Nip & Tuck Race

The annual (since 1911) 500-mi. Indianapolis Speedway Race can be a dull show. In recent years, it has been dull--with the winner leading, and comfortably, somewhere after the 300-mile mark. But last week, right up to the final 20 miles, some 175.000 spectators got their money's worth in thrills.

Almost from the start the race was a spectacular, bitter duel between Troy Ruttman, driving an Agajanian Special, and Bill Vukovich, in a Fuel Injection Engine Special. Ruttman took the lead on the twelfth lap of the 2 1/2-mi. brick and tar speedway. Vukovich, out after the $100-a-lap prize money, grabbed it back again on 13, held it to 55, when he made a fast stop for oil. Then Ruttman popped back in front. On lap No. 83, Vukovich took the lead again and Ruttman's car, a lap later, lost time fighting a fire under the hood during a refueling stop. At the halfway mark (100 laps) Vukovich was still in the lead. Ruttman was then third--and gaining.

A tire change cost Vukovich the lead, to Ruttman, in the 135th lap; 11 laps later, for the same reason, Ruttman lost it back to Vukovich. And so it went, in a nip & tuck race. With only 50 miles to go, Vukovich, setting new speed records all along the line, had a fairly substantial (31 seconds) lead, but he could see from information flagged from his pit that Ruttman was gaining.

Less than 22 miles from the finish, Vukovich apparently had the race wrapped up with a 19-second (about three-quarters of a mile) lead when he skidded and cracked up on the northeast wall. He escaped uninjured. Ruttman, with the race-now in his pocket (a three-lap lead with eight to go), slowed down and coasted in, still in the fastest time (3:52:41.88) and at the fastest speed (128.922 m.p.h.) in Indianapolis history.

A hot-rod racer at 16, burly (6 ft. 3 in., 245 Ibs.) Troy Ruttman is also the youngest (22) driver ever to win. He first hit Indianapolis three years ago, fibbed about his age (then 19) in order to qualify, and finished twelfth. A year later, he was 15th; last year he was 23rd. He had only one regret last week: the fire lost nearly two minutes, "and if it hadn't been for this I think I could have averaged 130 m.p.h."

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