Brock Yates was a gifted writer and screenwriter (Smokey and the Bandit) who served as the managing editor of Car & Driver magazine from 1964 until 2006. In his book, Against Death and Time, he uses a technique which he refers to as faction. In it, the story is told by a first-person narrator as a witness to the events of the book. Today we would put this book in the historical fiction genre.
The book begins with the journalist narrator meeting Bill Vukovich at an Indianapolis boarding house in May 1953. It was Vukovich’s third trip to Indianapolis. Using old equipment, he failed to qualify in his first year. He had a comfortable lead in the 1952 Indianapolis 500 until his steering broke with eight laps to go. Yates introduces the reader not only to Vukovich but also to several of the drivers of the era and photographer Tom Medley of Hot Rod Magazine. Through the story, the reader gets a feel for the lifestyle of many drivers of the era and the Indianapolis 500. It also tells the story of the significant danger of auto racing. Unlike today, the death or serious injury to a driver was not unheard of and was accepted as a risk of the sport.
The story begins when Chet Miller took the Novi racer out and tried to establish a new track record at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 1953. He crashed and the Speedway claimed another victim. Two days later, Vukovich took to the track late in the day for his first qualifying run. Others thought he was playing Russian Roulette as it was threatening rain. His first three laps were perfect. Then the heavens opened, the wind howled…and Vukovich continued for his fourth lap around the track to win the pole.
The 1953 Indianapolis 500 was very hot, perhaps not the hottest day in Speedway history, but hot enough that most drivers were relieved by alternates, some drivers suffered from heat exhaustion, and it claimed the life of Carl Scarborough. Not Vukovich. He had a hard scrabble childhood and was used to driving a tractor in the baking Fresno, California sun. He went on to win the Indianapolis 500 leading the pack for 195 of the 200 laps.
While others on the Championship circuit continued to race, Vukovich returned to
his farm and gasoline station in California. He appeared at only one other race that year—at the California State Fair on a dirt track as an accommodation to the promoter. Vukovich, who hated driving on dirt tracks, failed to qualify for the race.
Vukovich returned to IMS in 1954 with a three-year-old car which was beset with mechanical issues, and he couldn’t get up to speed. After qualifying for the race in 19th position, others wrote him off as a competitor. They were mistaken. Once again, Vukovich dominated the race and won by a lap over his nearest competitor, Jack McGrath.
Meanwhile, the journalist/narrator follows the racing action into the gentlemanly sports car racing including Briggs Cunningham. Balancing out the carnage in championship racing, it was rare to have a bad crash in sports car racing in part because they didn’t come close to obtaining the speeds of the open-wheel racers.
The 1955 racing season was disastrous and almost ended automobile racing not only in the United States but also in Europe. It began in early March with the death of Larry Crockett at Langhorne Speedway in Pennsylvania. About six weeks later, Mike Nazaruk died at the Langhorne Speedway in a race to honor Larry Crockett. As the Indianapolis Speedway opened, Vukovich stayed at a home that backed up to the Speedway. This year, Vukovich was in a new car with a new owner, racing for his third consecutive victory. The weather on the first day of qualifying was terrible…rainy, windy. Late in the afternoon two competitors took to the track and both made the field with Jerry Holt of Indianapolis on the pole. Vukovich qualified the next day. His starting position was in the middle of the second row. This year’s race had two former winners and eight rookies in the field of thirty-three.
During a lull in qualifying, Manny Ayulo, who had worked overnight on his car, took to the track. He failed to negotiate the first turn on the third lap and died the next day. World came from Europe that popular grand prix driver Alberto Ascari had survived a crash into Monaco Bay. Four days later, he would die at the Monza Autodrome in a friend’s car that he had borrowed to work some kinks out of his back.
On Memorial Day, 1955, Vukovich appeared to be racing towards his third consecutive Indianapolis 500 victory. On lap 56, he was leading by nearly a lap when he was unable to avoid a multiple car crash in front of him. The car somersaulted over the retaining wall, landed upside down and burst into flames. Vukovich didn’t stand a chance.
The journalist narrator’s magazine story about Vukovich was cancelled. Back in Los Angeles, he was looking for his next assignment. As fate would have it, the Italian journalist covering the 24-hours of Le Mans for a magazine quit, and the journalist narrator gets on a plane to France. Much to his delight, American Briggs Cunningham would drive one of the cars along with Phil Walters. On lap 36, a racer trying to duck into the pits used his hand brake to slow down and began a multiple car wreck. Pierre LeVegh’s car became airborne and when it hit an embankment, it exploded. As bad as the Vukovich crash was, it paled in comparison to the crash at Le Mans a mere twelve days after Indianapolis which killed eighty-three spectators and injured over 120. While the race continued, the Mercedes team immediately withdrew from the race.
The journalist narrator stays in Italy for several days before returning to the United States. The story continues in California. The narrator is invited to a party where the guest of honor was heartthrob James Dean. He was just finishing the filming of Giant. Dean had a passion for speed and had raced motorcycles in addition to automobiles. His plan was to begin racing after the filming concluded in a 550 Porsche Spyder and entered a sports car race at Salinas, California. He had just picked up the car and was breaking it in when he collided with another car at Cholame, a wide spot in the road. The journalist narrator comes across the wreck as Dean is being loaded into the ambulance. Dean would die on the way to the hospital.
The tragedies of the 1955 racing season had a bright ending. Car crashes on the highways, race cars mowing down crowds, and driver deaths, changed public opinion. It took a while, but in the mid-1960s, the U. S. Congress passed the National Traffic Safety and Motor Vehicle Safety Act mandating seatbelts, padded dashboards, collapsible steering columns and other changes. The crashes also made auto racing safer. No longer would races be held on city streets and roads that were too narrow for the speeding cars. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway made significant changes to the track including a ten-foot grass apron with a low wall to separate the track from the pit area, and moving the Tower Terrace stands back from the edge of the track.
Despite all of the gore and mayhem, this is a good read. Yates doesn’t focus on the tragic but folds it into a larger story of the times.