Jigger Sirois is immortalized in Indianapolis 500 history as having bad luck during qualifying. So much so, there is an award named after him…the Jigger Award.

May 17, 1969, dawned with an overcast sky. It was Pole Day, the first day of qualifications for the Indianapolis 500.  Soon it began drizzling. The position for making the pole qualifying attempt was through a drawing. Car owner Myron Caves, an auto dealer from Fresno, drew the first attempt. Throughout the day, the drivers and their cars waited for the drizzle to stop and the track to dry. At 4 p.m., Indianapolis 500 rookie Jigger Sorois, took the Caves car on to the track for his attempt.

Caves believed that a four-lap average of 163 was necessary to make the field. Jigger’s first lap was at 161.783 mph, second was the fastest at 162.279 mph, and the third was at 160.542 mph.  On the fourth lap, Caves waved a yellow flag calling off the qualifying attempt. The rain returned, ending qualifications and continued for the next two days.

Jigger was the only person to make a qualifying attempt on this day. If his qualifying run had not been waved off, Sorois would have been in the field of thirty-three cars. On the second weekend of qualifying, Jigger got his second attempt out of three to make the field. This time, he was running in the 162 mph range and once again, the attempt was waved off. It was fast enough for Jigger to start in 26th place. On his final qualifying attempt, Sorois’s car dropped a valve on the first lap ending his chances at being in the 1969 Indianapolis 500.

Indianapolis News sports editor Dick Mittman, proposed an award be given each year by the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association (AARWBA) to the person or persons with the worst luck during the Month of May. Jigger Sorois was the first recipient.

Jigger is a nickname for Sorois, whose real name is Leon Duray Sirois. His father, Earl “Frenchy” Sirois, was a mechanic on George Salih’s crew and worked on the winning cars driven by Sam Hanks (1957) and Jimmy Bryan (1958). He also worked on Lee Wallard’s team which won the 1951 Indianapolis 500. The nickname Jigger was from another friend of his father, Jigger Johnson, a riding mechanic in the 1920s who rode with Wilbur Shaw

The award had its own trophy---a metal whiskey jigger, mounted on a base with a plaque attached. The winner was selected, and the Award was handed out during the STP press luncheon on the day before the Indianapolis 500.

Johnny Rutherford, who won the Indianapolis 500 three times (1974, 1976, and 1980), won the Jigger Award in 1983 and 1989. In 1983, he didn’t make a qualifying attempt following two crashes during practice and ending up in the hospital. In 1989, he was bumped late on the final day of qualifying by Rich Vogler. His final attempt to qualify was ended by a blown engine. Rutherford won the Indianapolis 500 three times (1974, 1976, and 1980).  In 1991, the Jigger Award was given to Roger Penske. His driver, Rick Mears, had won the pole. Teammate Emerson Fittipaldi could have been on the front row in second position, but Penske called off his qualifying run. Fittipaldi, who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1989 and 1993, won the Jigger Award in 1995 when team owner Roger Penske, who thought Fittipaldi could run faster, waved off the run. Fittipaldi won the Indianapolis 500 in 1989 and 1993. The AARWBA selected itself as the winner of the award in 1975 for losing the award. It was later found behind a door at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. The last driver to be awarded the Jigger Award was James Hinchcliffe who was bumped from the race on the final day of qualifications in 2018.

While Jigger Sorois became famous because of his bad luck at the Indianapolis 500, he wants to be remembered for his work with people who stutter. He can speak from personal experience. He began stuttering at age three after being frightened when a tornado struck nearby. He lived with the stuttering until he was in his sixties when he enrolled in an intensive therapy program. He doesn’t want children to experience the devastating impact of stuttering and gives speeches to promote the awareness of the impact of stuttering.