Indianapolis 500 Lineup of the Day: One and Done

I meant to have this post done in time to go in tandem with the Indianapolis 500 / “May Madness” bracket from a few weeks ago because it’s also sort of college-basketball themed.

Like college basketball today, the Indianapolis 500 also has had its share of “one and dones” – one-time participants in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. By my count, 737 drivers have been in the race. Of that, nearly one-third drove only once, which astounded me. (Note: I counted 240 drivers with only one appearance; I did NOT count the five rookies from last year – J.R. Hildebrand, James Hinchcliffe, Jay Howard, Charlie Kimball and Pippa Mann – because it’s possible they will be in the 500 again. I also didn’t count Sebastien Bourdais, who drove in the 2005 race and seems a likely candidate to compete again this year.)

The most notable “one-timers” of course are Ray Harroun and Juan Pablo Montoya. It’s well known that Harroun had retired from racing, came back to drive the Marmon Wasp in the inaugural Indianapolis 500, then retired again. It’s possible Montoya could race again in the 500, but at this point he seems content to have traded an excellent open-wheel career for a middling one in NASCAR.

From the list of 240, I listed everyone alphabetically from best finishing position (Harroun and Montoya, first) to worst finishing (Francis Quinn, listed as 40^th in 1931).

So here’s the “Greatest 33” among one-time participants (finish in parentheses):

Row 1

1. Ray Harroun (1)

2. Juan Pablo Montoya (1)

3. Arthur Duray (2)

Row 2

4. Christian Fittipaldi (2)

5. Howdy Wilcox II (2)

6. Fabrizio Barbazza (3)

Row 3

7. Percy Ford (3)

8. Bob Carey (4)

9. Al Holbert (4)

Row 4

10. Carl Marchese (4)

11. Eddie Miller (4)

12. Myron Stevens (4)

Row 5

13. Johnny White (4)

14. Theodore Pilette (5)

15. Sam Posey(5)

Row 6

16. Lewis Durant (6)

17. Ray Pixley(6)

18. Mickey Rupp (6)

Row 7

19. Len Zengel (6)

20. Louis Chiron (7)

21. I.P. “Red” Fetterman (7)

Row 8

22. Carl Forberg (7)

23. Jim Hickman (1982) (7)

24. Tony Renna (7)

Row 9

25. Luigi Villoresi (7)

26. Joe Horan (8)

27. Art Johnson (8)

Row 10

28. Charlie Keene (8)

29. Jeff MacPherson (8)

30. Johnny Mauro (8)

Row 11

31. Andy Michner (8)

32. Max Sailer (8)

33. W.H. Turner (8)

Some interesting names in that top 33. The third-place finish by Fabrizzio Barbazza in 1987 won a little money, er, a few jelly beans for me, from the 500 pool at the Jewel/Osco I worked at while in college. Sports car ace Al Holbert finished a fine fourth in 1984 and couldn’t even snag a share of Rookie of the Year honors. (That went to Michael Andretti and Roberto Guerrero.) There were two Jim Hickmans who started once. In addition to the Jim Hickman noted above who finished seventh in 1982 (winning Rookie of the Year), another Jim Hickman was 22^nd in 1933.

That’s one of the fun things about the 500 – there is so much history that you can spend an afternoon (or a few weeks) going through the drivers and concocting your own “best of” races or lineups – drivers who never won, Rookies of the Year, drivers who qualified on the front row and so forth.

Photo credit: Indianapolis Motor Speedway photos.