Life and Death at Indy

one point in last week's disastrous Indianapolis 500, one of the thousands of sodden revelers camped out in the axle-deep infield mud aptly summed up the utter madness of it all. Asked what he thought of the world's largest, richest and costliest racing event, he said: "What race?"

Good question. One rationale for the Indy has been that it encourages innovations in auto design, especially in safety devices. It is also supposed to be a stellar sporting event, a contest of skill. Neither is true. Rather, the Indy has become a vast ritual of the auto culture, with violence and increasing speed goals as the icons. Some 300,000 spectators show up, many of them having traveled long distances for the chance to wheel their cars and campers into the infield, break out the barbecues and beer coolers, and join a kind of high-octane happening. Others pay up to $40 a ticket knowing that they will watch more of an attrition process than a race, that most drivers will never finish the 200 laps, that crackups are virtually certain to occur. The prospect of flaming crashes and shattered bodies and the knowledge that fans are also exposed to risk seem to be part of the allure.

Bad Omens. The only sure Indy winners are the crowd's feeders and keepers. Indianapolis turns into a commercial carnival for the race. This year local businessmen successfully lobbied to have the race date moved from Saturday to Monday of the Memorial Day weekend so that they would have two more days of heavy profit. Motel owners charged $150 and up for a minimum three-day stay. Cab drivers were getting $12 for rides to the Speedway that normally cost $2.25. Service stations began charging for the use of lavatories that are normally free.

This year the omens were bad even before the race began. Driver Art Pollard was killed on May 12 during the elimination trials. On race day, a threatening sky did not reduce the throng that turned out to see wonders like Linda Vaughn, a busty blonde in gold lame, parade on behalf of a transmission manufacturer. The racing cars were billboards on wheels, plastered with ads for everything from beer to motor homes.

Custom calls for the 33 cars to line up three abreast in eleven rows, circle the track and then gradually quicken the pace for a nice orderly start. But once the winged, turbo-charged monsters come roaring down the final straightaway at 150 m.p.h., each trying to jump lanes or sneak ahead, the result is more like a motorized stampede.

As in recent years, the scramble at the start caused another devastating accident. Moments after the starting flag dropped, David ("Salt") Walther got caught in a squeeze midway in the pack and veered so sharply that his car went sailing into a wire-mesh fence in front of the stands, cartwheeled down the track and exploded in a flaming shower of debris. Three other drivers and a dozen spectators were injured. Walther was taken to the hospital in critical condition, with a broken wrist and burns over 40% of his body. The race, halted after the accident, was then postponed when it again began to rain.

The next day was more of the same --more delays, more downpours, another frustrating postponement. Fans meandered about in the mud, bored and, in some cases, broke. The drivers passed the time tossing Frisbees in Gasoline Alley, starting impromptu soccer games and playing gin rummy.

Inevitably, talk among the drivers turned to the one problem that concerns all Indy competitors and the future of the race itself: safety. In pursuit of the richest purse in racing, the syndicates that build the $33,000 space-age racing machines have reached a point where many drivers think they are sacrificing safety to attain speeds of 200 m.p.h. and more. Britain's David Hobbs described driving on the ancient, windswept Indy track as "the art of low-level aviation." A.J. Foyt, three-time Indy winner, does not share the peculiar machismo that causes some drivers to resist safety changes. "The speed in big-time racing today," Foyt says, "is so fast it scares me."

The third and final attempt to run the race was as tragic as it was tawdry.By Wednesday the Speedway grounds were a littered, swampy mess. The race itself seemed almost anticlimactic. Then, on the 58th lap, Driver Swede Savage's car skidded out of control at 170 m.p.h., ricocheted off two walls and burst into flames. Jumping out of one of the pits to see what had happened, Mechanic Armondo Teran, 22, was struck by a rescue truck speeding the wrong way up the pit road. Savage was listed in critical condition with splintered legs and extensive burns. Teran died, the 58th fatality in the 57 years of the Indy.

The race resumed after a 75-minute delay, but finally and mercifully, with night and another downpour descending, the action was halted after 133 of the scheduled 200 laps. Gordon Johncock, whose Eagle-Offenhauser was one of only eleven cars still running, was declared the winner and given a check for $236,022. The traditional victory banquet was canceled -- one of the few smart moves of the entire event.

The wisest action of all came at week's end, when several drivers threatened not to return next year unless the track is improved and changes made in the safety code. If reforms are made, fans will have to settle for a contest of skill rather than a blood spectacle.

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