THE INDIANAPOLIS 500 : The Indy 500 Today: Bigger, More Expensive

INDIANAPOLIS —  Ask the oldtimers around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to describe the biggest change in Indy-car racing over the past 30 years and the answer is a unanimous one. Money.

The speed of the cars and the drivers who hit the walls remain the topics of the headlines. But beneath the surface is money -- the very essence of motor racing today.

Driving a race car always has been an expensive proposition, the oldtimers say, but in 1987 a team without major financial backing has no chance to cross the finish line first in today’s 71st Indianapolis 500.

Everything is bigger and more expensive in 1987. Teams can have up to 30 members, all with different responsibilities, and the top teams all have three or four cars.

“In the old days, when I was running, it wasn’t like that at all,” said Sam Hanks, who won the race in 1957 at age 42. “My car was built by George Salih in Whittier, Calif., in his garage. Today, they’ve got three and four cars as a backup. We only had one car and one engine. That’s one of the big changes.”

Of course, the evolution of race cars from thin-wheeled, front-engine machines of 30 years ago to today’s aerodynamic rear-engine cars has cost a great deal of money.

“We started out in 1961 with 8-inch (wide) wheels, front engines, and tubular frames,” said Roger McCluskey, an executive vice president of the United States Auto Club who ran in 18 Indianapolis 500s between 1961 and 1979. “We end up today with ground effect rear-engine cars, 15-inch wheels, and turbocharged engines.”

Hanks was the first driver to earn more than $100,000 for winning the race, but that amount pales next to the $581,063 check Bobby Rahal received in 1986.

The expense of developing cars that can run up to 230 mph in the straightaways has forced the small-time operator out of auto racing, said Donald Davidson, a statistician and historian for USAC who saw his first Indianapolis 500 in 1964. A top-flight engine and chassis today costs between $200,000 and $225,000, excluding the gearbox, wheels and tires.

“The money has just spiraled,” Davidson said. “Racing has always been expensive, but it began to take off in the early ‘60s and was very much in effect in the early ‘70s.

“Now it’s to the point where the owners, in a lot of cases, they’ll ask a driver, ‘How much money (in sponsor guarantees) have you got.”’

The type of person driving a race car also has evolved in the last 30 years. Today’s driver is better educated and more technologically aware, McCluskey said. Davidson said today’s drivers consist mostly of “rich kids” who have not had to fight and scratch their way to the top.

The spirit and competitiveness of the drivers and mechanics have not changed and probably never will.

“Somebody is always trying to do it better than the other guy,” McCluskey said. “That’s the name of this game. Regardless of what you do, the name of the game is to win.”

Added Davidson: “If you were to tell them (drivers) on the morning of the race there’s been a terrible accident, there’s no prize money today, they’d race just as hard. That’s always been the case.”

As for the 300,000 fans who pack the Speedway on race day, today’s crowd is cruder than in the early days although then, as now, people just want to be part of the Indianapolis 500 scene.

“There was always an infield crowd, but in the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, it was a picnicky type of place,” Davidson said. “It didn’t really become a problem until the mid ‘60s, when the morality changed. It’s a lot raunchier now.”

Hanks, who was director of racing at the Speedway for 24 years after he retired, has seen first-hand the changes in the sport.

“It’s been a heck of a change,” he said. “They (drivers) are pretty business-like as far as public relations go to keep their commercials and make their sponsors happy. But they do whatever the (money) counter says on public appearances and so forth. That (money) is what makes the whole ballgame go around.”