1958 Indianapolis 500 Film

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This is the 42nd Indianapolis 500, from May 30, 1958.

This race had a bizare and tragic start. 1958 was the second year that USAC used a single-file procedure to send the cars out, instead of lining them up 3-wide onthe reack in their starting assignments. But it proved disastrous. First, the entire front row of Dick Rathmann, Ed Elisian, and Jimmy Reece were erroneously placed ahead of the pace car.

Then, trying to lead the first lap (there had been a lot of talk about that leading up to the race), Ed Elisian lost control, taking Rathmann to the wall, starting a massive 15-car crash which involved each car fro the first two rows (Jimmy Bryan came out of that mess with the lead, and he started seventh). Pat O'Connor ran over top of Reece's car, flipped, and was killed. One aspect of this crash we don't see was Jerry Unser, the oldest of the Unser brothers, going over the wall. Others involved in the crash included, but were not limited to, Jim Rathmann, Paul Russo, NASCAR driver Paul Goldsmith, who had won the final race on the Daytona Beach and Road Course earlier that year, and a rookie named A.J. Foyt.

Despite all that, and the 18 laps of caution from that wreck, this race was extremely competitve, with up to seven cars battling for the lead before Bryan eventually took control, and going on to an easy win, which was the icing on perhaps the greatest career in the 1950s for a driver in that type of racing (he had already won three AAA/USAC championships, including the previous two).

But as Brock Yates noted, nearly half the drivers in this race would lose their lives in race cars, including Bryan, runner-up George Amick, Jerry Unser, Tony Bettenhausen, Sr., and Elisian, who started that massive pile-up.

All credits go to SPEED (SpeedVision, it's predecessor, aired this prsentation), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the producers and sponsors of this presentation.

If there are any others who I'm forgetting, please let me know so I can add them to the list of those to credit.