The Indianapolis News from Indianapolis, Indiana • 22

Monday; May 30, 1977 .1 Li It THE iNPlAWArvna news' Was Suoer r4 Pig 22 If For oyf, fans ad Pened." I 'I'-y 7 I IftWA- VM okay, except I don't know what happened." This was Rube's first crash since the advent of the rear engine cars. Rutherford's early demise he was out first after only 12 laps because a malfunctioning gearbox wouldn't keep his car in gear might have surprised some. But defending champions often have that kind of trouble. "It just jumped out of gear on me. We tagged the valves and probably broke a piston.

The car was handling beautiful, just beautiful. I was sitting there very easy, passing cars when I wanted to." Al Unser, who took the early lead in the race and led for the first 17 circuits around the 2-mile track, finished third even though he ran out of gasoline just about the time A.J. got the checkered flag. Al was a contender throughout the day. underrated driver, finished fourth and Johnny Parsons, whose father won the 1950 500, was fifth.

Both Dallenbach and Parsons were driving George Bignotti cars. Bignotti might well have had all three of his cars in the first five if it had not been for Johncock's misfortune. Johncock has had better and luckier days, of course. His 500 victory came in 1973 in that rain shortened three-day 500. Unfortunately, he's never really been given the credit he deserved for winning that debacle.

Johncock led 129 of the 200 laps yesterday and Foyt only 46. There were six leaders. Foyt was never out of the top five and drove a flawless race save for one fueling problem on an early pit stop. He misjudged his fuel and, in fact, ran out as he came into his pits. Wallv Dallenbach.

like Johncock an I $V4 '71 f'U( v. iV Wally Dallenbach, like Johncock an By WAYNE FUSON Sports Editor The 61st 500-Mile Race was super all the way with a guy named Super Tex, A.J. becoming the first four-time winner of the Indianapolis speed classic. "We needed that," said a veteran railbird after rolled into victory lane after one of the most competitive races in recent history. Especially for those who think Super Tex is perhaps the best racing driver in the world, it was the end of a perfect day.

There was no rain, either. The previous two races (and three of the last four) had been cut short by rain. The super speed in qualifying, including the first two official 200 miles per hour laps in history by Tom Sneva, who eventually finished second yesterday, and the first woman driver ever, Janet Guthrie, brought out race fans in record throngs. "It unquestionably was the biggest crowd ever," said Jack O'Neak the Speedway's new safety director, "and undoubtedly well over 300,000." There weren't many surprises in this race. Foyt was a favorite to win in his orange No.

14 Coyote he designed and built, powered by an eight cylinder engine which he developed from the original Ford racing engine. Foyt has a super crew, which got him in and out of the pits in record time on nine stops, one more than Gordon Johncock, who led much of the race and, indeed, faltered with only 16 laps to go. He'd just regained the lead from Foyt, who made the extra pit stop on the 182nd lap. But the next time around his engine went sour (either a valve or a piston) and he coasted to a stop on the grass in Wie first turn as Foyt roared into the lead. Foyt, who also won it in 1961, '64 and '67 and is a six time national driving champion, will get the major share of the $1 million dollar pot of gold to be divvied up among the 33 starters at tonight's Victory Dinner (7:30 at the Expo Center) which is open to the public.

Tickets are $15 each. There will be those who will say that Foyt was lucky to win because John-cock all but had his second victory sewed up before his engine died with less than 25 miles to go. There are dissenters to that theory. After all, they point out, Johncock almost hit the wall in the third turn late in the race when he apparently got into something being sprayed out of Duane Carter Jr. 's car.

After that near mishap, Gordon, whose claim to real stardom again was foiled, seemed to be losing ground steadily In fact, on the 169th lap he was up on Foyt by 14.4 seconds but appeared to be losing about a second or a second and a half on every lap. Only 6.8 seconds separated the two on the 178th lap. Foyt took over the lead at the start of the' 180th lap when Johncock pitted but A.J. relinquished it when he pitted two laps later. Sneva, -who ran steadily among the A.

J. Foyt takes checkered flag for the fourth time at the 500-Mile Race. AP. Johncock: We Had It blamed the breakdown on either a defi-" "cient valve "or piston. "Whenever Foyt'; would try to catch up, we would turn the boost up.

If Foyt would have turned the boost up too much, he would not. have had enough fuel." According to Bignotti's figures, John-. cock's last pit stop was going to be the one at No. 184. "We had the fuel and the speed," -Bignotti said.

"We were going 190 at the, end. Everything was going just just fine until that one thing. "You know, I would never want to wish anything bad on any driver. But. -why couldn't it have happened to one of my other drivers? If Johncock could have held up his engine for a few more laps, a few more; minutes, he could have been the toast of auto racing today.

"We had a pretty good" lead, but I'm sure it would have been close," cock said. "You know A.J." So the record books will show fca'f Gordon Johncock finished 11th yesterday. And isn't that hard to believe? to be the car's last' fuel stop. Instead the premature finish ended the knuckle-gnashing two-wcy duel between Johncock and Foyt. And it ended the race.

Foyt cruised the final laps, far in front cf runnerup Tom Sneva as Johncock walked back to the pit area. "We knew foyt was going to be the one to beat," said Bignotti, whose STP team placed Wally Dallenbach fourth and Jonnny Parsons fifth to go along with Johncock's final 11th place standing. "The Cosworths (Johnny Rutherford, Mario Andretti, Danny Ongais, Al Unser and Tom Sneva) are have growing pains. Sneva ran well, but we. were, concerned more about Foyt." Except for one minor scare blew a tire in No.

3 and almost got the corner," Johncock said), Johncock's ride was smooth. He led in 129" of his laps. His stops were brief, efficient. His will unbending, blunting Foyt's repeated chal-, lenges. "If it (the engine) hadn't broken, we would, have won," said Bignotti, who Traffic Jam Slows Binford, Too The Janet Guthrie story finished about the way most veteran observers thought it would.

She's a better race driver than she showed. Her car wasn't up to it, to be perfectly honest about it. She was in the pits for an agonizingly long time as her mechanics tried to figure out what was wrong. She eventually got credit for 27 laps and 29th place. Her teammate, Dick Simon, fared even worse.

He got only 24 laps when his engine gave up. Roger McCluskey, who a with Ruby, showed up in the top 10 most of the day but couldn't make it to the front. He eventually finished eighth, behind Tom Bigelow and Lee Kunzman. Steve Krisiloff, one of the slowest drivers in he field, was a surprise. He was ninth.

Sneva's younger brother, Jerry, was the best of the rookies. He was 10th and was running strong. The two grand prix drivers, Mario Andretti and Clay Regazzoni, had a day. Mario, tha 1969 winner here, made an early cbarge but fell out after 47 laps because of a broken exhaust header and had to settle for 26th. Regazzoni, who passed up the recent Monte Carlo grand prix to qualify for the Indianapolis race, was never a factor.

He went out after 25 laps with a fuel leak. "The fuel was leaking out faster than we could put it in," said Regazzoni. "and my heroes are the drivers who participate in the 500." Kent Benson, the Indiana University all-American basketball player, got the biggest applause of anybody in the so-called celebrity parade before the race. Linda Vaughn, the spectacular race queen, ranked second to Kent on the applause meter. Ed McMahon, the straight man for television nightowl Johnny Carson, tried to be funny by holding up a beer can as he paraded around the track.

Who does he think he is, Billy Carter? The American Broadcasting which telecast a delayed tape of the race to all parts of the nation except Indianapolis last night, hired a platoon of armed guards to protect its stars like Jim McKay, the No. 1 announcer on the project, after threats had reportedly been made to the ABC headquarters in New York City. One caller had threatened "There's no way the 500 show will go on." There was no comment whether the threats were connected with a television technicians strike now in prog-' ress. 78 Race On Sunday, Too The 1978 500-Mile Race will be held on Sunday, May 28, Tony Hulman, owner of the Speedway, announced yesterday. Yesterday's 500 was the third to be run on Sunday.

Town officials of Speedway, as well as clergymen throughout the Indianapolis area, have petitioned the Speedway to change the race date from Sunday to WE BUY USED CARS ASK FOR LARRY INDIANA'S DOOM CUSTOM VANLAND Tilt NEWS Photo, Vorn Alkins Foyt after four comes five? leaders, was not in a position to challenge the winner. He was nearly a half minute (three fourths of a lap) behind Foyt at the finish: Foyt renewed his pledge to keep racing despite his victory. "Sure I'll be back next year to go for No. 5 if Mr. Tony Hulman doesn't bar me from his Fat chance of that.

Tony is one of A.J.'s biggest fans. Foyt averged 161.331 miles per hour for the first complete 500 miles since 1974 when Johnny Rutherford won. A.J.'s speed was considerably off the record of 162.962 set by the late Mark Donohue in 1972 because of a rash of yellow lights caused by various minor problems. Al'houh the yellow was on for more than 36 minutes of the 3 hour and 5 minute race, there wasn't a single injury. In fact, only one, the veteran, Lloyd had anything that resembled a serious accident.

Rube hit the wall in th? No. 2 turn, but was not hurt and returned to the pits to watch the rest of the race. There was no reason given for Ruby's crash. "The last thing I remember," he said, "was passing Pancho Carter. I still can't remember anything until they put me on the stretcher.

The next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital. I had to ask where I hit the wall. Everything was going great. I am Faces In The Crowd pits tuned to the weather bureau for the latest information. After the race, thunderstorms raked much of the Indianapolis area, but for the first time in three years, there wasn't a drop of the wet stuff during the 500.

James Hunt, the 1976 Formula 1 grand prix champion, was at the Speedway as a spectator. "It had been 50-50 that I would be driving here this year," Hunt said, "but the thing didn't work out." Hunt, who drives for Team McLaren on the grand prix circuit, said he hoped to enter the 500 next year. "This place is fantastic," said the Briton. "There are just too many people." Evel Knievel, the motorcycle daredevil who cosponsored Gary Bettenhau-sen's car along with the veteran J.C. Agajanian, said his next jump would be between the World Trade Towers in New York City, now the world's second largest buildings, or over the Suez Canal.

"I'm a hero worshiper," said Evel, Tin NEWS Photo, Vorn Atkins Tony Hulman kept 'em guessing. Ji By RAY COMPTON The lap count was 1S4. Sixteen revolutions, twenty some odd minutes and Gordon Johncock had a reserved parking spot in Victory Lane for the first time since 1973. "I thought we had it in the bag," remembered George Bignotti, John-cock's chief mechanic and strategist. Perhaps triumph for Johncock and Bignotti was not completely assured, since A.J.

Foyt was dramatically closing in on Johncock's red Wildcat as the march to 200 laps entered the final turns. But when the engine in car No. 29 fell silent, on the first turn on lap 185, so died Johncock's chances for his second and Bignotti's seventh 500-Mile championship. "I'm disappointed, what else can I say," Johncock said from his solemn garage at the Speedway. "I thought we had it until the engine blew up.

It just let go." Johncock abandoned his powerless carriage on the first turn moments' after he had made what Bignotti calculated A.J. Took A. J. Foyt, whose fourth 500-Mile Race victory came on his 20th start at the Speedway, said he took a new low key approach to the race this year. In the past he was intense, irritable and often difficult to be around.

This May, except for one overblown incident, he was remarkably pleasant "Every year I would get so keyed up I couldn't live with the crew," he related. "I made up my mind if I went one lap or 200, 1 wasn't going to let it bother me like it has for 20 years here. I just put this race on the level with the other 500s. Always in. the past I had put it on a pedestal." Race morning he had breakfast, chatted with relatives and friends, ALL MAUNOin DULIR WORLTMAMOUS 51 BE APIOS HERE WrrH OWNER DELVIN Ml LLER) ADMIBE5 A FATHER PAY CAKE FROM 509 OF HIS GET! New Approach finally moseying over to the track at 10 o'clock.

He got his helmet, checked his pits, went back to the garage, pulled on his driving uniform and strolled out at 10: 50 "ready togorac ing." 1 Only problem he experienced during the race came with 50 laps remaining when the water temperature started to rise, but "it never got' to the danger area." After the race he announced the car, which had run three times at Indianapolis and won at Pocono, was going directly intotheSpeedwayMuseum.Thatisa fitting resting place for the record-set- ting racing machine. "I don't say I'm the greatest driv To Victory er," said A.J., who has driven in every type of car except Formula 1 and won in all of them. Foyt was asked about what would his victory fare at table, "Until 10 years ago," he commented, "I never ate anything but chicken, frencn fries, cheeseburgers and chili. never ate lettuce or tomatoes. "When I won in 1967 Shirley Murphy and Bill Ansted (his car owners) and left the track at 12:30 in the morning v.

and stopped at a hamburger place on 16th St. Here I'd just won the greatest in the world and we were eating 20-cent hamburgers." D.M. Tom Binford, chief steward of the 500-Mile Race as well as chief executive officer of the Indiana National Bank, got caught in a "hopeless" traffic jam en route to the track yesterday. "I finally gave up and parked my car at 30th and Kessler and walked in," -said a steamy Binford as he drank a cup of hot coffee to cool off That'd be a walk of 4-5 miles. There's no wonder he sat down during part of the race.

Binford wasn't the only one who got caught in traffic. State police said there was no doubt that yesterday's throng at the Speedway was the biggest in history. Jack O'Neal, safety director of the Speedway, said "there were well over 300,000 in attendance." The gates to the Speedway's infield, which holds more than 28,000 cars, were closed long before the start of the race. Traffic was blocked in all directions. At one time U.S.

136 was clogged with cars four deep all the way back to 1-465. The traffic eventually cleared just before the start. A.J. Foyt, the first four time winner in 500 history, kept one eye on the weather. His crew had a radio in the Tony Does It His Way! Tony Hulman kept it a secret until the end and then surprised everyone by managing to retain those magic words, "Gentlemen, start your engines." With Janet Guthrie becoming the first woman to qualify for the 500-Mile Race, speculation was great over how Hulman, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, would give his world-famous pronouncement.

The day before the race he stated, "Nothing seems to sound right." Finally, at that dramatic moment, Hulman was handed the microphone and he delivered his new message: "In company with the first lady ever to qualify at Indianapolis, Gentlemen start your engines." TRUCKS GRAY Lowest Price In Town AUTO I TUNE-UP 1 $)188 ,1 y-i vi u.s. or 1 Foreign 4, 6 or 8 cylinder can Includes Labor, Plugs, Points, vi Setting of Dwell Timing TUNE-UP MASTERS 1 uouee-HunnNGTSEBiuB CUCTCM HOMES IN H0O5IER. HORSE COUNTRY CHOICE OF A.C3.I. FOR HOME-A-RAMA 771 THE' FARM CWB-SWimfdUG POOUTENN CDUR75 BARNS AND STABLES OFTWX3AIT5, TRAILS, MORE! OPEN DAILY ML 6868 Saturday. Police say a Saturday date would make crowd control easier.

The Sunday FROM race gives the crowd too 3ALMER much time to build up, "CARBURETOR SPECIALISTS" 1 AIR-CONDITIONING XPERT AUTO IEPAW 5023 S. Madison Ave. 784-5304 TheViRage Farms Nortft Mwtdun 146 Stmt DODGE THE BUILXA. CW RBALHM Mount CarmeJ Nontt Mmdiai IMA Stmt OH PfKHE y3820M.KytowtM5-332l WHimMIIH lllllll they contend. sin IlliiUIIII UltluiillUi 'ififinr.