The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 33

Page 3 PAGE 34 THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR -MONDAY, MAY 30, 1977 ita niciti om: tiii i Cosivbrth 'Overrevved ii mm nil i 1 up 'wiiii I. i T. fSMppsssprww nil A.kl:.. He was out first, dead last, 33d, after 11 laps. The words of agony came over loud and clear on the Bearcat 210 Scanner provided to The Indianapolis Star by the Electra Company of Cumberland, Ind.

Told to come to the Gasoline Alley without even stopping at his pits, Rutherford said. Okay (and a few other words). AS HE ROLLED DOWN the pit lane, Alexander commisserated with Rutherford. "I guess there's not much to say, is there?" he said. Rutherford.

"So have answered Alexander. "If it wasn't so embarassing, I'd throw up right here in front of everybody." Earlier, when it already was obvious the end was at hand, Rutherford reported the obvious, saying "I'm just coming Into (Turn) 4 and it's slowing down even more." Alexander acknowledged that and spoke perhaps the saddest words in the English language: Aim wc ncic luuiuug uiwuy good." Into Museum "You want me to pull it straight into the (Gasoline) Alley?" asked Johnny RuUierford. "Yeah, you might as well," answered Tyler Alexander, who is the team manager for team McLaren. ''There's no point in totally demolishing it." "It" was the Cosworth engine in defending 500-Mile Race champion Johnny Rutherford's First National City Travelers Checks McLaren. The engine already had endured all kinds of agony as Rutherford entered the first turn of his 11th lap in yester day's 61st edition of the International Sweepstakes THE CAR HAD JUMPED out of rpms, Rutherford estimated afterward.

The overrev resulted in all the valves tagging the piston heads. One of the latter may even have been broken by the chaos going on in the engine's unregulated inners. With it, Rutherford, who had finished 1-2-1 in his last three Indianapolis starts, had made the ultimate descent. PIT PASS 3 Bg 5-foit Speein'otj Sfaff (Stir Plwlo by Greg Grlffo) A BL'SY DAY IN PITS Dogged By Mechanical Failure JANET GUTHRIE HAD First Woman Qualifier For 500 XOT HV First 500 Finish Thrills Parsons "I HAD TO BACK off with about six laps to go and they told me to run easy. How do you run a race like this easy?" While race fans were advised before the race that there was no rain in the forecast, there was no mention of what the heat would do to the outcome.

"The heat didn't bother me," admit Track Hospital Busy By MARK SCHNEIDER For Johnny Parsons, happiness yesterday was finishing his first 500-Mile race ever. The young charger from Speedway was competing in his fourth 500 and, thougn the talent always has been there, Parsons has never been able to go the distance. "This is the first (Indianapolis) race I've finished in four years here," said Parsons. 'IN FACT, I DON'T think I've ever shed a 500 anywhere tario, until here today." And what a race it was for Parsons. He started his No.

60 car sponsored by STP in the middle of the fourth row, 11 cars back in the field, and after the first 10 laps had surged into the top 10. Parsons ran consistently in the top 10 through the first 140 laps of yesterday's 61st annual Indianapolis 500 when he get the sign from the crew to pit for fuel. "They held up the pit sign marked pit 2," explained Parsons, meaning to pit in two laps. ted Parsons. "I think it just made it tougher on the older guys.

It didn't affect my car at all. "This is by far the best car I've ever had and the first race I've ever finished, so I'm not complaining. "I think we now know what to do in the future to make the car more competitive," Parsons finished. director, said a thorough examination showed Ruby has suffered no injuries or burns from the mishap. Only five persons, considerably fewer than normal, were evacuated to Methodist Hospital during the race, according to Olvey.

Of those, he said, the only grave case was an apparent heart attack. The victim was not immediately identified but reportedly was in satisfactory condition. "THE REST of our business was the usual sunburns, sickness to the stomach, cut feet and the like," Olvey said. A member of the Marion County Police Department Horse Patrol, Deputy Howard B. Pollard, was kept in the hospital after he was struck in the right temple with an egg while patrolling the infield at the southwest turn.

He was' suffering from mild shock, police said. He later was released. By DAN CARPENTER After an early scare from veteran driver Lloyd Ruby, Indianapolis Motor Speedway track medics enjoyed a steady but relatively uneventful race day. officials said. While exact figures on the workload yesterday were not immediately available, doctors reported that the volume of patients drawn from the tracks's population of 350,000 was somewhat lower than the normal 600 to 700.

"It was a steady stream of people," said Dr. Steve Olvey of the track hospital staff. "But considering the heat it was not a bad day." THE HOSPITAL atmosphere darkened on the S4th lap of the race when Ruby's racer struck the wall. Within an hour of the crash, however, the popular Texan walked away from the hospital with his wife and daughter. Dr.

Thomas Hanna, track medical Left Turns Leave Jerry Tenth, Tired Coyote Rolls A.J. Foyt won a race and lost a race car yesterday. Obviously, the trade was one he was more than happy to make. In fact, he volunteered it. "That car no longer belongs to me," he said of the No.

14 Gilmore Broadcasting Coyote that carried Into the no-man's land of his fourth 500-Mile race victory. "It belongs to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "It was built especially for this race. It won at Pocono in 1975 but it was built for here. I drove it here last year and it was the same car today.

"It had the same engine in it that was in it a year ago. We didn't even take it out of the chassis until about four months ago." Although he has made it a gift to the Speedway and its museum Foyt would like to keep possession of his creation the rest of this racing season "as a backup." If that wasn't enough to discoum any plans he might be ready to retire from racing or at least cut back on his schedule, Foyt added: "Have I ever let USAC down? Have I ever let the people who have rooted for me down? "I've always said that as long as my eyesight remains good, I'll keep racing. When they checked my eyes this year here they said they were still 20-15 the same thing they were when I came here the first time in 1958." IF FANS TRAVELING to the Speedway thought the traffic situation was difficult, they should have been in the position of chief steward Tom Binford. Binford got trapped in a traffic jam on Kessler Boulevard, North Drive, early in the morning and moved about one block in an hour. In desperation, he parked his automobile at 30th Street and Kessler and walked to the Speedway, a distance well in excess of two miles.

LONG AFTER yesterday's "5 0 0," Jack McGinnis, assistant crew chief on Eldon Rasmussen's No. 58 Rent-A-Racer was lamenting the failure of mi tint i nmiimi a part which "costs about 30 cents and cost us 8-10 laps early in the race." According to McGinnis, an electrical terminal end wire, worth approximately 30 cents at the neighborhood hardware store, forced a tow-in and cost the crew eight minutes replacing it. Rasmussen, who finished 13th unofi-ficially, reportedly jumped out of his car and assisted in correcting the problem. VERN SCHUPPAN, the 1975 Rookie of the Year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was seen leaving Gasoline A'ley after the race yesterday with a duffel bag in om hand and his pretty wife. Jennie, on the other.

Schuppan, who was bumped from the field on the final day of qualifications, said he was headed for the 24-hour race at Ls Mans next month (he will be driving a Mirage), and that he will drive the Alex Morales "Tamale Wagon" Lightning which Bill Vukovich left during the final weekend of qualifications. Woody's World By A. POTTER "SI "Whataya mean we oughta get ourselves a dog?" and play FIRST HAGE I I I I I I hTi Free Air Conditioner with every Heat Pump? Save yourself a bundle! IXTEXSH iikat "But the fuel ran out on us on the first lap. I guess it was somewhere around laps 150-160. Anyway, we lost tw laps during the tow-in.

"There isn't any good way for the driver to calculate how much fuel he has. I didn't have an idea how much I had so 1 had to go by the board." DESPITE THE nop with the fuel, Parsons was pleased for the most part with the car. "The car was loose and was trying to get away from me all day," said Parsons, who finished fifth completing 194 laps. "So I couldn't really go fast at the start of the race. But the last half of the race, the car was running real well.

"At one point I thought there was a possibility I could win. I was pumped up Once Parsons got towed in and returned to the oval, his pit crew gave him the easy sign. "They told me I was using up too much gas und that I needed to get more recalled Parsons. going on. But after things got straightened out, it was a little easier." SNEVA ALSO HAD problems with two face shields that he had taped to his helmet.

He lost the first one on the fourth lap and the second eight laps later. "We had a bad wind problem when I lost those." Sneva said. "We raised the windshield some and that helped a little bit, but when someone would get in front of me I'd have to back off. The air was coming right in." Shortly after A.J. Foyt took the checkered flag, Sneva ran another lap and pulled his ear, with a dead engine, into the garage area.

But despite the engine quitting after 187 laps, it still had run long enough. "I'M REALLY HAPPY, the car went good and kept going 'round and 'round and 'round," Sneva said. "Shorty (Mos-ley, chief mechanic) and the crew did a helluva job. We ran the same speed as carburetion day every lap." Sneva now will go to Milwaukee and Pocono with an assured ride and a long-range goal in next year's 500. "I don't want to go backward, that's always my goal," he said.

And. of course, he'll always want to keep going 'round and 'round and 'round. Beginning his career by racing motorcycles in Hawaii in 1957, Ongais graduated to sports cars and drag racers in the early 1960s after winning the Hawaiian Motorcycle championship in 1960. ON THE SCCA Amateur Road Racing circuit in 1974, Onagais won 12 of the 15 races he competed 'in. Running the Formula 5000 series in 1975, the 35-year-old racing "rookie" finished 14th in the final point standings.

He was 28th in the California 500, his first USAC championship race, in 1976, while racing Formula 5000 again for a fifth-place showing in the final points rundown. "We're going to run the entire USAC trail this year," Ongais confirmed. "I don't know what went wrong with the damn car other than what I've already told you," he finished. WE BUY ALL USED CARS TRUCKS ASK FOR LARRY GRAY By DAVE BENNER Jerry Sneva came to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the beginning of the month of May without a ride and nary a mention in the Speedway's media guide. However, the same Jerry Sneva will leave the IMS with a ride, probable Rookie-of-the-Year honors and a 10th-place finish in yesterday's 61st Indianapolis 500.

But the thing that makes Sneva's yesterday more magnificent is that it was his first championship-car race, hich just happened to be the biggest championship-car race on the USAC trail. how did he feel afterward? "MY REAR HURTS, my whole body hurts, I just hurt," Sneva said. "Right now, I'm really tired. The longest I had run before this were 50 and 100-lappers on half-mila tracks." Sneva, younger brother of second-place finisher Tom Sneva, started from the inside of the sixth row, but lost "about five spots" right in the beginning because he had trouble getting the car into third gear. "I really had a bad start." he said.

"I just couldn't get it into third gear and going down the backstretch I was still in first gear and couldn't get it in. Rutherford (Johnny, who sarted next to Sneva) had to wonder what was 51 Nunbar 1 Air Ccnomonlnt Uttif BUTLER-MUTZ CALL FOR FREE ESTIMATE 2121 N. DEARBORN 542-8181 jj Rookie Ongais Dejected As Fuel Header Breaks 11 BRAKES 4 DRUM TYPE 4 OR 2 DISC PLY WHITE BF GOODRICH VgS Lifetime ANY SIZE CSEJP Cuarantee I.STED $mm A B78-13 I fiTYTXi I 4 5 F78-14 KwnKH) shocks" G78-14 TM G78-15 NLjLAT Installed H78-15 Free INCLUDES: PLUGS, POINTSV. CONDENSER, SET CARBURETOR Most American Cors USED TIRES 5.00 bjT DAYTON MICHELIN GOODRICH bhrt you dtidt try SCHEID SCHEIDTIRE CO. EASTAATF RKMnilt Spent svjsy, oouib out May Memorial 'ffoy Featurs Tho Kontucliy Hnndioap By DAVID KNIGHT Wealing the dejected look of a defeated veteran, rookie Danny Ongais sat in the corner of his garage in Gasoline Alley yesterday wondering what went wrong with his Interscope Racing Special.

Ongais, a native-born Hawaiian who calls Costa Mesa, his home, qualified the Ted Fields entry in the 61st Indianapolis 500-Mile Race at 193.040 miles an hour for an inside spot in the third row. Beginning the 1977 season with a seventh-place finish at the Ontario 200 and a fifth at Phoenix, Ongais obviously expected to run with the veterans in his first Indianapolis 500. "WE STARTED slow'-g dewn on the third lap and on the 15th lap the fuel header broke and I had no blower pressure. I stopped, we replaced it and I started running around 193, as fast as anybody on the race track," Ongais said. "After that, the header broke again and we bundled up the car and here I sit," he mumbled.

Unofficially. Ongais and his Interscope team completed 90 laps to place 20th in the field. For three-year-olds and upward, iMemiles, $20,000. For Clubhouse reserved seats, phone (502) 636-3541 before Noon. Dining room reservations, phone (502) 636-3351.

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