Donnie, preceded Bobby’s appearance in the Indianapolis 500. Donnie Allison finished fourth and was named Rookie of the Year at Indy in 1970. He finished sixth in 1971.

“Donnie went up there and did well, and I was proud of him,” Bobby said. “At the time, Indy-car racing was different from so many standpoints. There were several guys that wanted to run very limited schedules, and I wanted to run everywhere. There were guys who were used to getting paid a lot of money just to be there and at that time I wasn’t getting paid money just to show up. Roger Penske insisted that I run that test. At the time, I was driving for my own team in NASCAR.”

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