Indianapolis 500

1975

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - It rained on Bobby Unser's parade, but he didn't mind it a bit. He was leading it.

"What a day! What a beautiful day!" Unser exclaimed as he climbed from his Eagle-Offenhauser in Victory Lane, his beaming face turned upwards, into the waning rain of the thunderstorm that had just given him his second triumph in the Indianapolis 500.

It was supposed to go the standard 200 laps-500 miles-just like the race he'd won here in 1968 when he beat Dan Gurney.

But on the 172nd lap Sunday the lightning-laden storm clouds which had been menacing the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for more than an hour finally unleashed their fury.

First it was with a brief sprinkle, then with a torrential downpour that had Pat Vidan waving the red and checkered black-and-white flags which signaled the race was over and that Bobby had won it after 174 laps- 435 miles.

When he crossed the finish line, he was cruising along at a dainty 30 miles an hour, nowhere near his winning speed of 149.213 m.p.h., accomplished in 2 hours, 54 minutes, 55 seconds (video).

But that didn't matter one bit. The fact that he crossed the line at all was a victory in itself.

As he tooled down the main straightaway, other less fortunate drivers were swimming and fish-tailing all over the place. Their low-slung, lightweight, wide-tired racers were about as stable as surfboards on the slick, flooded asphalt.

Last year Unser came in No. 2 to Johnny Rutherford.

This time it was Rutherford's turn to be second-best, all because of an untimely pit stop.

Actually nobody really figured on either of them being No. 1. That, everybody was saying, was reserved for Wally Dallenbach.

Dallenbach charged from his 21^st starting position into the lead by the 60th lap, then held it virtually all the way until the 161st, opening a commanding 25-second edge, about half a lap.

Then, poof! It was all over for Wally. Engine troubles, caused by debris from the day's only serious wreck, sent him smoking into the pits for good and sent Rutherford into the lead, just ahead of Unser.

On the 165th, though, Rutherford decided to make a pit stop of his own, 19 seconds that put Unser in front.

Five laps later, Rutherford found out just how costly his pit stop was. In the 170th lap, the drivers were frozen in their respective positions under a yellow caution flag-the fifth and final one-when Gary Bettenhausen blew a tire and played handball with his car along the main straightaway's outside wall.

The yellow stayed out the rest of the way-and Unser stayed in front.

"We had no assurance the track would dry, no assurance it wouldn't rain again," said Chief Steward Tom Binford, explaining the quick end to the race." In my mind, to stop and then have a 65-mile sprint race didn't meet the requirements."

Rutherford wasn't embittered by Binford's decision-but then, he wasn't exactly overjoyed, either.

The way Bobby was talking his driving didn't have all that much to do with it.

"Luck is everything," he said. "If you don't have luck on the race track, you don't win.”

Luck was certainly on Unser's side on the 127th lap, when Tom Sneva and rookie Eldon Rasmussen got together a little too hard on the second turn. Sneva's car hurtled along the outside wall, flipped over several times and burst into flames. Debris was flying everywhere.

And along came Unser, who managed to weave his way through the shrapnel without incident.

"Sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't," he shrugged. "This time I did. There have been times I didn't. This time I'm a hero. Other times... well, everybody's saying, "Why didn't you do this instead of that?'"

Luck wasn’t on A. J. Foyt's side, though. The grizzled veteran from Houston, trying to become Indy's first four-time winner, led for 51 of the first 60 laps and was right in there with the rest of the leaders when he, too, came upon the metallic litter in the second turn.

He didn't quite escape it. It ruined all four of his tires, necessitating a 45-second pit stop that put him just about a lap off the pace-and that's where he finished.

Sneva suffered severe burns on his hands and milder burns over 15 percent of his body, the only serious injury of the race. Rasmussen wasn't even shaken up. He continued on for a lap, then stopped at the accident scene and helped extricate Sneva from the burning wreckage.

The day, though, belonged naturally to Bobby Unser, who enjoyed a bit of familial one-upmanship by matching brother Al's mark of two Indy victories. Al would up 16th this time.

Was this win his big thrill? No way, he said. "It's always best to win your first."

And, more important, he added, it's always best to win at Indy.

"There's a lot of people who'll tell you that Indy isn't really the big thing, that it can't compare with Formula I racing, with the stock cars and all that," he said.

"Forget it. It's not true. Winning at Indy is everything. Indianapolis is the best.”

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