Remembering Gary Bettenhausen

My mother, for reasons not entirely clear to me, was a big Gary Bettenhausen fan.

Maybe it was because, like my mother, he was from Illinois.

Maybe it’s because he stopped his car and got out to help Mike Mosley when he had his fiery crash in 1971.

Maybe it’s because he dominated the first Indianapolis 500 she attended in 1972 before dropping out late.

She was particularly delighted to draw his name in the office pool in 1974. Unfortunately, Bettenhausen lasted only two laps, finishing 32^nd due to engine trouble.

Fast forward 17 years to 1991, and Gary B. is turning practice laps that put him at the top of the speed charts. I’m now on the other side of the wall, a young sports writer covering the Indianapolis 500 for the Logansport Pharos-Tribune.

After one practice run, Bettenhausen steps out of the car, and I ask him a few questions, scribbling furiously in my notebook to get the story for my readers, which I will bang out on my Radio Shack TRS-80.

I look the part of a professional journalist. Until I break protocol and ask, on impulse, if he could sign an autograph to my mother, who, I mentioned, was a very big fan of his.

This is a pretty serious no-no. In fact, it’s spelled out in the credential form agreement to not do this – for obvious reasons.

But if a son can’t do something nice for his mother once in a while, what good is he?

When I presented the autograph to my mother, she was absolutely delighted and kept it for the rest of her life, passing in 2004.

Thanks, Gary B.