Daytona 1959: 'That was no place for Indycar'

Undaunted, USAC returned two months later for what was scheduled to be a 100-mile National Championship event followed by a 100-mile Formula Libre race for sports cars, Formula 1 and Indycars. But practice gave a preview of the uncertainty awaiting the competitors and the effects of speeds no one could imagine back then.

Al Keller, Jerry Unser and Bob Veith all took wild rides and experienced what had to be the first signs of aerodynamics in an Indycar. Keller spun several times down the front straightaway after the rear end of his Central Excavating Kuzma roadster just “lifted off the ground. I had no warning and I was probably doing close to 180mph,” he told eyewitnesses.

“Jerry was in our dirt car and hit a dip in the track and hit the wall real hard,” says AJ Watson of Leader Card fame. “So he was done.”

Veith wound up in hospital with a bum shoulder after crashing down the backstretch and flipping into the infield – but landing on all four wheels. A gust of wind had turned his car sideways.

Qualifying was a sight to behold as Amick threw down an incredible lap of 176.887mph and Tony Bettenhausen, who had run 177mph in the Novi in Italy the year before, had practised a tick under 180mph. Pat Flaherty, the 1956 Indy winner, found the pace hard to comprehend: “It’s hard to realise your enormous speed, and it’s exhausting.” Dick Rathmann, elder brother of Jim, who had taken Teague’s place for the Sumar team, stuck his conventional roadster in the show at 173.210mph and said: “There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than driving here.”

Despite his eye-opening speed, Amick didn’t discount the challenge ahead. “Perhaps it takes more experience to drive at Indy, but this course is tough because you don’t get a chance to relax anywhere.”

Then, in what turned out to be an eerily prophetic comment, he added: “If you lose it here, your rump is a grape.”

Rathmann paced the first lap before Ward took the point, but his day ended in Turn 4 on lap four. “Rodger was leading and I was in third, and I saw some moisture on the track as we approached Turn 2,” says Christie. “He lost it and I thought he was going to spin down into the infield so I went high, but he was headed right for the fence and I clipped his tail. That started him spinning down the track and I zigged back and forth almost the length of the straightaway before I finally got my car straightened out. But by hitting him, I saved Ward’s life, I know I did.”

With Ward gone, Jim Rathmann managed to hold off brother Dick and Christie, but the USAC fraternity was just relieved to get out of Florida without any more fatalities.

“It was terrible,” says Foyt, who tamed deadly tracks such as Langhorne with relative ease. “We didn’t have the proper tyres and those cars weren’t built to run at a track like that with those speeds. It was like racing a roadster in the snow and you stayed puckered all day. Like I said, it scared the hell out of me.”

Even in the macho world of USAC racing circa 1959, the risks were too big. A return for the July 4 race was cancelled. “I don’t feel like there’s a car that can be built that will be safe at these speeds,” said Ward, who would win twice at Indy. “The driver only has a certain few opportunities to escape serious trouble.”

NASCAR issued a statement that said the deaths of the two drivers could not be blamed on its track. Then Nat Purcell, executive director of NASCAR, said what everyone had figured out: “The track is engineered far ahead of the automotive industry. Car designers and engineers have a lot to learn about wind resistance.”

Another NASCAR release said: “A close examination of driving and aerodynamic conditions existing between 160 and 200mph should be made before Speedway (Indy) cars are sent into competition at Daytona again.”

Of course, Indycars never returned to the beach, at least not to race on those daunting banks. Watson said Ward had already hinted he’d never be back and that seemed to be the general mindset of the bravest men of that era.

“I enjoyed running stock cars at Daytona,” says Foyt, who won NASCAR’s crown jewel in ’72. “But that was no place for an Indycar.”