Black Noon: The Year They Stopped the Indy 500

By Art Garner

Winner of the 2014 Dean Batchelor Award, Motor Press Guild "Book of the Year"

Short-listed for 2015 PEN / ESPN Literary Award for Sports Writing

Before noon on May 30th, 1964, the Indy 500 was stopped for the first time in history by an accident. Seven cars had crashed in a fiery wreck, killing two drivers, and threatening the very future of the 500.

Black Noon chronicles one of the darkest and most important days in auto-racing history. As rookie Dave MacDonald came out of the fourth turn and onto the front stretch at the end of the second lap, he found his rear-engine car lifted by the turbulence kicked up from two cars he was attempting to pass. With limited steering input, MacDonald lost control of his car and careened off the inside wall of the track, exploding into a huge fireball and sliding back into oncoming traffic.

Closing fast was affable fan favorite Eddie Sachs. "The Clown Prince of Racing" hit MacDonald's sliding car broadside, setting off a second explosion that killed Sachs instantly. MacDonald, pulled from the wreckage, died two hours later.

After the track was cleared and the race restarted, it was legend A. J. Foyt who raced to a decisive, if hollow, victory. Torn between elation and horror, Foyt, along with others, championed stricter safety regulations, including mandatory pit stops, limiting the amount a fuel a car could carry, and minimum-weight standards.

In this tight, fast-paced narrative, Art Garner brings to life the bygone era when drivers lived hard, raced hard, and at times died hard. Drawing from interviews, Garner expertly reconstructs the fateful events and decisions leading up to the sport's blackest day, and the incriminating aftermath that forever altered the sport.

Black Noon remembers the race that changed everything and the men that paved the way for the Golden Age of Indy car racing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781250017789

Art Garner

A 14-year-old ART GARNER attended his first auto race in 1966, when his dad took him to see the United States Grand Prix in Watkins Glen, N.Y. He was hooked. Shortly thereafter he won a high school sports writing award from the Detroit Press Club, launching a writing and public relations career that has intertwined with motorsports for more than 35 years. A journalism graduate of Michigan State University, auto racing was just one of the sports Garner covered for the Marietta Daily Journal newspaper chain near Atlanta. To help make ends meet, he handled promotional duties at the local 3/8-mile stock car track. From there he moved into automotive world where he has worked for Ford, Toyota, and Honda in various public relations executive positions. For business and pleasure, Garner has attended races at virtually every major track in America and some not so major. From Indianapolis and Daytona, to Georgia’s Dixie Speedway and Michigan’s Flat Rock Raceway, the stories behind the men and the competition have always been a compelling part of his passion for the sport. Black Noon tells one of those stories.

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INTRODUCTION

As the start of the Indy 500 approached on May 30, 1964, a record crowd of about 275,000 jammed into every nook and cranny of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Every seat was sold, and people packed twenty-five deep along the infield fences, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cars as they sped past at more than 150 miles per hour. Another 250,000 people crowded into sports arenas and movie theaters across the county for the first live broadcast of the race, and 100 million more were tuning in to the radio broadcast around the world. The biggest crowd ever for a sports event buzzed with anticipation.

*   *   *

Black Noon: The Year They Stopped the Indy 500 is a story about the events and circumstances surrounding the 1964 Indianapolis 500. It reaches a zenith in a fiery inferno that stops the 500 because of an accident for the first time in race history and turns a vivid blue Indiana sky black with billowing clouds of death and destruction. It remains the only accident to claim the lives of two drivers in Indy 500 history.

It is a story of the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, a story of a dying breed of men and machinery. It is a story of a time when drivers figured they had a 50/50 chance of being killed in a race car and worked odd jobs during the off-season for a chance to defy those odds.

It is a story of defiance and desperation, of courage and determination, of record speeds, record crowds, and a record purse. It is a story of fateful decisions resulting in unanticipated conclusions.

It is a story of great innovation and technological advancements: the front-engine roadster, the dinosaur, facing the new rear-engine funny cars; the vulnerable Offenhauser engine, winner of its first race in 1935 and every 500 since World War II, facing the latest technology from Detroit.

It is a story involving some of the great names in racing history, including A. J. Foyt, Jimmy Clark, Parnelli Jones, Dan Gurney, Bobby Unser, and Johnny Rutherford.

Most of all, it is the story of the two men who died in the crash, Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. Two men from very different backgrounds, very different lifestyles, and with very different stories to tell.

It is a story about Sachs, a product of the blue-collar South and Midwest, who called home such places as Greensboro, North Carolina; Allentown, Pennsylvania; and Detroit, Michigan. A college dropout, he spent years developing his limited natural skills on the country’s short oval tracks before finally heading to Indianapolis. He was the first driver ever to fail his rookie test twice. Yet once he finally qualified for the race, he was always one of the leaders and came within three laps of winning in 1961. He was a fan favorite, known as the Clown Prince of Racing. A reformed playboy who had settled down with his second wife and newborn son, Sachs was making inroads in the business world and promised his family to retire from racing—as soon as he won the 500.

It is a story about MacDonald, a rookie at Indianapolis, making his very first start in an Indianapolis-type race car. Yet he sailed through his test. Called the Natural by some, he’d risen from weekend Southern California drag racer to national champion road racer in just four years. Blessed with surfer-boy good looks, off the track MacDonald was the quiet father of two young children, introverted, almost timid, according to friends. On the track, MacDonald’s aggressive driving style attracted a legion of fans. He was coming off the best racing year of his career in 1963, ending the season not only in victory and with a championship, but by lapping a field of the world’s very best drivers.

It is a story of a different era, when drivers lived hard, raced hard, and often died hard. When drivers vied to post the fastest time of the day at Indy in order to win the free dinner that went with it. When entire race teams slept on cots in the rented garage of a nearby home. When safety was often an afterthought and drivers had what Gurney called a World War II mentality.

Much has been written about the Golden Age of Indy car racing, generally considered to start in 1965. Little has been written about the sport’s blackest day that ultimately gave birth to the Golden Age. This is that story.

*   *   *

In writing Black Noon, I had an opportunity to speak at length with six of the seven surviving drivers from the race including Foyt, Gurney, Bob Harkey, Jones, Rutherford, and Unser—all but Jack Brabham, who lives in his native Australia. Mario Andretti, who considered taking his first laps at Indianapolis in ’64 in a car from MacDonald’s team but ultimately decided against it, talked about the decision and what it was like watching the race from the stands. I spoke with relatives of MacDonald and Sachs and of Ronnie Duman, who survived the ’64 crash only to be killed in another racing accident several years later. I talked with crew members. I had an opportunity to visit with eighty-eight-year-old A. J. Watson, tagged the Wizard of Indy by Sports Illustrated, in the same home near the track where he’s spent the month of May every year since the ’50s. I interviewed reporters and others involved in the race, and spectators who were sitting near the accident site and sit in those same seats today. More than seventy-five interviews were conducted. Many spoke emotionally about the race, and some said they’d rather not discuss it at all.

I spent weeks in Indianapolis-area libraries going through newspapers, magazines, and other records from the race. The city was blessed with three major daily newspapers in 1964, and competition for Speedway coverage was fierce; the papers often put out special editions each evening following the end of practice at the track, with the front page devoted to the day’s racing activities. I scoured the Internet and its many auto racing forums and chat rooms that occasionally cover the subject, providing a great deal of speculation and what if scenarios.

Obviously, after nearly fifty years, memories vary and blur. Some people recalled seemingly trivial activities while being unable to remember major events. For the most part, the drivers had the best recall, often telling their stories in the hardened, matter-of-fact fashion of someone who watched friends and competitors die in their chosen profession. Not surprisingly, drivers in the heat of the moment and traveling at speeds of more than 150 mph often viewed situations differently from others who may have been just a few feet away on the track—and from what may have been caught on film. When discrepancies did arise, I based my ultimate decision on what to include on all the facts available to me.

To best tell the story in a day-by-day, real-time narrative, I’ve combined quotes and information from newspaper stories of the day with those obtained during my interviews, from driver biographies, and from other racing histories. I’ve also pieced together quotes from stories by different reporters who were obviously part of the same interview session. In an age where reporters were forced to rely on pen-and-paper and shorthand for their notes, rather than tape recorders, these quotes varied slightly from paper to paper. The narrative has been kept in the proper context, however, with retrospective comments saved for the concluding chapter.

In some cases, references have been made to what a driver was thinking at the time. In most cases this is because the subject said in a subsequent interview that that was what he was thinking. In a few rare instances, primarily with Sachs and MacDonald, those thoughts are based on prior history and earlier comments by the drivers.

In the end, no quotes have been made up. What follows is a factual re-creation of the months and days surrounding that fateful race.

PART I

Revolution

ONE

Indy '63

It was go time for Eddie Sachs.

For more than 400 miles he’d chased Parnelli Jones and Jimmy Clark in vain as they pulled away from him and the other thirty cars in the 1963 Indianapolis 500. He’d run as fast as he dared, clawing his way past A. J. Foyt, Rodger Ward, and Dan Gurney and into third place. Yet he was still far behind the flying duo of Jones and Clark.

Suddenly there was hope. Jones was slowing. His car was trailing a cloud of smoke, a sure sign it was leaking oil. Sachs could see the oil on the track, on the nose of his car, on his windscreen and goggles; he felt it pelting his face. He could smell it. Like sharks with blood in the water, Clark and Sachs began to close on Jones.

Arguing with officials near the start/finish line was Colin Chapman, owner of Clark’s car, and J. C. Agajanian, the owner of Jones’s car. Another official stood nearby, black flag in hand. They were the same officials who warned drivers and crews in the prerace meeting that any car leaking fluids would be black-flagged and forced off the track.

If you don’t believe me, just try me, chief steward Harlan Fengler had warned.

Earlier in the race he’d done just that, flagging second-place runner Jim Hurtubise off the track when his car started leaking oil. Now Chapman pointed to the side of Jones’s car and the auxiliary oil tank. There were oil streaks on the car and a visible crack in the middle of the tank.

You know what you’ve said about oil leaking, Chapman yelled above the passing cars. Now what are you going to do about it?

It made for quite a scene, the dapper Englishman with his pencil-thin mustache, white shirt, and tie, and Agajanian, a board member of the United States Auto Club (USAC), the sanctioning body of the 500, in his trademark white Stetson, cowboy boots, and Western-style jacket, both gesturing wildly.

Sachs added to the spectacle, wiping away the oil on his goggles with the sleeves of his uniform and waving so everyone could see his blackened arms as he passed the hubbub.

The officials continued to hesitate, however, and Sachs thought he knew why. While Clark was the defending Formula One World Champion, he also was a Scotsman and driving one of the new European funny cars, a Lotus-Ford with the engine behind the driver. No foreigner had won the 500 since 1920, and no foreigner had even led the race since then. Clark was also a rookie at Indianapolis, and no rookie had won since 1927.

Jones, a fan favorite, was driving Ol’ Calhoun, the same Offenhauser-powered front-engine roadster he’d driven the previous two years and similar to the winning car in every Indy 500 since World War II. No rear-engine car had ever won the 500. More than fifty years of tradition were at stake, and if there was anything the Speedway stood for—it was tradition. Sachs figured there was no way the officials were going to black-flag Jones and hand the victory to the foreign team.

If Sachs could somehow catch Clark and move into second place, though, those same officials might be willing to pull Jones off the track. Clark, who closed to within four seconds of Jones when the leak first became apparent, now seemed to be cruising, perhaps thinking that the oily track was too treacherous or that Jones would soon be black-flagged. Sachs was gaining on Clark. The huge crowd of more than 200,000 could see it, and they were cheering him on. The fans loved Eddie, and each lap they leaped to their feet as the yellow roadster approached, waving him forward. He could hear their roar over the roar of the engines.

It was a scene Sachs relished, and he was putting on a show, his arms flailing and sawing at the steering wheel through the turns as he moved closer and closer to Clark. His was the fastest car on the track, shooting down the straightaways and diving into the turns with the slightest of wiggles, on the edge of control. On the long straightaways he had a moment to think about his son, only a year old, his wife, and the rest of his family. He’d promised them all he would retire the day he won the 500. He’d led the race five straight years, coming oh-so-close to winning in ’61. Now it was within his grasp once more. There was no reason to settle for second; he wasn’t contending for the season-long championship. Only winning the Indy 500 mattered.

Finally he caught Clark, sliding past going into the first turn, setting his sights on Jones. Could this be his year?

Just as fast, it was over. Perhaps it was the oil on the track. Maybe it was the marbles, the tiny bits of rubber that wear off tires during the course of the race and collect on the outside of the track. Or maybe he was just driving too hard. Most likely it was a combination of the three. Going faster into the first turn than he had all race, Sachs found his front tires suddenly sliding toward the outside wall. Then the rear tires were sliding and he was sideways. He fought to regain control, and for a moment he did, the tires gripping the pavement, before the car shot back across the track, glancing off the inside fence and bouncing to a stop.

Sachs convinced a safety crew member to give his car a push, and he drove back on the track. Any chance of winning was gone. There was a little vibration from one of the rear tires, but with fewer than twenty laps remaining, he decided to keep going.

Turned out it was more than just a vibration. The rear suspension was damaged, and after a couple more laps the left wheel separated from the car, sending him sliding again, toward the third-turn wall. He hit hard, the tire bouncing across the track. Sachs scrambled from the car and over the outside wall, waving to the cheering crowd. Then he slumped down to await the end of the race, mentally and physically exhausted, his dream of winning the 500 gone for another year.

On the track, Clark continued to slow.

I could see Parnelli up front and I could see that he was losing oil, Clark said. I really can’t say if it was all from Parnelli or not, but even on the straights at 180, I could see lines of oil. I figured if I can actually see the oil on the track, he must be losing it something shocking. I suddenly went completely sideways and I was lucky to collect it again. Then, in the next turn, I saw Sachs do the same thing, only he wasn’t so lucky. I said to myself, ‘We’ve come this far, it’s bloody silly to pile into the wall in the last twenty laps.’

Roger McCluskey, who moved into third place replacing Sachs, refused to back off and took up the chase. He was trying to pass Jones and get back on the same lap as the race leader when he also spun and crashed. From there Jones nursed his car home to victory, Clark content with second.

As soon as Jones pulled into Victory Lane, the charges and accusations started. Shouting the loudest were Sachs and McCluskey.

There’s no doubt that I spun in Jones’s oil, McCluskey said. I had to wipe my goggles every lap. He was just blowing it out. I don’t blame the mechanic. I don’t blame the owner. I blame the USAC officials. They are a very inefficient bunch. I’m very bitter. They’re not supposed to show partiality and they just don’t do a good job of it.

After the race, Sachs retrieved his wayward tire and began rolling it back toward the pits, nearly a mile away.

It was the kind of move that endeared Eddie Sachs to the fans, and they responded with more cheers. Known as the Clown Prince of Racing, he loved playing to the crowd, often drawing the ire of other drivers who felt he was showboating. With his face oil-streaked and his uniform blackened with grime, Sachs rolled the tire around the track and back through the pits, waving to the delighted fans every step of the way, declining several ride offers from safety vehicles.

Sachs’s mood changed when he reached his garage and reporters began to arrive, knowing he’d have something quotable to say. He didn’t disappoint.

It’s the first time in Speedway history that the 500-mile race has a winner that does not deserve it, he charged. If it had been a fair race, a rookie, Jimmy Clark, would have won it.

Sachs pointed his finger at Agajanian, saying he received special treatment as a USAC board member. I don’t blame Parnelli, because he deserves the win. But I do blame the car owner. He’s a poor sport. They black-flagged Hurtubise for the same thing. Those officials shouldn’t use politics. Everyone should be treated alike.

Jones didn’t deny losing oil, but he pointed out that when the oil level fell below the crack, the leak stopped.

I did put a little oil on the track, he admitted. However, most of the oil did not go on to the track. It went on my exhaust, and that’s what caused the puff of smoke. There were several other cars out there throwing a lot of oil. I don’t believe my car laid any more oil out on the track than anyone else. There was over a half tank of oil left in my car after the race.

Clark was diplomatic, posing for a congratulatory photo with Jones, saying the winner did a damn fine job. When he was asked why he lost, however, the frustration showed through.

Given an equal chance and a break or two, he said with a shrug, we should have lapped Parnelli.

*   *   *

More than 2,000 miles away, in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, Dave MacDonald turned off the radio after listening to the 500. It was time to barbecue. For many in America, Memorial Day meant three things: remembering those who sacrificed for their country, listening to the Indy 500 on the radio, and barbecuing.

He’d been pulling for Gurney, who was his occasional teammate driving Cobra Fords for Carroll Shelby, but was also happy with Jones’s victory. Like MacDonald and Gurney, Jones was from Southern California, although MacDonald didn’t know him well. Jones had spent his early racing days running jalopies on local dirt ovals, before moving on to midget and sprint cars on the national scene, and finally to the champ cars raced at Indianapolis. MacDonald started on local drag strips, before trying his hand at road racing, where he was beginning to make his mark nationally as one of the lead Cobra drivers.

He’d been on a hot streak since joining the team at the start of the year, scoring the very first Cobra victory. He’d raced at Daytona and Sebring for Shelby and won eight of his first twelve races. It was all a blur for MacDonald. At Daytona, Gurney held MacDonald’s pit signboard. At Sebring, he shared a car with legendary stock car driver Fireball Roberts.

The hectic schedule also meant MacDonald was spending more and more time away from home, so he was enjoying his Memorial Day with the family. Racing had always been a family affair—loading up the station wagon on Friday night and heading to a local track. Not anymore. He was hitting the big time.

They lived in a small house his parents added to the family property a few years earlier. MacDonald’s six-year-old son, Richie, was racing up and down the driveway in a miniature replica of his old Corvette race car. Four-year-old Vicki was splashing in the small kiddie pool under the watchful eyes of his wife, Sherry. His mom and dad were there, and so was his younger brother, Doug, who dreamed of following in Dave’s footsteps.

MacDonald was still a long ways from his dream of racing at Indianapolis, however. He was just back from Florida, where he’d raced the week before in front of about 10,000 people on a racetrack marked by orange traffic cones and hay bales, laid out on an abandoned Pensacola naval airfield. In a race of Corvettes, Ferraris, and Cobras, he’d been the first car to drop out, forced to watch Roger Penske lap the field on his way to victory. While Jones picked up nearly $150,000 for his Indianapolis victory, only the winner earned money in Pensacola; Penske pocketed $1,000 for his efforts.

Already a fan favorite in Southern California, MacDonald was building a legion of followers wherever he went. His aggressive driving style, the rear wheels hanging out and sliding through the corners, brought the fans to their feet wherever he raced. The professionals called it oversteer, and MacDonald was earning a reputation as the Master of Oversteer.

Others simply called him the Natural.

Shelby, a former race champion and not easy to impress, said MacDonald had more talent—as far as sheer speed is concerned—in a young driver than I ever hired. You can tell by looking at a race driver whether they have it or don’t. He has the ability to go fast.

Back in Los Angeles, MacDonald listened with interest as the rear-engine Lotus-Fords of Clark and Gurney nearly surprised everyone by winning the 500. A rear-engine car owned by Mickey Thompson, another drag racer who until recently lived only a few miles away from the MacDonald home, also did well, finishing ninth.

MacDonald wondered if he would ever get his shot at Indianapolis. It was the dream of nearly every racer, and he was no different. There was a revolution happening at the Speedway, and he wanted to be part of it. New drivers and new cars were making their mark. He knew the Ford people were happy with his efforts in the Cobras, and with the company now starting to race at Indianapolis, maybe—just maybe—he might have a chance at the Speedway in a couple of years.

*   *   *

The charges and tension at the finish of the Indianapolis 500 carried over to the next day’s luncheon honoring lap leaders. Sachs sat in the back of the room, cracking jokes and heckling Jones. Most of the older drivers had long since learned not to pay attention to the sometimes bombastic Sachs, but Jones was having a hard time ignoring him. So when Sachs approached him in the hotel bar afterward to offer his congratulations, the race winner wasn’t interested.

Jones said he didn’t like the things Sachs was telling reporters, especially that his team didn’t deserve to win. Jones sarcastically asked Sachs how he knew it was Jones’s oil he’d spun in, since he’d been so far behind the leader.

Then things got ugly.

Sachs called Jones a liar; he’d been right behind him. Jones returned the favor, adding, Call me a liar again and I’ll bust you right in the mouth.

You’re a liar, Sachs said. Go ahead and try.

It was a one-punch fight, Jones knocking Sachs down and the two wrestling briefly before being separated.

Clark, standing nearby and amused by the happenings, was asked if he wanted a piece of the action. Oh, no, he said, throwing up his hands in mock surrender, I’m not a fighter.

With the media getting wind of the fisticuffs, Sachs’s wife, Nance, worked fast, taking some of her mascara to blacken his eye for photos. Then she put a miniature black flag in his mouth, telling reporters, His mouth has been black-flagged.

Both Sachs and McCluskey boycotted the victory banquet that night. Noting Sachs’s absence, Ward couldn’t help taking his own jab. I see Eddie’s not here tonight. I guess he’s home taking boxing lessons.

*   *   *

Despite the controversial finish, officials were breathing a sigh of relief after the race. For the fifth straight year the race was run without a fatality. It was the longest stretch of time in Speedway history without a death in the race, and officials were hoping the drumbeat of some politicians and members of the media against auto racing was beginning to lessen. They even let Sachs off with a slap on the wrist for his criticism of officials, as he received only a $1,000 fine and one year’s probation.

Not as easy to handle was the revolution taking place at the Speedway, featuring new cars, new engines, new tires, and new drivers. Some were trying to fight the changes and calling on USAC and Speedway officials to join the battle. They wanted the rear-engine cars banned. They were afraid of what the big manufacturers and sponsors would do to the sport. They didn’t like foreign cars and drivers coming in to take their money.

In the end the officials decided to do what they normally did—nothing. They decided to let the revolution take its course.

Besides, it was good business. Ticket sales for the 1964 race were already setting a record pace.

TWO

The Brickyard

While a revolution was going on in the garage area at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the track the men and machinery were competing on showed little change, retaining its original design after more than fifty years of racing.

The idea behind the Indianapolis Motor Speedway started in the early 1900s as a proving ground for the budding American auto industry. Detroit and Indianapolis were battling for the right to be called the Motor City and Indy was the early leader, building more cars than its Michigan rival. However, Detroit had the advantage of being located on the Great Lakes, with a port to ship in raw materials and ship out vehicles, and Henry Ford was hard at work there, developing the assembly line. So a group of Indianapolis industry leaders figured a large testing facility was needed to help tip the balance in favor of their city.

In late 1908, the group led by Carl Fisher, a partner in the Prest-O-Lite Company that manufactured headlamps, purchased more than 320 acres about 6 miles west of town on the corner of Georgetown Road and Crawfordsville Pike for the then-significant sum of $72,000. Fisher liked to dream big, and his dream for the proving ground was big: a 5-mile circle track. Only one problem—the track wouldn’t fit on the land purchased by the group. So Fisher dialed back his vision to a 3-mile outer oval with an infield road course. Combined, the track would total 5 miles in length.

Even that proved too ambitious. A New York engineer was called in, and he eventually came up with a design stretching to each corner of the property. It’s sometimes referred to as an oval, though a rectangle is a more accurate description—a 2.5-mile rectangle with the corners rounded off. The two long straightaways are each five-eighths of a mile, while the two shorter straights are each an eighth of a mile long. The straights are connected by four quarter-mile turns, each turn with 9 degrees of banking. The track was only 45 feet wide at most places, occasionally flaring to 60 feet in width. The same basic design exists today.

This design created an enormous infield area of more than 250 acres, capable of fitting such sporting venues as Churchill Downs, Wimbledon, the Roman Coliseum, Yankee Stadium, and the Rose Bowl all inside the track at the same time.

Construction started as soon as the snows cleared in March 1909. There were few paved roads in America in the early part of the century, and as the proving ground was designed to reflect real-world conditions, it had a dirt base, covered by crushed stone and tar.

Once it was completed, the owners decided to stage races at the track in an effort to help create awareness about the facility. At the time, auto racing in America was relegated to dirt tracks used primarily for horse racing, or cross-country events run on public roads. After the track served as the starting line for a balloon race, a motorcycle exhibition was planned. It immediately became apparent the surface was unsuitable for the skinny motorcycle tires, and the race was suspended soon after it started.

A series of exhibition auto races the following weekend attracting the era’s leading racers—including Barney Oldfield, Louis Chevrolet, and Ray Harroun—proved to be an even bigger disaster. Chevrolet nearly lost an eye when a flying stone broke through his goggles, and the races were marred by accidents and death, as one driver, two riding mechanics, and two spectators were killed. The feature race was stopped before the finish, and as the slim crowd filed out, the future of the proving ground was very much in doubt.

Comparisons to the Coliseum were not well received at this point. The Detroit News, highlighting the problems its rival city was having, editorialized that the racing was more brutal than bull fighting, gladiatorial combat or prize fighting. To head off efforts to shut down the track, the owners decided to invest further in the facility and pave it, choosing bricks because they would last longer and provide better traction than concrete. It was a massive undertaking. More than 3.2 million paving bricks, each weighing 9.5 pounds, were laid at a cost of $165,000, more than twice the original investment. A 33-inch-high concrete wall was built around the outside of the track to protect spectators. It took just two months to complete, and the track has been known ever since as the Brickyard.

Despite these improvements, fan turnout was disappointing for the three races held in 1910. It was decided to focus on just one race in 1911 with a purse of $25,000. Because the May race the previous year attracted the biggest crowd, the race was set for Decoration Day, Saturday, May 30. The holiday, established in 1865 following the Civil War, was named for the practice of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers. Future races would be held on Decoration Day, except when it fell on Sunday. As the 500 grew in popularity during the ’20s, some Indiana state government officials argued the race desecrated the holiday and passed a bill outlawing sporting events on the day, forcing the governor to veto it. By the end of World War II, the holiday was widely known as Memorial Day.

The promoters wanted an all-day affair, leaving just enough time for the fans to arrive at the track and return home in daylight. They figured 500 miles would last about seven hours and still provide the needed travel time, so the first Indianapolis 500-Mile Race was set. More than three thousand hitching posts were stationed around the Speedway for fans arriving by carriage and horseback.

With forty cars set to start the race in 1911, Fisher worried about safety at the beginning and instituted the first use of a pace car in an auto race. The American Automobile Association (AAA) eventually established a formula for deciding how many cars should start a race, settling on one car for every 400 feet of track. It took several years for Indianapolis to accept the formula, but it eventually agreed to start just thirty-three cars. The pace car, meanwhile, became a fixture at Indy and tracks around the world.

Harroun won the first 500, taking 6 hours and 42 minutes to run the 500 miles and pocketing $14,250 for the day’s work. In comparison, Ty Cobb, baseball’s highest-paid player, made just $10,000 that year. To save weight, Harroun raced without a riding mechanic, present on every other entry. Instead he attached a mirror to his car and used it to check for traffic behind him, one of the main roles the riding mechanic served. The rearview mirror became a fixture, the first of many automotive advances pioneered at the

Reviews for Black Noon

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Upon starting this book I almost put it aside, as I feared that it was going to be too much in love with the Indy legend for its own good. However, built on what seems to be a deep foundation of actual reporting, Garner gives you a strong narrative of what May of '64 was like in Indianapolis, as technology and corporate ambition roiled the closed circle that was the Speedway. Apart from giving you a joint portrait of race fatalities Eddie Sachs & Dave MacDonald, Garner also gives you a balanced look at why disaster overtook this particular race. A big part of it was the downside of technological innovation, as the governing body overseeing the race really did not have the ability to police men with more ideas than sense; as while Mickey Thompson has received the bulk of the blame for bringing suspect cars to Indy, Colin Chapman of Team Lotus probably wasn't much better in terms of playing fast and loose with safety margins in the pursuit of victory. As for whether rookie driver Dave MacDonald really should have participated in that race, he was probably no more or less ready than any other Indy rookie; his worst sin was probably an unwillingness to walk away from a undeveloped prototype out of fear that he wouldn't get another crack at Indy. It all remains a sad story in a sport where tragedy is always an option. I know that after Swede Savage's death in 1973 it was a long, long time (over twenty years) before I really had the desire to watch racing again.

[abvr_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The 1964 Indianapolis 500 made headlines, at the time, for two things: the second victory of a hard-charging young Texan named A. J. Foyt, and a fiery seven-car crash on the second lap that killed drivers Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. The race’s greater significance became clear only in retrospect: Foyt was the last driver to win the 500 in one of the front-engine “roadsters” that had dominated racing at Indianapolis since the 1920s. Jim Clark, a Scot from the European grand prix circuit, was the face of the future. He won the pole position in 1964, and would win the race in 1965, in a machine like those he drove at Monza and Monte Carlo: lightweight, low-slung, and rear-engined. Many American teams were already moving in similar directions, and by the late 1960s roadsters were as obsolete as wood-and-wire biplanes.The crash is the climax of Black Noon but Art Garner seamlessly, elegantly interweaves the story of Sachs and MacDonald with the larger narrative about technological change. That the two stories mesh as smoothly as they do, and that Garner makes the “technological revolution at the Speedway” thread as gripping as the “two drivers on the verge of a tragic, untimely death” one, is a credit to his skill as a writer. That the voices of (seemingly) every living person with a stake in the story are heard in his pages is a credit to his dedication as a researcher.Even if your interest in the history of auto racing—let alone a fifty-year-old race—is only casual, Black Noon is well worth a look. If the topic seems too narrow, or too obscure, well . . . how much did you know about the Columbian Exposition of 1893 before you picked up Devil in the White City?