Sudden Death

It looked like a bad day for the big spin in "The Brickyard." Grey rain clouds scudded over Indianapolis; damp winds skittered across the infield as the Memorial Day 500-mile auto race got under way. But Wild Bill Vukovich, 36, the "Grape Picker" from Fresno, Calif., had no time to worry about weather. He kept his eyes on the track. A two-time winner in the 500, "Vuky" was hell-bent on pulling off an unprecedented three in a row.

Skillful, steady and utterly fearless, Vuky wasted no time. He gunned his Hopkins Special into a fierce duel with Jack MrGrath's Hinkle Special, and the two men began to run away with the race. Behind them, mechanical trouble thinned the field. Then McGrath's mount sputtered to a halt with ignition failure. Bill Vukovich was alone in the lead.

Suddenly the awful yellow of the caution lights flared around the track. Drivers slowed down, forbidden to pass each other until the danger was past. Black fumes, more ominous than any thunderhead, eased upward over the backstretch. The racket of racing engines sounded loud against the tense and quiet crowd. Reason for the yellow lights: a four-car pile-up that had jammed the track ahead of Wild Bill Vukovich. All the luck in the world was not enough to bypass disaster. Vuky never had a chance. His Hopkins Special plowed into the tangled wreckage at 150 m.p.h., bounced into the air, caromed off a parked car and clipped a utility pole. Then it landed on its back and burst into flames. Bill Vukovich was almost certainly dead before his wheels stopped turning.

After the yellow lights went off and the thunder of the exhausts rolled again it was all anticlimax. But the race churned on. Cal Niday, a daring, one-legged driver, smacked into the northwest retaining wall and spun across the track in an explosion of greasy smoke and flame. (This week he was still fighting for his life in an Indianapolis hospital.) Steadily, Indianapolis' Bob Sweikert, 29, a home-town hero who had never before even finished the 500, climbed toward the lead in his John Zink Special. At 100 miles he was third; by the halfway mark he was first. When the checkered flag dropped, Sweikert was still in the lead, having averaged a respectable 128.2 m.p.h. This year, at the cost of two lives (Manuel Ayulo, 33, was killed in a practice-run crash), the Indianapolis 500 had proved little except that auto racing is a fascinating and relentless sport.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.