History Lesson 
The World's Fastest Automobile Race
Mike Hiss says that 220 mph isn't really that fast. Don't you believe him.
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When I'd met him in Phoenix, Sneva had been a math teacher at the high school in his home town. He'd shown me, then, a telegram from his ninth grade class. It had said something about how they were pulling for him and they knew he could win. He put the telegram back in his pocket with a wistful look. "They don't understand" he said. "They've seen me win on the little dirt tracks and they think this is the same." He shook his head and laughed. "I hope they're not too disappointed. But they just don't understand the difference."
But it was different. Now he was in the race and he was no longer the math teacher. Now he was the principal of the high school. He frowned. "I don't know what I'm going to do about that. If we get the money, we're going to Indianapolis. I guess I'll have to quit the school and just race. It's a big chance, but . . ."
Race drivers live in an isolated world. They are so surrounded by a solid coterie of fans and hangers on that they seem to gain a distorted view of life and their own worth and the scheme and importance of all things. This is not their fault. They seldom live an ordinary life of home and family and everyday happenings. Their world is the road and travel and hotel rooms and coffee shops and race tracks and a constant exposure to the most adoring fans in the world. You can hardly be surprised if they regard themselves as being the center of the only world they know. A large bullfrog in a small pond thinks of himself as master of all he surveys. Never mind how poor his eyesight is.
In the garages, at the track, the mechanics were starting up the incredibly beautiful racing machines. They made a fulsome roar in the enclosed space, not as loud, because of the blowers, as they used to be, but still loud enough so that talking was difficult. Walter Cunningham, the astronaut, was standing around looking at Johnny Rutherford's machine. He asked vaguely, "Anyone seen Roger Penske?" No one answered him or paid the slightest attention. In the garages he was just another fan who happened to have enough pull to get into the inner sanctum.
They rolled the cars out onto the track about an hour before race time, lining them up in 13 rows of two cars each. In the 500-mile races there are 33 cars which form up in 11 rows of three each. The drivers had been called to a drivers' meeting in the lounge where the various officials would give them sundry instructions, all of which they'd heard a hundred times before. The meeting was not long. Mike Hiss came out and headed into a phone booth to call his wife back at the motel. I sat on a nearby railing, watching him laughing and talking into the phone. He struck me as having that one fundamental quality that all great drivers must have: the total absence of fear and the competitive urge that is sometimes called the killer instinct. When he got off the phone, I asked him what they'd said in the drivers' meeting. He shrugged: "Same old stuff."
"No particular instructions for this track?"
"No." He looked around. "Well, excuse me. I've got to go get something to eat and get dressed."
Not all the drivers eat before the race. I suspect it's not so much because of the old bullfighter fear of greeting an accident with a full stomach as it is nerves which rob them of their appetite.
The weather that Saturday was clear but cool. There was still dampness in the air, which meant the cars would run faster. Speed conditions were ideal. An adage in racing is that speed falls about a mile an hour for every five degrees above 80. That's why it's important to draw an early qualifying number; the later in the afternoon you make your run the slower you're probably going to go.
They did all the normal, silly formalities; introducing a wealth of people in a seemingly endless line. At times you wondered what these people had to do with racing, other than getting their name mentioned in front of a crowd of racing fans. The crowd stood it with good humor for a while, but, finally, began to catcall and yell for the race to start. Outside the track long lines of cars were still snaking over the muddy parking area. On the highway that led into the two narrow entrances to the track, cars were backed up for four and five miles in each direction. It seemed that, while the promoters had hoped for a large crowd, they weren't ready to handle one. Out in the infield a chartered bus was stuck in the deep mud. It rocked back and forth, roaring, while the PA kept up its endless drone and the drivers stood restlessly by their cars.
Champ car races are started with a running start. The cars circle the track until the starter feels they're lined up properly. Then he drops the green flag.
It took five laps to get a start. Gordon Johncock lost a wheel on the second lap, but he was able to drive back to his pits and get it replaced before the race started.
Bobby Unser was accelerating even before the flag dropped. It seemed as if he'd been able to anticipate the starter. He led the field, roaring loudly now down the straight in front of the main grandstand. Gary Bettenhausen, outside on the first row, tried valiantly to outgun Unser and take the lead coming off the first turn. But Unser was too quick. He carried Bettenhausen high as they raced into the first turn, slipped down into the groove, and pulled away, increasing his lead perceptibly. You could see, from the way he was handling the corners, that his car had been set up perfectly for the track.
When you speak of a car being tuned up or dialed in, you are speaking of the chassis. It is understood the $35-45,000 engines are in tune. A chassis is tuned by minute adjustments in the suspension and steering and other running gear. It is a slow and tedious process, involving hours in the garage and on the track. A car is tuned both for the style of the driver and for the particular track. But it goes even further than that. Since each corner is run differently, the crew will work to achieve the best balance they can, consciously giving away perfection, say, in turn four in order to get around turn two better. For the big races, the three 500-milers, up to 30 days is given to preparing the car. In the shorter races there is not that much time, and preparation usually has to be accomplished in four or five days. The big teams have two cars for their drivers: a car basically set up for the shorter races and another, probably better, that they use to run the 500's.
It quickly became obvious that Bobby Unser had the best car in the field this day. With seeming ease he continued to open his lead over Bettenhausen. Back in the tail end of the roaring line of cars Mike Hiss was doing what he'd said he'd do, passing four cars on the first lap. Because of the jumbled qualifying there were a number of slower cars between him and the leaders. Swede Savage, who'd also qualified by virtue of the draw after losing a rod in the qualifying, was running strongly at Hiss' side. They'd agreed beforehand on their strategy. Their initial concern was to make sure they didn't get tangled up with each other as they pushed their faster cars past their immediate neighbors. It had been decided that Savage would go low and Hiss, having a looser set up car, would run the high groove.
Hiss was doing just that as he came barreling out of turn four, passing a car very near the wall. He got through, but just barely, and the crowd screamed with exhilaration as he came flying down the main flat, already gaining on the car in the 21st position.
The morning before the race Gary Bettenhausen and a few of his mechanics were having lunch in a nearby motel. At another table a young mother was having trouble with her four sons, aged around 10 to 14. The oldest had a deck of cards in his hand that he kept dealing around. As he did the mother would pick up the cards and hand them back to him. "I told you," she said firmly, "that you ain't dealin' no blackjack at the dinner table. Now put them cards in your pocket."
She caught the attention of Bettenhausen and he watched, grinning. The woman was like a lot you see around the race tracks, pretty, but with a hard face and knowing eyes. She was probably the wife of one of the mechanics. Bettenhausen called something across to her and she shrugged. "I don't know what to do with these boys," she said. The boys looked over at Bettenhausen, recognizing him, but not too impressed. One of them said to Gary, "I'm going to be a doctor until I make enough money to buy my own race car. Then I'm going to beat you."
Tom Sneva was having trouble with his car. It wasn't running up to speed. Something seemed wrong in the electrical somewhere. In his rear-view mirror he could see Savage and Hiss bearing down on him. They were high and low so there was no way he could move over to let them pass. Turn one was corning up, but his car was running so under-powered there wasn't even a need to shut off to set up for the corner. He could just run it full throttle.
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