Death a grim chapter in the storied history of Indianapolis 500
INDIANAPOLIS Rich MacDonald was just six, trying to find his dad’s race number on the big screen through the flames and black mushroom clouds choking the track.
MacDonald, his grandfather and uncle had gone to the LA Sports Arena to watch the 1964 Indianapolis 500 live on closed-circuit television. Just two laps into the race, there was a fiery wreck and it was clear something had gone horribly wrong.
Rich MacDonald still remembers trying to find out if his father, American road racing champion Dave MacDonald, was in the wreckage.
“There was lots of fire, lots of smoke,” MacDonald said. “I remember seeing little clues. I knew my father’s number was 83. And 83 was up there. My grandfather grabbed my uncle and me out of the stadium and into the lobby area. I knew at that point there was a problem.”
MacDonald would die later that afternoon and driver Eddie Sachs also was killed.
Yes, the Indy 500 is “The Greatest Spectacle In Racing,” and Mario and Dario and milk and balloons have built an event steeped in festive tradition as it prepares to celebrate its centennial this weekend. But the race is also marked by tragedy. Just 12 laps into the inaugural race in 1911, mechanic Sam Dickson became the first to die and he certainly wasn’t the last.
Drivers, mechanics, fans, even a little boy standing across the street from the track long ago — all are part of the 500’s saddest chapter, painful memories of just how dangerous racing on the bricks and asphalt has been over the years.
At least 66 people have died because of auto racing since 1909 at the site, including 40 drivers, 14 mechanics and nine spectators. The 1930s was by far the deadliest decade with 21 deaths, while the 1950s and 1960s each saw eight people perish.
Back in 1964, Dave MacDonald lost control of his car and slammed into the inside wall. His car exploded and slid back onto the track. Sachs hit MacDonald’s car headon, and he was killed instantly.
Nearly 3,000 kilometres away, Rich MacDonald tried to flip on a TV and watch the rest of the Indy 500 that would be won by A.J. Foyt. Friends and relatives had gathered at the family home in California, many trying to give comfort to Rich and a younger sister.
MacDonald’s mother, Sherry, was at the track that day. Afterward, she withdrew from the racing community and could not imagine the idea of visiting the track again — until this year.
Rich MacDonald and Sherry, Sachs’ son, Eddie III, and Angela Savage, daughter of Swede Savage, the last driver to die in the race (1973), will all travel to the speedway this week and hope to pose for a group photo on the track. Angela Savage was born three months after her father died.
MacDonald said the group hopes to walk on the famed track and find a spot to honour their fathers — and do it with a smile. “We all had a loved one that was killed here, but it’s not going to define our lives,” Rich MacDonald said.
The sombre reality is that carnage on race day was once fairly common. And drivers are far from the only victims.
Consider the random cruelty of the race in the case of 12-yearold Wilbur Brink. He was killed while he played in his front yard on Georgetown Road when a tire sailed high over the fence and came bouncing across the street during the 1931 race after it came off the car of defending 500 champion Billy Arnold during a wreck.
Tragedy struck the 44th edition in 1960 in the stands, when a privately owned scaffold collapsed, killing two people and injuring at least 82. The last fan death came in 1987, when 41-year-old Lyle Kurtenbach was struck by a flying wheel from Tony Bettenhausen’s car. Kurtenbach’s widow filed a $9-million wrongful death lawsuit in federal court, later reaching an undisclosed settlement.
Savage was the last race-day fatality when his car hit an inside wall and exploded in flames. He died 33 days later. No driver has been killed in May at the speedway since polewinner Scott Brayton in a fatal crash testing a backup car in 1996.
“It reminds you this is a very serious business we’re involved in,” said John Menard, owner of Brayton’s car, back in ’96. “Scotty had a perfect race car, a perfect day, and a perfect track, and yet it reached out and bit him.”
Advancements in technology are credited with saving lives, with just four deaths at the speedway since 1982. After the MacDonald-Sachs crash, cars were fuelled with less volatile methanol starting in 1965.
Scotty had a perfect race car, a perfect day, and a perfect track, and yet it reached out and bit him.”