Driver of the Year

A stocky man with blond hair walked slowly around the deserted dirt race track, assessing its surface with an expert eye, calculating the bank of its curves. He made a mental note of every hole and soft spot, the oil slicks, the mud clods that could jar a hot rubber tire whirling along at more than 100 m.p.h. Melvin E. ("Tony") Bettenhausen, the year's hottest U.S. driver, and possibly the best since Ralph de Palma, 35 years ago, was planning how to drive a race.

Tony Bettenhausen, who was born the year after De Palma won the Indianapolis Speedway classic in 1915, is becoming something of a classic himself. By last week, he was well on his way to winning U.S. racing's most coveted trophy: the national championship diamond ring awarded annually by the American Automobile Association for the series of races (13 this year) that begins at Indianapolis and will wind up on Armistice Day.

"It Has to Be Steered." Bettenhausen got off to a bad start this year at Indianapolis, where he finished ninth. But when Indianapolis Winner Lee Wallard was cracked up in a race-track smash, Tony took over the winning car, a big, blue-and-gold racer owned by Murrell Belanger, a Crown Point, Ind. car dealer. Tony, who has an auto agency of his own in Blue Island, ILL., gives due credit to Owner Belanger: "You've got to have a man with money, a good car the money's being spent on." Tony knows that a winning driver also needs a sound knowledge of mechanics, a crack crew of helpers and, he adds, "of course, the car has to be steered."

At a race in Springfield, ILL. last August, he gave a demonstration of how such teamwork pays off. The track was soft and spongy as the qualifying runs began, so Bettenhausen, like his rivals, had geared his car low to reduce skidding. But when he finally made his own run the surface had turned clay-hard. Tony had Mechanic Tiny Worley hike his gear ratio for the fast track. When the starting flag dropped, he roared away from his lower-geared competition, won the event going away.

"Like Getting to the Palace." Thirteen rugged years of watching engine speeds on dashboard tachometers, of avoiding oil slicks and holes have gone into Tony's racing education. In his first race, a midget car contest in Chicago, he thought he "could just push the other guys' cars out of the way." He tried it, promptly turned over and bounced out on his head, but luckily was not badly hurt. "Brother, did I learn better!" Since then -- after three broken ribs, a seven-stitched lip, a broken arm and two severely burned legs -- Tony has averaged 40 big and midget car races a year. He chalked up his first big mark in 1941 when he topped the national midget racing circuit. Like most of his fellow drivers, he races more for love than money: "Hell, if you make $10,000 a year as a top driver, you're lucky." But Tony, who will probably make closer to $15,000 this year, has yet to win the Big One and knows why he stays with racing: "Every driver's dreaming of Indianapolis, I guess, like a vaudeville character dreaming of getting to the Palace."

With the next Memorial Day classic still beckoning from afar, Tony is not neglecting his practice. In San Jose, Calif. at week's end for the season's eleventh A.A.A. race, Tony meticulously cased the track, religiously observed his pet superstitions (no peanuts at the track, no cameras before the race, nothing with the color green). When the only driver with a chance of catching up with Tony's point total for the season failed to qualify, Bet-tenhausen was in. But he still drove as if he had everything to lose. He took the lead on the fifth lap, by the twelfth stretched it to the straightaway's length, had lapped the whole field by the 49th. His winning time for the 100 miles:1 hr. 14min. 12 sec.

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