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Indy's in decline now. Spec cars and engines. Spec tires. Shifter kart drivers from almost anywhere but the USA, let alone the west coast. Time for a trip in the Way-Back Machine...

3. Bill Vukovich, Fresno / Kurtis 500A, Glendale, CA. Almost won it in '52 in the first of the Kurtis roadsters; did win it in '53 and '54 in the same car; was way ahead in a newer Kurtis in '55 when; well, you already know. (How many of us were there that day and remember wondering for that awful hour?) Lead more than 70% of the laps he ever ran at Indy. Won six of the eight last races at Gilmore Speedway in Hollywood. Was Vic Edelbrock's not-so-secret weapon at the same track winning the '45 and '46 URA midget championships. Won the 1950 AAA midget crown at the end of the golden era of the midget.

2. Louis Meyer, Boyle Heights (as a youth) / various Millers and Offies, Los Angeles. Won as a rookie in '28 in an ostensibly inferior rear-driver from the shop on the corner of Long Beach and Adams Boulevards during the reign of the ferocious little front-drivers from the same store. Won again in '33 and '36 in Miller-Offenhausers (with three additional top-five finishes) during the so-called "junk formula" when the big three in Michigan tried to (and did) finally run old Harry out of business. Joined Dale Drake to pick up the Miller batton from Fred Offenhauser when he retired after WWII and oversaw Fred's and Leo Goosen's legacy all the way through the 500-horsepower Novi's and the turbocharged Offies of the '70s.

1. Frank Lockhart, Hollywood, CA / Miller '91 rear-drive, Los Angeles. Won as a rookie from 20^th starting position in '26; led 110 of the 120 laps he ran until his blown Miller broke in '27. Led more than half the laps he ran at Indy in his only two years there. Leader records that stood for decades. King of the boards at Culver City and pretty much everywhere else in rear-drivers that were supposed to be way inferior to the front-drive '91s driven by lap record monster Leon Duray, Ralph Hepburn, and almost Indy winner and board track great Benny Hill, et al. (See the photos at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Arminius_Miller.) Overwhelming at Legion Ascot in Frontenacs and Millers. Co-invented the intercooler. Expired in '27 after two horrendous flips in the sand at Daytona in a 183-C/I Miller trying to break the unlimited land speed record. Someone really ought to make a film about this strange, obsessed, domineering little guy who never weighed more than 135 lbs. in his life but became as big a celebrity in the '20s as Babe Ruth and Red Grange.

Okay... your turn.

Jones, Hurtabies, Rathman, Ward, sorry for the bad spelling.

1952 winner Troy Ruttman, youngest driver to win the 500, last driver to win in a traditional upright car. (Agiganian spl.)

Joe would be hard to top, that's for sure, but I moved to Phoenix from Torrance in 57 and then Jimmy Bryan was the "man". From 1954 thru 1958, Brian amassed more points than anyone ever had in a five-year period in champ cars. Also, during that time, he won the Monza Race of Two Worlds in Italy in 1956... AZ, I know, but I've always connected the racers from both states since I moved back and forth until 74.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true. 

No question everyone mentioned thus far belongs in the front rows.

Ward (mostly on asphalt, though he had come from clay; he was The Real Deal at Balboa and Gilmore) and Bryan (on pretty much anything) were hugely successful in the late '50s and early '60s. Ward's early record at Indy was not a good one, but once he figured the place out (and moved into A. J. Watson cars), he ran off six straight top five finishes, five "podiums" (if they'd had them) and two wins, as well as that squeaker loss to Jim Rathman in 1960. His run of success was entirely in Watson-built roadsters from Glendale, CA. Rodger even ran the pants off the shifter boys on the Lime Rock, CT, road course in a Kurtis midget.

And much as Leon Duray had done 29 years' earlier at the same track, Jimmy put it to the Old World guys on their home turf, albeit when the European formula was only 2.5 litres, and the Offies were 4.2. Bryan had three top-three finishes in nine shots at Indy, as well as his win in Quinn Epperly's laydown Offy roadster in '58 (the same George Salih-owned car that had carted L.A.'s Sam Hanks to the checker the year before). Epperly's shop was in Lawndale.

Sam chose to call it a career after his 17th run at Indy; Jimmy should have done the same, perhaps. He died in a champ car at Langhorne in '60.

Parnelli's focus and detrmination is clear in the 492 laps he lead, as well as his two wins and four top-ten finishes in only seven tries at Indy. He, too, was a Watson man, for the most part. But Parnelli came close to his third win in Andi Granatelli's turbine-powered, whispering ghost in 1967. That car was built by Andy's far more svelt younger brother, Vince, at their shop in Santa Monica.

Duray's feat at Monza (in '29) was as remarkable in its way as Bryan's because the Millers were not supposed to be able handle the tighter right turns and other complexities of the long course at Monza. Duray simply drove the track like he was on clay. The tires took a beating, but he seemed to know exactly how much beating they would take, at least in qualifying. He scorched the existing track record the fourth time he toured the circuit.

He sandbagged the race itself, having pre-arranged the sale of his two Packard Cable Specials to Etore Bugatti, who copied the upper ends of the straight eights, as well as other bits and pieces of Harry's, Fred's and Leo's artwork for his own, very successful Type 50 and 51 cars.

The two Millers remained in Molsheim until they were discovered under piles of dust in '59. One was shipped to the US by Car and Driver writer Griff Borgeson, and restored. The other was also returned to the U.S. and restored. The latter went to the Smithsonian (re-painted as Duray's black and white #4); the former was in LA County's Museum of Science and Industry for a long time, before heading to the Smithsonian, but I'm not sure that either one of these stunners is still there.

I saw both cars run at Monterey in 1993. Both had the single- (rather than dual-) manifold exhausts and positively roared, rather like big-bore Offies as opposed to what I had expected from the eight tiny cylinders.

A photo of the Ralph Hepburn (who was later done in by a Fred-and-Leo-designed Novi) Miller appears at http://americanhistory.si.edu/ONTHEMOVE/collection/object_1183.html.

There are a number of West Coast folks of considerable note who haven't been mentioned yet, however. One of them started on the pole six times and won four. Three others from not quite the West Coast (but a place in which CRA and SCRA have raced a lot) won a total nine 500s, several of them in Offy-powered cars (before the Ford-Cosworth flood).

Another two-time winner spent most of his life in L.A., drove Harry 's, Fred's & Leo's gear, and claimed with considerable reason to have "made" Harry, Fred and Leo.

And another -- the first guy ever to take the checker in an Offy four-banger -- had such serious difficulties with his old lady, he wound up in the clinker for quite some time.

Okay. I debated including this quartet in the teasers above because I thought it was so obvious that someone would surely come up with it. Then I realized that it might be interpreted as a slight to people who are still lurking about in the current chain of events, so...

The L.A.-based driver was a three-time Indy winner, once in a rear-drive Offy (after abandoning his pole-sitting Maserati), and twice in front-drive Offies (yes; there were such things). These torpedoes (which is pretty much what they looked like) were built by L.A.'s Norman Timbs and Emil Deidt for a guy named Lou... something.

Deidt went on to build new Novi's for Andy G., as well as Scarabs for a make-up company heir.

The driver had five other top-ten finishes at Indy in one of the great careers ever on asphalt... and bricks.

raj

Are you talking about Mauri Rose?

Grady

. 

How about the Mears Gang out of Bakersfield?

"One of them started on the pole six times and won four."

Ziggy: "How about the Mears Gang out of Bakersfield?"

Rick certainly knew how to get the job done (see above) for midwest-based Roger P., but Roger Mears' major successes were in off-road.

But, no; there's another "family" out there. And the tall, skinny, grand old man of that family had a speed shop in L.A. where he built engines with a guy named Blaine Smith. The family did so well they have a museum somewhere in the "west" that proves how well all five of them did over the course of about a half a century.

Grady: "Are you talking about Mauri Rose?"

While he came and went from the midwest a fair amount, Mauri had a residence in L.A. (I think Hollywood, but I'm asking for verification here) for many years, and was a regular around the Fred- and Lou-and-Dale-era shop. So yeah; the great Mauri Rose.

But we're still MIA on the guy who won two 500s, hovered over Leo in Miller's shop (after abandoning a major midwest concern) and (said at least, that he) contributed quite a bit to the design of what ultimately became the single most succesful racing engine ever to come from L.A., which Leo later confirmed.