Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years (16 page)

Then silence. Shouts of alarm echoed through the forest from a single witness. Ascari had crashed on a left-hand curve known as Vialone.
It was an easy section of the track that an expert like Ascari would
hardly acknowledge. Castellotti, Villoresi, and the car's crew rushed to
the scene. Ascari had been flung from the tumbling car-it having no
seat belts, as was the accepted practice in Europe at the time. Gravely
injured, he died in Villoresi's arms in the back of an ambulance.

Italy was plunged into mourning. Ascari was a national hero,
equaled only by a few soccer players and a handful of movie stars.

Telegrams of sympathy poured in from industrial and political
leaders across Europe. The Church of San Carlo al Corso draped its
giant front columns in black, with the huge inscription: "On the last
finish line, 0 Lord, meet the soul of Alberto Ascari." His funeral was
held at the immense Piazza del Duomo in the center of Milan.
Thousands jammed the area while traffic stopped. The normal buzz of motor scooters and the incessant honking of horns fell silent, only
the ringing of a telephone in one of the houses bordering the piazza
broke the reverent silence.

Then came the numerologists and mystics, who began to reveal the
bizarre coincidences that surrounded his death.

Alberto Ascari was the son of Antonio Ascari, a brilliant race driver
for the Fiat Grand Prix team in the 1920s. While leading the French
Grand Prix at Linas-Montlhery outside Paris, Antonio Ascari crashed
to his death. The date was June 26, 1925. In memory of his father,
Alberto had refused to race on the twenty-sixth day of any monthexcept on the day of his own death, May 26, 1955. Both Ascaris, as
well as Alberto's patron saint, Antonio of Padua, were thirty-six years
old at the time. Both Saint Antonio and Alberto had been born on
June 13. Both Ascaris had died on the twenty-sixth day of the month,
or twice thirteen. Antonio had lived for 13,463 days. His son had lived
for 13,466 days. Some in the Italian press noted that both father and
son had crashed on left-hand bends on circuits with predominantly
right-hand corners.

Whatever the mystery, if any, the harsh fact remained that one of
the world's most accomplished drivers was dead. The season was not
halfway through, and Crockett, Nazaruk, Ayulo, and Ascari were
gone, with another, young Sergio Mantovani, permanently disabled.
Surely, this madness could not last.

Or could it?

THE BOMB'S DETONATION SHOOK ME OUT OF MY
cot. It was still dark. I looked at my watch. Four in the morning. I
thought of Korea. Shaking myself awake, I heard the distant honking of
horns. As I lay there it began to make sense. At this ungodly hour on
race day, the Speedway management traditionally set off a charge of
dynamite signaling that the infield gates would be opened. This triggered a mini-Oklahoma land rush as fans poured into the immense
acreage, seeking the best locations along the backstretch fence. As the
tumult continued, I crawled out of bed to wash up. Through the tiny
window over the sink, I could see that Georgetown Road was already
packed with cars, all seeking entry into the track. While I was shaving,
dawn broke, dark and threatening, with banks of low nimbus clouds
scudding in from the west.

The Newsomes cooked up breakfast for their guests. The Buick men had box seats for the race, facing the pits, while the Firestone
dealer and his wife would be guests of the company in a special section in the first turn. I was silently envied as the privileged one, sporting as I did the "99" pass pinned to my blue blazer.

"Tell that crazy bastard Vukovich to take it easy," said the older
Buick man as I left the breakfast table.

"He won't beat McGrath this year," said his partner. "That boy's too
slick for of Billy this time."

"Don't bet on either one of 'em," said Eldon, wiping a crumb of
toast from his freshly laundered bib overalls. "This place don't play no
favorites."

I walked into the yard. In the gloom, Ray Newsome was parking
cars, fender by fender, taking two dollars each from the drivers. Soon
the entire plot of Newsome's land would be a sea of automobiles. I
walked down Georgetown Road, paralleling the jammed traffic. I
passed a modest house on the opposite side of the road, where
twelve-year-old Wilbur Brink had been playing in his yard on
Memorial Day in 1931. When race leader Billy Arnold crashed in the
fourth turn, a wire wheel and tire shorn loose by the impact bounced
crazily over the Speedway grandstands and killed the child. When the
race cars ran at Indianapolis, nobody was safe.

I entered the track through a gate that permitted pre-race pedestrians to cross the main straightaway. The brick surface, having
weathered forty-four Indiana winters and the pounding of thousands
of cars during thirty-eight 500s, was shockingly rough, even to a new
pair of Bass Weejun loafers. I could not imagine how it punished a
human body in a cart-sprung race car at 180 miles an hour.

I squeezed past a blue-shirted Speedway guard, with his standardissue yellow pith helmet, into Gasoline Alley, and spotted big Ed
Keating, the general manager of Chevrolet. He was the prototypical
auto exec, well-tanned, his perfectly coiffed hair graying at the temples. His bright red blazer and ivory silk shirt were in Chevrolet theme and would match the convertible he would drive to pace the
start. He was without his star, Dinah Shore, who, despite her celebrity,
was not allowed into the all-male precincts of the garage area.

I eased into the Vukovich garage, which had been roped off. The royal
blue Hopkins with its red number 4 and the owner's rabbit-in-a-hat
symbol on its cowl, was ready. Coon nodded, silently acknowledging
my entry as Travers gapped a spare set of spark plugs on the bench.
"How ya doing, Smokey?" asked Vukovich, "Smokey" being his catchall nickname for everybody. "Look at this." He handed me a piece of
blue-lined note paper. On it was a child's neatly printed message:
"Dear Daddy. Be sure and smoke these guys today. Love Billy."
Vukovich took the paper back.

"My kid. Little bastard. He's something. Little fucker is only ten years
old. Already he wants to race. Maybe I'll make enough money to get him
into another line of work." He began to frantically work on his hand grip.

"Esther wants me to quit. She's on my ass worse than ever. For her
and the kids, she keeps saying-he began to mimic a female voice"`Come home to Fresno and run your gas stations. Be a family man
like real people.' She's right. If I win this son-of-a-bitch, you've seen
the last of me."

"Cut the shit," said Travers. "You're too fucking crazy to quit. Some
smart-ass kid comes along and people start to say, `Hey, that guy
could beat Vukie,' and you'd be back."

"Don't bet on it. I win and you've seen the last of Vukovich at
Indianapolis."

This would not be the case. Bill Vukovich Jr. would become a
fine race driver in his own right. Between 1968 and 1980 he would
compete in twelve 500-mile races, finishing second in 1973 and
third a year later.

McGrath walked in as Vukovich pumped up his ever-present hand
exerciser. McGrath, a head taller than his friend, leaned against the
bench. "Gotta watch that wind," he said.

"It's a shit day," said Vukovich.

"Whatya going to do about it?" asked Travers rhetorically.

"Nothing. The weather is the fuckin' weather. I didn't come here
for my health in the first place," he said.

"Jerry says he'll move over," said McGrath. He was referring to
Jerry Hoyt, who had won the pole on a fluke.

"He better, or I'll drive over his fuckin' ass," said Vukovich. Then a
giant gap-toothed smile spread across his face. "And that goes for you
too, asshole," he said, laughing at McGrath.

Vukovich grabbed McGrath by the arm. His vise grip tightened,
making McGrath wince with pain. "How can a skinny fucker like this
expect to run with me?" he asked no one in particular. Laughing,
McGrath pulled free. He pointed to his head. "Up here, you dumb
Russian. Here's where I beat you."

"Oh, yeah," smiled Vukovich. "Here's where I beat you." He raised
his right foot.

Both men laughed. McGrath walked to the door. Then he turned.
"Watch your ass with the wind, Vuke. I'll see you later."

"You gotta like that McGrath," said Vukovich.

"He's the one you gotta beat," said Travers, never looking up. "The
rest of those guys you can handle. But that son-of-a-bitch can get
around this place."

"If you fuckers would let me use that pop he's runnin' there'd be
no problem."

"Here we go again with that shit," said Coon. You wait and see how
long he runs before he scatters his engine."

Vukovich rolled his eyes, knowing the argument was futile and
went back to working his hand exerciser. I walked outside. A writer
for Speed Age magazine named Bob Russo was talking to McGrath.
Russo knew everybody in the business. It was believed that he had
coined the term "championship trail."

As I walked by, I heard McGrath say, "Nuke is a helluva driver, but
I just won't take the chances he does. It isn't worth it in the end."

As the cars were rolled onto the starting grid, the usual prerace festivities had ended. The Purdue University band, chilled to the bone,
had played their usual rendition of "On the Banks of the Wabash"
and the national anthem. A few celebrities eased through the crowd,
including singer Mel Torme and General Curtis LeMay, who had
opened up his strategic Air Force bases for sports car racing until
Congress shut him down.

The big guest star was Dinah Shore, who did a lap of the Speedway
in a Chevy convertible, riding in the backseat with an unlikely companion, the four-foot-high silver Borg-Warner trophy reserved for
the winner.

Vukovich barged out of his garage, smoking a small cigar. He was
headed toward the track when his friend and fellow driver Freddy
Agabashian moved in beside him. Agabashian was an old pro, having
raced in the Bay Area with Vukovich since the 1930s and having run
at Indy since 1947. He had won the pole position in 1952 aboard the
strange and wonderful Cummins Diesel, and was considered one of
the brightest and wisest of the drivers. He was also haunted by superstition. When asked to test-drive a green-painted Cummins car in
1951, he refused, until every last trace of the hue had been buffed and
sanded away.