IMS is a place of speed. Specially designed cars built with material designed to absorb the impact of a crash at 230 miles an hour. Still, there are accidents, injuries, and on certain occasions, fatalities. The death of Dan Wheldon, a two-time Indy 500 winner at the end of the 2013 Indycar season at a track in Las Vedas reminded all racing fans that death is a possibility in every race and anytime a race car is driving on the track. The cars that compete today are certainly much safer than the cars of fifty years ago, but the risk of injury and even death will never be completely eliminated. This month at the Motor Speedway, there have been four spectacular and terrifying car crashes in which the car flipped over and seemed to be totally airborne. In three of these incidents, the driver walked away unharmed.
On the first day of qualifications at IMS in 1966, my father, knowing my passion for the race, the drivers, and all the traditions of the Indianapolis 500 mile race, made sure that we were sitting in the southwest vista to watch the qualifiers reach record-setting speeds. Mario Andretti, the Rookie of the Year in 1965, was burning up the track in his Brawner Hawk Ford. Andretti was routinely reaching speeds of 165 miles an hour and several clocks had him at the breathtaking speed of 167.411 miles an hour. A.J. Foyt’s record qualification speed of 161.223 miles an hour was sure to fall. I expected to see all my favorite drivers go fast that day. Jimmy Clark, the defending race champion, was just behind Andretti. Parnelli Jones had a rear-engined supercharged Meyer Drake “Offy” challenging the Fords. A.J. Foyt came with a new car he had designed based on his 1965 Lola and built in his Houston, Texas shop. He called it a “Coyote.” Dan Gurney introduced his newly designed Eagle race cars for the first time and Lloyd Ruby was turning hot laps in one. Veteran Bobby Grim was driving a front-engined roadster with a new turbocharged Meyer/Drake engine. Grim had been timed at 160 miles an hour. By far the fastest speed a front-engined race car had ever attained at the Speedway. It was going to be an historic day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and I was going to see it all.
A driver who had competed in two 500s, including the year before, was 39 year old Charles Rodegheir or Chuck Rodee as he was known to racing fans. Rodee’s luck in the Champ Cars had not been all that good. His first Indy Car race had been in 1957 and he had 27 starts in Indy car races. His best finish had been 4th at DuQuin, Illinois on the dirt in 1963. He had a 5th place finish at the Atlanta 300 in 1965. His reputation was built as a midget racer. Rodee was second to Don Branson in midget and sprint car wins. He had finished third in the USAC Midget standings in 1965. He was driving a car that A.J. Watson had built in 1965 for Roger Ward to drive. Ward had nothing but problems with it and did not qualify for the 1965 race. Johnny Rutherford won the 1965 Atlanta 300 in the car but it still had the reputation of being a “jinxed” race car. Rodee didn’t drive in the first two Champ Car races of the season, and was not assigned a ride when the Motor Speedway opened but he talked to Watson and got the ride. Watson had placed a non-supercharged Meyer/Drake “Offy” in the back of the car. It seemed to be running smoother. Chuck Rodee was quietly achieving speeds that would be fast enough to qualify for the race.
As the day wore on, we saw some exciting moments. George Snider driving for A. J. Foyt in Foyt’s 1965 Lotus broke his boss’s record in the same car that had set the speed record the year before. Snider put the Lotus in at 162.521 or a mile an hour faster than the old record Mario broke. That record was a four lap run of 165.894 and a fast lap of 166.328. Dan Gurney had mechanical problems. Foyt, trying to find speed to match Andretti, had put his new Coyote into the outside wall of the southeast turn. Chuck Rodee came on to the track. Most of the fans thought that the #90 car qualifying for the race would be a certainty. Tom Carnegie reviewed Rodee’s progress in the car during the month while the car accelerated up to qualifying speed on the first warm up lap. Rodee didn’t call for the green flag as he went into his second lap. As the car entered the apex of the first turn, it spun out of control with the nose pointing downward toward the apron, the rear end skidding upward toward the outside retaining wall in front of the southeast vista grandstands where my father and I, along with a couple of thousand other spectators, were sitting. The rear of the car hit the wall with a tremendous force, spun around, and came to rest with the front end pointed towards our grandstand. The car was flat on the ground with the tires caved but it did not seem to be that badly damaged. The impact had not seemed that serious. Foyt’s crash had looked a lot worse. I think most of us first thought that it was a tough break for Rodee but that he might be able to find another car. However, everyone soon realized that something was horribly wrong. Chuck Rodee was slumped in the cockpit of the car and wasn’t moving. His arms were draped over the sides of the pod. Blood was trickling down the corners of his mouth. It seemed to take forever for the emergency crew to arrive. At one point, a woman yelled “For heaven’s sake someone help him.”
The ambulance took him away, and the cleanup crew got the car hauled away and the track cleared of debris. Qualifying resumed. About an hour later Carnegie announced over the broadcast system in a very sober voice that Chuck Rodee had died of his injuries. There were mutterings of disbelief in our area. It hadn’t seemed that bad of a crash. What had happened was that the rigidness of the chassis had virtually transferred the entire force of the crash impact to Chuck Rodee’s body and he had ruptured his aorta. The news cast a pall on the rest of the afternoon.
The advances in the safety of the cars has been phenomenal. When I was a kid in the 1960s it was virtually assured that at least two or three race drivers were going to be killed during the course of a season — sometimes more. When Jimmy Clark was killed in a Formula 2 race in Germany in 1968 I knew then that death could come to any race driver. Clark had been the greatest racer of his generation. He was indestructible…or so we all thought. In the new millennium, racing safety has improved about 1,000 percent. We no longer expect to lose drivers and crewmen on a regular basis.
Let’s all make a BIG TALL WISH for a competitive and SAFE race this Sunday. Let us all hope that the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race is the best.
snicewanger@yahoo.com
