To Catch a Ghost

The race itself was still two weeks away. Yet 225,000 fans turned out at Indianapolis' famed Brickyard to watch 56 drivers compete for 33 starting positions in what seems certain to be the fastest, scariest, and most intriguing Memorial Day 500 in history. For the nostalgic, who bemoan the passing of the old Offenhauser-powered roadsters that dominated the 500 for years, there was Lloyd Ruby, who hit 165.2 m.p.h. in his American Red Ball Special powered by a rear-mounted Offy. For patriots, unhappy that foreign "sporty car" drivers in foreign machines have won the last two 500s, there was California's Dan Gurney, who blasted his American Eagle around the track at a fantastic 167.2 m.p.h.--demolishing the four-lap record set last year by Mario Andretti. And; for aficionados of sheer daring, there was Andretti himself.

Still smarting from last year, when an oil leak forced him out of the race on the 27th lap, Andretti watched Gurney break his record, cracked: "It's nice to have something to shoot at"--and tramped on the throttle of his 500-h.p. Dean Van Lines Hawk-Ford. Shooting for 170 m.p.h., Mario came enticingly close--169.7 m.p.h.--on the third of four qualifying laps. Too enticingly. "Let me tell you, that fourth was one thrilling lap," he said later. "I lost it in the No. 1 turn, got straightened out in No. 2, then lost it again in No. 3. I finally got leveled out, thank goodness. Otherwise, I might have been the first man to finish his qualification run sideways." Andretti's four-lap average of 168.9 won him the pole.

Winning the pole is not winning the race, of course, and Andretti's toughest competitor on May 30 may well be Parnelli Jones, the 1963 champion, whose controversial new STP Special was the talk of Indy. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney aircraft turbine, the car has no clutch, only two "glow" plugs, can run on anything from kerosene to armagnac, gets twice as many miles per gallon as conventional Indy cars, and is practically soundless--emitting a sort of loud sigh as it ghosts around the track. Jones easily qualified the car at 166 m.p.h., and competitors cried foul. Among them was Andretti. "If that car is going to be allowed to compete it should be in a special class," Mario grumbled. "There's just no way a piston can compete with the horsepower developed by a turbine."

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