EZY Did It

When he got nervous, taciturn Lou Moore showed it by licking the right corner of his mouth. He had been nervous since the day in mid-October when he took the money from the mortgage on his North Hollywood, Calif, home and began building a pair of autos to win the Indianapolis 500-mile race. In seven months, he put $57,000 worth of bronze, aluminum and steel, each part laboriously hand-tooled, into his sleek four-cylinder front-wheel-drive beauties.

An old race driver himself, Designer Moore picked his two drivers carefully: he knew that one slip on race day would twist a Moore car into junk. His choices: 1) rabbit-faced, mustached Mauri Rose, a speedway veteran; 2) Bill Holland, a dirt-track expert who had never driven in Indianapolis' famed 500.

Last week, before the biggest (130,000) crowd that any U.S. sport event brings together, the two drivers slid into the cockpits of Lou Moore's identical light-blue racers. The field of 30 speedsters, their temperamental engines sucking in blends of gas and alcohol, snarled through the first lap at 122 m.p.h.

The Man in the Pit. Once they were strung out around the big brick-&-asphalt saucer, the drivers had not the foggiest notion of their relative position in the race. They relied, as speedway drivers must, on the mechanics in the pit for information, pace instructions, fuel, repairs. Unlike the racehorse owner, who can only watch after his thoroughbred takes the track, Car Owner Lou Moore stood in the pit, busy, nervous, efficient.

He was only vaguely aware of the smells and sounds of the race. His stopwatch clicked as Driver Holland whizzed by. After rapidly computing seconds into m.p.h., Moore said:"Give him two more." A black pit-board with Holland's name on it was held up the next time he roared past the pits. Seeing the chalked message --" + 2"--Holland stepped up his speed by two miles an hour. After 50 miles, the other driver, Mauri Rose, bobbed his hand as he whirled past to show he understood his "O.K." message from the pit; his speed was just right. Moore's high-speed cars were in second and third place.

Growls & Whines. Pulverized rubber, burned off the tires by the rough brick track, soon painted a black film on drivers' faces. Some drivers carried powder-puffs, some chamois, to wipe smudged goggles. The cars bounced down the rough straightaway, giving off pungent exhaust fumes; the vibration was hard on drivers' wrists and backs. But the awareness that each turn might mean disaster kept them tense and alert. The basso profundo of a Mercedes growled sullenly out below the whine of Maser and Offenhauser engines as the pack circled the 2 1/2-mile oval.

At one minute past noon, after 100 miles, the crowd stood up as Holland's blue racer got into a traffic jam streaking into the southwest turn. Young Bill cut sharply to the inside and off the track, dug a deep track in the grass and shot back on to the brick. Behind him a bright orange racer spun out of control, turned two circles and crashed into the outside retaining wall. Oil from its wounded motor oozed downward across the speedway but there was no pace slackening; other cars splashed through the puddle. Within a few minutes, the loudspeakers announced that William ("Shorty") Cantlon, driver of the orange car, was dead.

The men in the pits were too busy to look up for more than an instant. Bill Holland, who had taken the lead (earning $100 in prize money for each lap he led) rolled in to the pit for his first stop. It took 14 seconds to change a weakening tire; nitrogen bottles blew fuel from drums into the tank; Holland patted his crash helmet, pulled down his goggles and sped off. The merry-go-round went on. With only 100 miles to go, Lou Moore's two drivers were running one-two.

P1. Holland was leading Rose by a few seconds. A sudden fear seized Lou Moore: would his two drivers get into a stretch rivalry, burn up his beautiful autos and drop out when the race was all but won? Time after time, on the chalk board he ordered "EZY" as Holland passed the pit. On the 193rd lap, with auto racing's biggest honor his for the taking, Rookie Holland obeyed the "EZY" sign--and Oldtimer Mauri Rose (who had cracked up on the 40th lap last year) went into the lead. When a mechanic got set to signal Rose that he was ahead--by writing "P1" (Position one) on the pit-board--Moore cautioned him: "Don't let Holland see it."

After 200 laps, and a couple more to be safe, smudge-faced Mauri Rose drove the winning car into the wire-enclosed victory cage. The seat of his pants had worn out from the bouncing he had taken. He had won the race and 35% of the $31,450 prize money the car had earned.

Teammate Holland, still thinking he had won, shut off his motor, then heard the incredible news: he had finished second. Puzzled and angry, he demanded: "Why did you keep flagging me down . . .? I pulled over and waved at Rose when he went by. ... I figured I was still laps in front." Lou Moore, whose ambition is to be what Racer-Builders Fred Duesenberg and Harry Miller were to the speedway business in prewar days, said nothing. Both his beauties had come home and that was what mattered most to him.

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