Hopes, dreams driving forces in Indy 500

The Indianapolis 500 falls on the only calendar date that I devote to auto racing — the open-wheel guys, that is. Any Southern kid who could tell the Bodine brothers (Brett, Geoff and Todd) apart or rooted against Jeff Gordon probably feels stronger about the good ol’ boys in NASCAR.

Stock-car racing became its own thing, so to speak, from the sport that traces to moonshine runners, its tale masterfully told by Tom Wolfe, author of “Bonfire of the Vanities,” through the experiences of iconic driver Junior Johnson. Robert Duvall’s character in “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a brash young driver, is said to be modeled after Johnson. The Cruise character, getting the ride in a big race in place of an injured rival when his own career appears headed for the pits, wins the Daytona 500 for crew chief Duvall and falls in love with his nurse (Nicole Kidman), like you knew he would.

Stock-car racing is fast enough to look dangerous yet controlled enough to allow the viewer to keep track. Dale Earnhardt won so many races in a Chevrolet product that it was said rival drivers might break into a showroom to “see what the front end of a Lumina looked like.” In a TV movie, Barry Pepper played the driver of the No. 3 car who lost his life on the last lap at Daytona one year. In another day, Earnhardt might have been Donald Trump’s choice as running mate this November.

Some good movies have been made about auto racing’s true golden boys, those who drive at Indianapolis and on the international circuit. John Frankenheimer, four years after crafting the political thriller “The Manchurian Candidate,” gave us “Grand Prix,” a snapshot of lives and loves during an international season. Yves Montand, who had a fling with Marilyn Monroe while married to Oscar-winning actress Simone Signoret (“Room at the Top,” for which she was honored in 1959), plays the circuit’s greatest star, Jean-Pierre Sarti, wooing Eva Marie Saint while locked in a loveless marriage with Genevieve Page.

James Garner plays the American lead, who it may not surprise you to know wins the year-end title. Roger Ebert writes of a telegraphed ending to “Airport” because “you and I know that a plane piloted by Dean Martin never crashed.” Steve McQueen, who later made his own racing movie, might have been a better choice than Garner, who, regardless of being typecast, charmingly played a driver with a checkered past.

A.J. Foyt Jr. is the mold and model for every succeeding generation of drivers. The Houston-born legend, eight months shy of his 90th birthday, is the only driver to sweep the Indy 500 (first four-time champion), the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Daytona 500 and the 24 Hours of Daytona. His hands belong on a steering wheel like Clark Gable’s on screen around a lover.

A.J. was not exactly a poster child of political correctness in a day when style points were not allotted and deducted. He took up horse racing with son A.J. III, nicknamed Tony, one of his trainers. In 1986, when Bill Shoemaker won at Churchill Downs at the appointed hour, Foyt entertained possibilities of a Kentucky Derby-Indy double in May. Rare Brick, one of the fastest horses seen at Oaklawn, though not getting past the Rebel Stakes, lived out Foyt’s public nightmare that “he might be like one of those cars and just blow up.”

They’ll play “Back Home in Indiana” before Sunday’s 500-mile race, although Jim Nabors (TV’s Gomer Pyle) is no longer around to voice the lyrics. Gone also is little Eddie Sachs, who gambled on tires late when Foyt won his first Indy title in 1961 and, along with another driver, was fatally injured early in the 1964 race, also won by A.J.

Almost anyone named Unser who can remove a gas cap has won the race. Mario Andretti could do it only once (1969) and his son, Michael, perhaps the greatest Indy also-ran, not at all. Michael could drive my car any day, as could Sachs, Dan Gurney or Lloyd Ruby. Others who never crossed the brickyard finish line first.

I was barely two months old in 1955 when Bill Vukovich went over the wall on the backstretch while in front, his third-straight Indy checkered flag in sight. No one has ever won the race back-to-back-to-back, and if Vukovich was as gallant as one hears, I don’t care if it stays that way.