Long before you could carry the entire world in your hand in the form
of your phone, the Indianapolis News produced a pocked-sized history of the
Indianapolis 500.
Each volume was packed with text-heavy information – driver head shots
along with a few other photos accounted for the art in the book.
Each race had a box score that included car name and number, qualifying
speed, starting position, finishing position, laps completed and race speed or
reason out, along with highlights and key moments in the summary.
Performance histories of all Indianapolis 500 drivers were included,
along with other tidbits like birthplaces of all 500 champions (did you know
that 1932 winner Fred Frame was from Exeter, New Hampshire?), rookies of the
year, qualifying records and a lot of stuff that hardcore Indianapolis 500 fans
ate up.
The books also had accounts of the other 500-mile races at Ontario,
Pocono and Michigan.
It was a tremendous resource for ending – or starting – arguments.
Generally speaking, the cover subject was the previous year’s winner.
Drawings were the norm up until 1990, when photos were used. The 1993 book had
a nice photo of Al Unser Jr. nipping Scott Goodyear at the checkered flag – you
had to turn that one sideways.
I’m not sure how long these were produced. The oldest I’ve seen on eBay
is from 1966, with the “newest” from 2003. The Indianapolis News, the afternoon
paper, closed in 1999, but the morning paper, the Indianapolis Star, continued
the book for at least a few more years.
All this data is available on your phone now, of course, but it sure
was fun to whip one of these books out during a lull and ask the person sitting
next to you if he knew how many times the one-lap qualifying record was broken and
reset in 1972.
The answer, by the way, is five, accomplished by Bill Vukovich, Joe
Leonard, Mario Andretti, Gary Bettenhausen and Bobby Unser. Found on page 144
of the 2002 book.
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