Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years Read Online Free PDF Page B

journalists at a little downtown steak house called St. Elmo's, famous
for its mouth-frying shrimp cocktail sauce and tender beef. We
planned to rise early and be at the trackside long before the prerace
festivities got underway at ten o'clock. But I was awake far earlier than
expected, when a hot breeze rolled into my bedroom. I checked the
clock: 3 a.m. and already it was stifling. Unless a cold front arrived, Indianapolis would be blanketed in insufferable humidity by the time
the green flag fell.

    The cavernous grandstands were slow to fill, the throng (estimated
at two-hundred thousand) perhaps sensing that a late arrival would
minimize exposure to the heat. By ten o'clock the thermometer outside the Associated Press hut read 88 degrees. A steamy layer of soft
nimbus clouds hung over the track, and people were already dabbing
their foreheads with soaked handkerchiefs.
    The Purdue University marching band was a traditional performer
at the prerace ceremony. It would accompany Martin Downey in his
rendition of local favorite "Back Home in Indiana." The program
went according to plan until a pretty blonde drum majorette keeled
over with heat prostration. She was followed by four band members,
who went down like tenpins in heat-induced faints.
    The cars were rolled out of their garages and pushed onto the front
straightaway, there to be swallowed up by a sea of sweating pit crewmen, VIPs, journalists, and track officials. The drivers, sensing a long,
hot ride, were wearing polo shirts, ignoring fire protection in favor of
simple ventilation.
    Whistles blew and a battalion of track guards wearing blue shirts
and yellow ties-a uniform resembling the Indiana State Highway
Patrol began to clear the grid.
    Only the cars, their drivers, and the crews stood on the bricks.
Then came the world-famous words from speedway boss Wilbur
Shaw: "Gentlemen, start your engines."
    Starters whined. Engines blurted into life. A cheer swept through
the grandstand. William Clay Ford, the son of the founder of modern automotive transportation, eased onto the track at the wheel of
his white Ford Sunliner convertible pace car. Ford slowly accelerated to lead the field on a pair of pace laps. Vukovich's gray Fuel
Injection Special was flanked by fellow Californians Freddy
Agabashian in the Granatelli brothers' Kurtis-Kraft roadster and Jack McGrath in Jack Hinkle's narrow, bright maroon, upright dirttrack Kurtis.

    Meldley rushed off to the first turn with his camera, hoping to get
some early race action. Dripping sweat, I made off to the pits to await
any emergency stops.
    The race started. Deafening thunder as the field pounded past and
slashed out of sight. A minute later they reappeared, with Vukovich
already well out in front. Lap one of two hundred.
    Four laps and a yellow flag. Caution. Andy Linden, a burly ex-navy
boxer from Manhattan Beach, had started fifth among the fast guys,
but had lost control in the second turn and slammed into the wall. I
headed for the infield hospital, where the chief doctor, C. B. Bohner,
had set up a small army of physicians, nurses, and ambulance drivers
to handle the inevitable crunch of injuries among the massive crowd
and the competitors.
    As I trudged through the infield, I passed a row of bizarre scaffolds
that had been erected along the main straightaway. They looked like
medieval assault towers, built out of spindly pipe frames used as temporary construction and painters' platforms, and enterprising fans
had erected them for better race viewing. Though they were guywired, they looked over-packed and dangerously wobbly. A year later,
one such structure would topple, killing several people. The towers
were subsequently banished from the Speedway.
    Seven tents had been erected around the infield hospital. Already a
cluster of cots was occupied by victims of the rising heat. Nurses were
applying cold packs and offering water to patients as the ambulance
hauling