66 Days till Indycars at Pocono

Just 66 Days till Indycar
takes over Pocono Raceway
in the ABC Supply 500 on August 23rd!

 

In 1986 Ed Pimm started

the #66 car

from the middle of the 3rd row and finished 24th.
(The race was won by Mario Andretti.)

Ed Pimm at the 1986 Indy 500.
 

 

Starting Lineup from the 1986 Domino's Pizza 500

 

 

Ed made 42 Indycar starts in his career from 1984-1988 with a best finish of 3rd at Michigan in 1985.


 

 

 

Billy Boat 1998 Indy 500 Polesitter

Billy Boat won the pole for the 1998 Indy 500 

with an average speed of 223.503. 

He was driving for A.J. Foyt Racing.

Foyt's other driver Kenny Brack (1999 '500' winner) also qualified on the front row in 3rd.

Unfortunately Boat suffered mechanical problems after just 111 of the 200 laps and finished in the 23rd position.

 

Boat went on to win the next race at Texas Motor Speedway to record the only Indycar victory of his career.

Trenton Speedway Indycar races

Trenton Speedway held many Indycar races in it's time, from the late 1950's through the final race in 1979.

Not far from our home, our grandparents often went their to watch local drivers like Mario Andretti, Eddie Sachs, Al Loquasto and Bobby Marshman.

Racer Magazine's Robin Miller linked to a Trenton race in his mailbag this week. We had such a great time watching it so we wanted to share the video of the 1978 Indycar race at Trenton Speedway with our readers.  Thanks Mr. Miller!

 

 

 

The program cover of the 1970 300 Mile Race.

You might recognize a few of the guys on the cover.

 

 

 

 

Ad for 1963 U.S. Grand Prix

The 1963 Grand Prix of the United States

 

held at Watkins Glen, NY.

 

Won by Graham Hill.

 

Found an ad while paging through one of our old Trenton Speedway Programs.

 

It shows a picture of the 1962 winner Jim Clark.

 

 

Since running the last U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen in 1980,

the Grand Prix has moved from Phoenix to Indianapolis

to Austin, TX where

Lewis Hamilton won the 2014 U. S. Grand Prix.

Throwback Thursday

 

 

For this weeks Throwback Thursday we dug up an old 1963 Milwaukee Mile program

for this photo of Dan Gurney and Jimmy Clark, two Indycar legends.

 

Mr. Gurney celebrated his 83rd birthday Sunday at the Long Beach Grand Prix. 

 He was instrumental in first bringing racing to that city in 1975.

 

Gary Bettenhausen



From 1970 Trenton Speedway Program

From 1973 Pocono Program

 

From the 1990 Indy program

Gary Bettenhausen drove in 21 Indy 500's with a highest finish of 3rd in 1980.  He was the fastest qualifier in 1991.

 

Joe Leonard Samsonite ad 1971

We love that our Pappy saved all his old Indycar stuff.

Today we found this in a Pocono program. 

 

Joe Leonard began his 'second career' as an

Indycar driver in the early 1960's

after being a motorcycle champion.

 

He went on to race for greats such as

Andy Granatelli and Parnelli Jones.

He won the USAC (Indycar) Championship in 1971 and 1972.

 

 

USAC Magazine Cover Sept 1970

 

The United States Auto Club Magazine Cover

from September 1970.

 

Previewing the Inaugural California 500 at the Ontario Motor Speedway.

 

 

Can you name all of the Indycar drivers sketched

who would be racing there?

(answers in tomorrow's post)

 

Pocono Indycar 1972 Front Row

 

 

Bobby Unser on Pole for the Schaefer 500 at Pocono.

Gordon Johncock P2

Mario Andretti P3

 

July 2, 1972

 

 

Bobby Unser ended up finishing 20th and won $6,524 for his drive.

(Joe Leonard won the race and got $80,280)

Reading Fairgrounds Raceway 1956

Check out more of pappy's endless supply of Indycar stuff!

Reading Fairgrounds 1/2 mile Track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thought you might be like us and want to know who Mike Nazaruk was in racing.

 

 

We just love old programs!

 

 

Dario Franchitti Cover Photos

 

We just love our Racer magazines.

 

  And we're lucky because in various boxes in our basement are almost all of the old issues.

Today we decided to go thru some old issues looking for Dario.

 

Being the legend that he is....he was on a lot of covers.

 

Here's a few.

 

The earliest cover photo we found.
 

 

Dario headed to Nascar for 2008.
 

June 2011. 


 

Not a Racer Magazine. 
But Dario welcoming everyone to Indianapolis on the
 2011 Visitor Guide.

 

Parnelli Jones Roadster Model

 

Parnelli Jones car in a 1/25th scale hobby kit model. 

 

Very Cool!

 

Yet another great Indycar thing that we just found

in our pappy's collection.

 

 

 

Apparently our pappy liked doing models.  Lucky for us a lot of them are unopened and still in the neat boxes they came in.

 

 

Remember Dan Wheldon

For this week's Throwback Thursday

we remember a great Indycar driver, Dan Wheldon,

 who died in the Indycar season finale 2 year's ago yesterday.

From the 2006 Indianapolis Star.

To honor Dan, everyone wore his signature white glasses at the start of the 2012 Indy 500.

 

George Bignotti and A.J.

As we mentioned in an earlier post,
The great chief mechanic George Bignotti
passed away last week at the age of 97. 

 

For our Throwback Thursday post this week we found this great neat ad featuring him and A.J. Foyt from 1964.

 

 

Juan Montoya's Indy 500 Win

 

With Juan Pablo Montoya in all the Indycar news this week
signing with Penske Racing for 2014
we dug around our mom's old Indystar newspapers and found this:

 

 

 

1966 USAC Yearbook

If you've looked around our blog you may have seen some of the really neat old Indycar stuff that belonged to our pappy that we have posted occasionally. 

 

Since there is so much of it,

and it's all really cool,

we thought we would post something each week

for Throwback Thursday.

Since this week marked the 35th anniversary of Mario Andretti winning the World Championship in 1978,

we thought we would throw it back to 1965 when he won his first Indycar Championship at the age of 25.