BY JERRY GARRETT
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTINE MIFSUD

It’s hard to tell at what point Angela became a NASCAR fan. Maybe it was when she was chugging quarts of Miller Lite.

“Go, Rusty!”

Or sucking down those Big Bud 40-ouncers.

“Go, Junior!”

Earnhardt or Wallace—Ford, Chevy, or Dodge—who knows what Angela’s racing favorites were. But police say they’re positive she was a real big fan of beer. Lots of it. In big bottles.

“We got Rusty Wallace, and we got Dale Earnhardt Jr. Other than that, we got nothin’,” said a Riverside County, California, sheriff’s deputy, searching her Moreno Valley apartment in early March 2001, kicking aside a “sea of empties. I can’t believe people really live like this.”

Besides the recycling bonanza, the cops found nothing of value. No Angela. Or her three-month-old baby. Nothing that would tie her to her husband, who, unfortunately, had been found dead a short time earlier in a motel 30 miles away with a gaping hole in his head from a .357 Magnum handgun.

No one seems to know exactly when Hurricane Angela blew into central Texas later in that summer of ’01. But everyone knows that by April 2004 she was gone again, this time as a federal fugitive. Left in her wake was a trail of broken promises, bounced checks, broken hearts, bankrupted companies, and more dead people.

Who is Angela? The temptation is to say that only her family knows for sure. But that’s not true, since even her mother didn’t know Angela had tried to frame her for a phony quarter-million-dollar loan, or that Angela had told neighbors, and her husband, that her parents had died in a car accident.

“Angela is the type of person who will come home from the grocery store, carrying groceries, and tell you she just got back from Texas,” said a California friend. “She’s pathologically incapable of telling the truth. She tells the most outrageous lies—for absolutely no reason.”

Angela has claimed to be an orphan, an heiress, the baby in a family of nine, a college grad with a psychology degree, a teacher, a swimsuit model, a cop, a champion motocrosser, a trophy girl, and a linguist with mastery of four languages.

She’s either all, some, or none of those things. Only Angela knows for sure. What is known is she’s the perpetrator of the most bizarre fraud in NASCAR history.

Angela Harkness, now 28, and her partner, Gary Jones, 36, seemed like the Diversity Dream Team—a Middle Eastern woman and an African American man—when they announced formation of Angela’s Motorsports on October 25, 2002, at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Their new Busch Series team “would open doors for women and minorities in stock-car racing.” The NASCAR family welcomed them with warmth, hospitality, and naïveté.

“Everybody in NASCAR came out of the woodwork to help Gary and Angela,” noted Christine Mifsud, their former PR rep. “So many people donated time, expertise, and effort.”

“It did all seem too good to be true,” said Jason Stix Buckley, hired as their Webmaster. “They talked a good game.”

Jones’s day job was as a loan arranger at a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Austin, Texas. He had a little secret, though: He was an embezzler.

Angela, the team “president,” had secrets of her own, such as her nude-dancing job at the Yellow Rose strip club in Austin.

“Gary met Angela in here in the fall of 2001,” said Tom West, a manager at the club. “A hell of a nice guy—well mannered, well groomed, intelligent, generous, very polite.” Clients also noted he’d started losing weight, staying out all night at “gentlemen’s clubs,” showing up for work without sleeping—but apparently not tired. Classic signs of cocaine use.

“Angela worked here for a year or so,” West continued. “I think she had danced at another club around here before that, called Joy of Austin, which is a hard place with a lot of turnover. She was sweet, real sharp, clever—with some kind of a business head. She knew how to act around money.”

“In Angela,” West believed, “Gary probably met somebody he shouldn’t have. The thought of swindling money probably never crossed his mind before he met her.”

But Wells Fargo investigators later learned that, the year before, Jones had begun raising cash by making fraudulent loans—small amounts at first, in the names of his married sisters, Darlene Darensburg and Jolene Bailey. Federal prosecutors believe neither knew what he was doing. First, he borrowed $38,000; three months later, he borrowed $100,000; the loans, however, were made out in Darensburg’s name. Jones cashed the checks himself.

“It’s sort of the classic Ponzi scheme,” said federal prosecutor Mark Lane, of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Austin. “You get away with it as long as you keep paying off the underlying [original] loans and making the payments on the new ones.”

In the next six months, Jones made phony loans of $125,000, $60,000, and $110,000 in his sister Jolene Bailey’s name.

So by the time Angela Harkness lap-danced her way into Jones’s life, in late 2001, the dapper big tipper was into his bank for nearly half a mil. He was cheating his employer and his sisters, and he was also cheating on his wife, Shaunda.

Investigators say Jones and Harkness soon became lovers. At Christmastime, Jones approved a $50,000 loan for Angela to buy a new Mercedes SLK230. For Valentine’s Day, Jones approved a $205,000 loan to help her buy a home in an Austin suburb. Later, that would become “headquarters” for the team.

At some point, nascent NASCAR fan Angela, who claimed she’d “dated” drivers, suggested the idea of a minority-owned racing team. It might attract multimillion-dollar sponsorships—a good way to retire Jones’s burgeoning loan balances and make the pair millionaires—all in one masterstroke.

To launch the scheme, Jones loaned himself $320,000 in the name of Art Ferrell, his partner in a separate business venture. Later, he borrowed another $250,000 in the name of Zahra Heydarzadeh— little “orphan” Angela’s unsuspecting mother.

Angela was an enigmatic president. “We’d heard about her temper, but she was always so quiet around us,” Mifsud said. “We never knew if she was evil, or just stupid.”

Jones was the financial magician, quickly putting together a business plan, sponsorship presentations, and all the tools needed to go racing. Jones scored a coup when, with a $150,000 down payment, he leveraged two Ford race cars and an engine-supply contract worth $900,000 from Robert Yates Racing.

A championship-caliber team was assembled: crew chief Harold Holly, general manager Clyde McLeod, and for 2003, driver Mike McLaughlin.

The team ran the 2002 season finale in Miami with cars for Jay Sauter and Kevin LePage. Both qualified, and ran competitively, but didn’t finish. By January, though, in testing at Daytona, the team was the fastest!

Could this scam somehow work? “They needed $6 million,” calculated McLeod, to run a contending team for the season. “They had nothing.”

What were they thinking? Prosecutors compared them to kids who steal a car, knowing they’ll get caught. It was a joy ride.

Their “prank” unraveled faster than a cheap sweater. Its “major sponsor,” Wired Flyer.com, an Internet travel company, was good only for trades for Jones’s and Harkness’s travel expenses to the races. When WiredFlyer president Rick Barton complained about being positioned as a big-bucks bankroller, Jones assured him it was only temporary, until “a big sponsor in Dallas” could ante up.

But that elusive major sponsor—which might have made it all fly—never materialized. In January, when the team’s paychecks bounced, Angela sent an incredulous Barton a “demand letter” for $350,000, threatening legal action. When a check to Yates bounced, he meted out his own “frontier justice” and immediately sent a crew to clean out the team’s shop.

“Robert Yates worked with Rick to make sure everyone who was owed money was paid,” Mifsud said. “Rick, though, lost over $80,000.”

The team’s collapse embarrassed Ford, but Dave Piontek, the company’s Busch Series manager at the time, said, “Ford had no money in it.”

NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said, “Our owners, drivers, and teams are still considered independent contractors.” NASCAR does not require proof of financial information.

Bill Lester, a respected black racer, noted, “Companies now realize they need to do a better job of doing their homework before getting involved with people.”

NASCAR soon thereafter instituted a “Drive for Diversity” program that initiates “opportunities” for women and minorities entering the sport, even as it screens applicants. In May, NASCAR created an executive steering committee for diversity, starring basketball icon Magic Johnson.

Piontek noted the legacy of Angela’s Motorsports: “It hurt the image of new, untried people coming in. Sponsors are more wary. Everything’s changed.”

Lives changed. The crew found work quickly, but McLaughlin, 48, didn’t. After winning nearly $900,000 in 2002, his 2003 season, except for a $100,000 advance from Jones, was a virtual washout. “It’s pretty tough out there for an older driver to start over,” Piontek noted.

The biggest loser, though, was the likable Barton, whose health began to deteriorate. On July 30, at age 48, he died of heart problems. His widow, Kathy Monte, blames stress. “This whole thing destroyed him,” she said. His company liquidated.

“Angela’s Motorsports wasn’t all that different from a lot of teams that start racing on spec, except that their seed money was stolen. They were hoping a windfall would come along—in the form of a major sponsor—to save them,” commented FBI agent Matt Gravelle.

NASCAR doesn’t need to change its rules to address that, said Hunter, “Sponsors just need to ask more questions going in.”

In December 2002, Wells Fargo had put Jones on administrative leave. In January 2003, he was fired—and that’s when his race-car team’s checks bounced.

Soon Agent Gravelle went looking for Jones—his wife had left him—and on March 13, they found him operating a sports bar in nearby Temple. He was grilled about 16 problematic loans totaling more than $1 million to his sisters; his business partner; Harkness and her mom; and yet another stripper, Evangeline Washington.

Six months later, Jones was indicted for bank fraud, conspiracy, embezzlement, money laundering, and perjury. On May 10, he pled guilty to most of the charges. On August 27, the stoic Jones, who declined interview requests, was ordered to serve 46 months in prison and then five years’ probation, in addition to paying nearly $1 million in restitution.

Angela’s name appeared on only three of Jones’s 16 bogus loans—two as recipient, one as guarantor. Other charges for writing bad checks, mail fraud, Social Security fraud, etc., also loomed. After being located by federal authorities in January, she cut her best deal: a guilty plea to a single count of conspiracy to commit fraud, with expectations of a light sentence—probably a year in prison—in exchange for ratting out her former lover. The information she provided on Jones’s activities, prosecutors said, directly led to his subsequent guilty plea.

Free on $5000 bail, she was to have been sentenced on March 19, but the date was postponed to May 21.

“Believe it or not, after all this NASCAR stuff came out,” said West, the strip-club manager, “she showed up back here for about a week and got her old job back. Then she said she was going to take a month off, get her boobs redone, get a face lift, and then she’d come back.”

But Angela never returned. Her sister later told authorities Angela had skipped the country in March. Her bond was forfeited, a fugitive warrant was issued for her arrest, and her plea bargain went out the window.

Callous as it may seem that Angela was willing to turn on Jones and help send him to prison, it was better than the fate that befell Dion Harkness, her late husband.

“Angela,” merely the nom de strip of her real identity, Fatemeh Karimkhani, met Harkness when she was a 21-year-old stripper in California.

Born in 1976 in Tehran, Karimkhani is the youngest of seven daughters of an Iranian military officer who reportedly fled to Germany in the late 1970s when Islamic militants took over Iran. She may have had a child with a German man. But “it died,” as she once told a friend. In 1996, she showed up in Austin, where an older sister, Veda, ran a beauty shop. By ’98, she was dancing at the Candy Cat in California’s San Fernando Valley.

And that’s when she met Dion Harkness, then 40. He was a popular, personable “Don Johnson-type, a real prodigy,” said Charles Bentley, a fellow lawyer. “He passed the bar exam when he was 21.”

Harkness was a judge for the California State Compensation Board when he met Angela. He’d qualified for the position a few years earlier. It was a prestigious appointment, although not particularly lucrative, with a starting salary of just $75,000.

“They were a bad combination,” Bentley noted. “Angela drank a lot of beer and was using coke. Dion hit the hard liquor. She had an emotional temperament and would yell and scream when she got tight and started to fight with Dion.”

They moved in together, and later married, but the fighting never stopped. She liked being a stripper, Harkness told friends, and he suspected she was probably not above prostituting herself for the right amount of money and/or cocaine.

Friends claim Angela, at five foot seven and 130 pounds, would harangue her muscular six-foot husband and hammer him with her fists.

“Rick always said she was vaguely mannish, in a transvestite kind of way. She had ‘man hands’—remember that Seinfeld episode?” Mifsud recalled. “Huge hands.”

Once, neighbors called police. When officers saw that Angela had bruised forearms, they hauled off Dion. That was all it took to end his career as a judge.

Harkness tried to start over as an attorney in Riverside, California, but another domestic-violence complaint from Angela got him suspended from practicing law. With no police record, the suspension was stayed, and he was placed on three years’ probation.

When she was 24, Angela gave birth to a daughter in November 2000. Neighbors said the pregnancy did not sound like a happy time in the Harkness house. “A kid definitely wasn’t part of her program,” one friend opined.

And then, during a fight on February 24, 2001, Angela threatened to call 911 again to accuse her husband of battery.

Dion left, checked into a Red Roof Inn in Thousand Palms, about 30 miles away, and spent more than a week there, avoiding Angela.

Angela called her husband’s office for several days after the incident, leaving remorseful, forgiving messages asking him to tell her where he was.

“He’d usually break down and call her. They’d go back and forth. She’d come to his hotel room,” Bentley recalled. “And they’d start arguing all over again. We think that’s what happened this time, too.”

After a few days, Angela’s calls stopped. Dion’s co-workers feared she’d located him again. Dion, 43, was found dead March 6 in his unlocked hotel room. A police-issue .357 Magnum thrust into his mouth and fired had blown off the back of his head. A blood-stained note found nearby said he’d never hit his wife. The coroner’s office said Harkness had marks on his face, like scratches. “Apparent suicide,” the coroner ruled.

“I don’t know for the life of me how she found out he was dead,” said Clifton Sheng, an attorney in the same office. “No one here ever told her, his parents never told her, the coroner’s office, the police—no one in the loop ever talked to her. We all think she was there, in the room with him, when it happened. He probably did it in front of her.”

Angela didn’t attend the funeral. Dion’s still-grieving friends to this day call her the “Black Widow.”

Riverside County authorities wanted to interview her, but she had vanished. Two weeks later, Angela called her deceased husband’s office and demanded his last paycheck and his $5000 death benefit she’d learned about. When she and her daughter resurfaced in Austin a few months later, and she was driving a new Chevy Tahoe, she told friends she’d bought it with her “inheritance” from her husband’s estate.

Cue Gary Jones, our next contestant on The Price Is Right.

U.S. Attorney Mark Lane thinks Angela will be caught, and when she is, she’ll go to prison for five or more years. Why did she risk more jail time by fleeing?

“After her prison term, she’d probably lose her resident-alien status,” Lane said. “So she’d be deported to her country of origin.” In Iran, women in Angela’s line of work can wind up being stoned to death.

Sources say Angela may have gone to Mexico and then back to Germany, where stripping is a growth industry and drinking beer is a national pastime.

Lane theorized, “She looked at the whole thing, and said, ‘Why don’t I skip the time [in prison] and, in effect, just deport myself?'” That way, she got to pick her destination.

“As long as she is out there, men are in serious trouble,” warned Sheng. “They’ll all wind up like Dion, or that guy in Texas.”

Here is a bit of rare but researchable folklore about the development of a nationwide, Johnson and Garrett family-loved IndyCar racing career; how it was started 100-plus years ago, to finish.

Barney Oldfield after setting a speed record; seated next to him is chief mechanic Jack C. Johnson

By JERRY GARRETT

Once asked my maternal grandfather David C. “Jack” Johnson what he did for a living. “Potato peeling,” he answered, “and bottle washing.”

Maybe a bit of all that happened during his days in Provincetown, Mass., where he was put on assignment to improve performance of World War I submarines as well as the first Marconi combat radio that could be broadcast from there, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to the British Isles.

But Johnson eventually quit the U.S. Navy and headed back home toward Birmingham, Ala., to his dad’s auto mechanic shop; his alternative was his mom’s family’s German-style pubs; Jack didn’t drink.

USS L-10 off Provincetown port May 24, 1916

Johnson started working in his dad’s shop on ill-running but speedy cars that rich locals liked to race against each other. Think of “The Great Gatsby” torpedoes.

During prominent speed demon Barney Oldfield’s journeys from Florida beach to California set new records, Oldfield stopped somewhere on the coast-to-coast trip, met my Jack C. Johnson grandfather, and solicited mechanical help from him. Johnson already had an area-wide reputation.

Oldfield never slowed down

Impressed with how Johnson solved a key RPM problem Oldfield ranted about, Oldfield then forced the Alabaman to join him on many of his journeys toward the West Coast. Racing was a common, popular route to Oldfield’s fame – and fortune.

Because one of their attempts was to set rough run up The Race To The Clouds – That is where Johnson met a Colorado nurse, Cora Schneider, who he fell in love with and eventually married. They had two daughters – Dorothy and Pat – and no later than 1930 ended up moving to, living in southern California and resuming help for Oldfield. (A General Motors regional head tried to reward Johnson with running a GM dealership in Alliance, Nebraska; the owner died before he could sign it over.)

Not only did Johnson learn to fine-tune Oldfield’s runs on courses like El Mirage, Paradise Mesa, and Santa Monica, he also expanded to work on desert tracks all the way from home in California’s deserts – to as far away as Bonneville in Utah. (Novi engine was even installed in a Mormon Meteor for Ab Jenkins to hit a world record.)

Novi-powered Mobil Special Ab and Marvin Jenkins world record setters at Bonneville

Sometimes Oldfield raced; sometimes he directed documentaries or starred in films like “The Speed Demon”, “Blond Comet”, or “The First Auto”. Johnson would then add help tuning the special vehicles for filming and editing.

Over time Oldfield slowed a little – for a second, third or fourth marriage – or eventually divorces. Great Depression caused less depression for the famous speedster than any of the California debutants.

That is when Johnson would second pick up wage-guaranteed jobs fixing cars for wide-spread Western GM dealerships. Paychecks and admiration in the industry grew.

When Oldfield backed off hard work, but played harder, he died just after WWII.

Johnson, after becoming an Oldfield devotee – and partime Oldfield pallbearer, started answering calls himself from new racing interests. For different local stock car owners, open cockpit racers and innovative inventors Johnson’s reputation grew in perfecting such mechanical shortcomings.

UNIQUE: Bud Winfield driving his actual Novi named racer, powered with a Novi V8

After Oldfield’s demise, Johnson soon agreed to work almost fulltime with Ed and Bud Winfield. He agreed to move closer to the Glendale-La Canada area* where the Winfields were from, to help push their already 450-plus horsepower V8 even higher.

Local kids, including Jack’s daughter Dorothy, soon got popular with racers.

Who is the crew tall guy? Jack C. Johnson? No, but his dress-a-like friend Bud Winfield. Same hats.

Jay Garrett, a Glendale newcomer who became a Dorothy dater too and later husband, had come down to the night shop to watch his new father-in-law develop the Winfield’s engine outputs. Once, when Johnson said he needed the March air force base’s runway for tests to the rebuilt Ralph Hepburn or Duke Nalon car, his new son Jay insisted on coming along.

By Indy racing re-starting just after WWII, in the 1946 Indianapolis 500, Hepburn was able to drive the new “Novi V8 Governor Special” on a Kurtis chassis entry to an epic track record. Sadly, he did not earn the pole position, due to a technicality – but his 134 mph whomped to a pole winner’s 129!) and “fastest ever” designation. He went on to lead for an incredible 44 of 200 laps.

Ralph Hepburn drove a Novi-powered record holder at Indianapolis 500 pole

By the 500’s 1947 and 1948, the Winfields and Johnson said their horsepower was refined even higher – pushed up to 510 for a pair of chasses, which were entered at Indy by Nalon and others. Though they didn’t finish well, the Winfields expected even more in the 1949 race; but Nalon crashed out of it badly. Hepburn and Chet Miller died in practice crashes crying to get even more out of the already legendary Novi-powered Specials.

Duke Nalon was badly hurt in crashing 1949 500

Eventually what was left of the post-crash Novi wound up under speedway owner Tony Hulman, for display in the speedway’s main lobby (and later new museum).

Jay Garrett came to see the Novi in a new museum in 1999; he confirmed that Novi-powered version was what he got to test-drive during March AFB runs. (This Novi is still on museum display most years even at this writing, by the way.)

A sad death notice

But when Bud Winfield got killed in a 1950 highway accident – just days after Bud had given Jack’s grandson a post-race roadster ride home on his lap – Jack Johnson dropped out of any more racing work.

Johnson instead re-focused on promotions in the auto industry; through the 1950s he was awarded with free new cars yearly by General Motors who demanded he fly to Detroit to get them and demonstrate them as reliable – by driving them back mostly on U.S. Route 66 to southern California.

Eventually though, Johnson quietly retired and at last began his relaxation.

In 1979, Johnson died, close to 84 years old. His grandson – who coincidentally had begun in 1972 as a national motorsports correspondent journalist at The Associated Press, AutoWeek, Car and Driver, ESPN and The New York Times – was asked to speak at Jack’s funeral; he wished him well, and the fastest route in a ride to heaven.

Noteworthy, the last new car Jack Johnson ever bought had come about in 1950; he bought a new Pontiac convertible. However, it was just about 1/8 in full size; Jack awarded it to his first grandson and future race-lover: Jerry Garrett.

Jack, Cora, Dorothy, Jerry

• Glendale/La Canada was where the author of this article was born.

Adios!

1957 Chrysler Saratoga for JerryGarrett

Helio Castroneves enjoys his fourth Indy 500 milk bath

INDIANAPOLIS

Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday for the fourth time, which tied him with A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears for the most victories by one driver in the 105 years of Indy 500 history. But did you know he has also finished second three times and third once?

Castroneves’ runnerup finishes were .22 of a second behind, .06 and .20 – three losses by a total of less than a half-second!

Top threes are considered “podium” finishes in IndyCar racing, even though there is no three-driver podium at Indy, as there is at other tracks. (Unser had an unprecedented 11 top threes at Indy, in case you are wondering who rules that category.)

Some other facts and figures about Castroneves’ amazing achievement, and the race in general:

Castroneves won $1,828,305 from a prize money pool of $8,854,565.

It was the fastest Indianapolis 500 ever run, with an astonishing average speed of 190.690 mph over the 200 laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile “Brickyard” oval. The race only took 2 hours, 37 minutes! (Tony Kanaan held the previous record of 2:40, 187.433 mph, in winning in 2013.)

There were only two caution periods, for a total of 18 laps. And there were no cautions from lap 124 to the end, which is also a record for continuous green flag running to the finish. And that is the reason any drivers who were counting on a caution period to slow the race, to help them with fuel mileage, were basically out of luck. (Takuma Sato led up until about 15 miles to go, hoping he would get lucky with a late yellow, like he had in winning the year before. Not this time.)

Castroneves led the race on seven different occasions for a total of 20 laps, including laps 199 and 200 – when it counted most. There were 35 lead changes among a total of 13 different drivers; television viewers missed many of those because NBC was in some commercial break or other.

Castroneves’ margin of victory over Alex Palou was .4928 of a second. A popular photo of them less than a car length apart at the finish line was not taken on the last lap.

Palou led five different times for 29 laps, including laps 196-198 when he passed Castroneves briefly. Palou drove with a splint on one hand, a reminder of a practice crash that broke a pinkie finger and nearly destroyed his car. That his crew was able to rebuild it so expertly that it nearly won the race is a tribute to them. Palou retained the IndyCar season point standings lead with his runnerup finish.

One car length behind Palou, in third place, was 2019 winner Simon Pagenaud (.56 of a second behind Castroneves). Pagenaud said he was catching the leaders so quickly, he felt could have taken the lead with one more lap. He had been one of a dozen or so top contenders who ran out of fuel early in the race when a pit road accident closed it off; he was the only one of that group able to race his way back into contention.

Fourth place finisher Pato O’Ward said he nearly crashed in the final turn, making an all-out effort to catch the leaders. Instead, he had to let Pagenaud go past.

Ed Carpenter survived stalling his engine during one pit stop, and getting the transmission locked in a wrong gear for a time to rally for fifth.

“Super Santino” Ferrucci, who suffered a leg injury in a practice crash, was caught up in the same pit road blockage that affected Pagenaud, pole winner and pre-race favorite Scott Dixon and others. But he came back to finish sixth, and recorded the race’s fastest lap, 227.345 mph in the process. That was about three mph faster than the next fastest driver. In three 500 starts, he’s now finished a laudable fourth, seventh and sixth.

Rookie of the Year honors went to 20th place finisher Scott McLaughlin, who beat out Pietro Fittipaldi, who came in 25th. McLaughlin ran among the leaders all day until having to make an extra fuel stop near the end.

The race’s only female driver, Simona De Silvestro ended up 31st (she had started 33rd, dead last) after spinning her car on pit road late in the race. Only three cars dropped out of the race – all due to pit road miscues; Stefan Wilson caused the pit road closure early in the race when he spun into the pit wall. Graham Rahal had a tire come off – it had not been properly installed – when leaving the pits.

The other 30 cars were still running at the finish, including 22 that were still on the lead lap. There were no mechanical breakdowns – also an Indy 500 first! An incredible feat for Indy’s fastest field.

The crowd of 135,000 was the largest crowd for a sporting event anywhere in the world, since the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns began in March 2020. “We had applications for 60,000 more tickets,” said speedway owner Roger Penske. “But we limited ourselves to 135 this year, to keep things as controlled as possible. Next year, we hope to be wide open.” The speedway supposedly has sufficient capacity for 250,000 or more attendees.

Jerry Garrett

May 31, 2021

Helio Castroneves takes his 4th Indianapolis 500 checkered flag

INDIANAPOLIS – Helio Castroneves raced his way into Indianapolis 500 immortality Sunday with a record-tying fourth victory, with a half-second margin over Alex Palou, in the fastest race in Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 112-year history.

“You know, you see Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl, Phil Mickelson winning the P.G.A. Championhip, now me winning Indy – the old guys are still kicking it,” a joyous Castroneves said. “The young guys aren’t knocking us off yet.”

Castroneves passed Palou, 24 and in just his second race here, with a gutsy outside move, going into turn one with two laps left. He managed to hold on, as they came up on slower traffic on the final lap, with Palou dogging his every move. Third place went to 2019 winner Simon Pagenaud, another car length back; he out-foxed Pato O’Ward in the final corner, and Ed Carpenter.

“It hurt,” said Palou, the Spaniard who drove an otherwise masterful race, “but it hurt in a nice way. It was a learning experience.” Palou’s consolation was that he maintains a sizable lead in IndyCar’s season standings.

The 46-year-old Brazilian, who was let go last season after two decades with Team Penske, revived his career with this one-off gamble, driving this race in an untested car for series newcomer Meyer Shank Racing.

“Finally,” Castroneves said, after jumping out of his car, and climbing the fence – as was his custom after his first three victories in 2001, 2002 and 2009 – along the front straightaway, waving jubilantly to the crowd of 135,000 – the world’s largest sports crowd since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown a year ago.

Castroneves joined A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears as the race’s only four-time winners. He has also finished runnerup three times.

He said losing those three races taught him how to win this one, especially the 2014 event when Ryan Hunter-Reay pipped him by .02 of a second at the end.

“I love Indianapolis, and the fans – their love gives me energy,” said the fan-fave Castroneves, whose every move to the front was met by raucous cheers, waving arms and standing fans. “I could see them. I could hear them, even through my helmet and I knew we could do it together. I knew it was going to be a fight to the finish, and I was going to have to put my elbows out.”

Castroneves traded the point with youngsters Palou, O’Ward, Rinus Veekay and Colton Herta much of the race.

“I knew I had the pace to win, but the whole race was so intense,” Castroneves said. “From the drop of the green flag, it was a fight.”

The race hit its first plot twist during the first round of pit stops, starting at lap 30. Half the field had made their regular stops, while the other half tried to stretch their fuel economy to the limit. That strategy back-fired when Stefan Wilson crashed on pit road – closing it off. Those still out on course, like former 500 champs Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi, Tony Kanaan, Pagenaud and others, were unable to make their planned pit stops – and ran out of fuel. Before they could get re-started and re-fueled, they each lost more than a lap, knocking those pre-race favorites out of contention.

In the next segment, the vaunted “youth movement” that has turned IndyCar’s established order on its head so far this season installed themselves at the front of the field: Indianapolis native Conor Daly, 29, moved to the lead ahead of Veekay, 20, followed by O’Ward, 22, Herta, 21, and Palou, a relative oldtimer at 24.

Despite their raw speed, however, another key factor – fuel mileage – was starting to come into play. Race-proven veterans like Hunter-Reay, Castroneves, two-time winner Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal were wisely stretching an extra lap or two – or more – out of every tankful; factored out to the end, they were hopeful of having to make one fewer fuel stop than the rabbits up front. That would be savings as much as three-quarters of a lap.

Generally speaking, it seemed the drivers powered by Honda engines like Castroneves were getting better mileage than the Chevrolet runners. But at the 300-mile mark, fuel mileage was taken somewhat out of the equation when Rahal, the fuel economy champ to that point, lost his left rear wheel after a pit stop and that caused him to crash; Daly clobbered the loose wheel. That brought out a yellow caution flag that bunched the field, jumbled the order and neutralized the best fuel strategies.

“We had ‘em,” said a dejected Rahal afterward. “I mean we had it figured out.”

His teammate Sato, however, was still on the same strategy and was hopeful of cashing in. He was leading when he pitted with just five laps to go. Last year, a similar strategy – gambling on a late caution period to allow him to stretch his fuel to the end – won him the race. Alas, this year’s race went the final 76 of the 200 laps caution-free – a record.

Other fuel mileage hopefuls were Dixon, who managed to un-lap himself during Rahal’s yellow, and Josef Newgarden.

But in the end, the pace of the lead trio ran them all out of fuel. Castroneves averaged an astonishing 190.960 mph, to win the race in just two hours, 37 minutes – just beating Kanaan’s 2013 record. The margin of victory was officially .49 of a second over Palou, and .56 over Pagenaud.

Asked if he was now satisfied in his quest for Indy wins, Castroneves answered, “Hell no. We will be back next year to try for No. 5.”

Jerry Garrett

May 30, 2021

(Please note: A version of this story ran in https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/30/sports/autoracing/Indy-500-helio-castroneves.htmlThe New York Times on May 30, 2021)

This is a 1960 Chevrolet Corvette. Really. (RM)

AMELIA ISLAND, Florida

The strange, serendipitous, 60-year-long saga of a historically significant but long-missing 1960 Chevrolet Corvette finally reached a measure of closure Saturday with its sale for a somewhat disappointing $685,000 “hammer price” at a court-ordered auction here. A sales commission of about 10 percent brought the “drive-off” price to $785,500. 

The auctioneers, RM Sotheby’s, had a pre-auction estimate $900,000-$1,300,000 for the no-reserve sale. But that was not the final surprise in this twisted tale: The winning bidder, whose identity, as is customary, was not officially announced; but amateur sleuths discovered it was none other than the grandson of the man who originally owned it: sportsman Briggs Cunningham. Brian Cunningham is a Lexington, Ky., car dealer and collector who already owns more than one of his famed grandfather’s race cars.

Unfortunate victim of amateur body work

Corvette racing aficionados hold this so-called Cunningham Corvette in special regard since it had vanished for nearly a half century after its star-crossed debut at the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans race. It has been the subject of seemingly endless legal twists and turns, and acrimonious confrontations since its chance re-discovery in 2011. 

This car was one of three identical blue-on-white Corvettes – numbered 1, 2 and 3 – which comprised the “Briggs Cunningham team” of 1960 coupes sent with sub-rosa Chevrolet factory support to contest the French endurance classic. Although this particular car, the #1 driven by Briggs Cunningham himself, and a team car crashed and burned in the race while running up front, the remaining team entrant soldiered on to win its class – a milestone in Corvette racing annals. 

The three-car Briggs Cunningham team on the 1960 LeMans grid

Chevrolet couldn’t make much hay out of its accomplishment because the effort had been set up by rogue employees, in defiance of a corporate ban on racing. So after the race, the cars were quietly sold off to private parties. It took until the 1990s for sleuths to figure out the cars’ secret Vehicle Identification Numbers. Two were then easy to find, were restored to their former glory, and ended up with Corvette enthusiast Lance Miller, of Carlisle, Pa. Miller arranged for a lavish, nostalgic return to Le Mans for a 50-year-anniversary Lap of Honor in 2010 for the extant two cars and one of the original winning drivers, John Fitch, then 92. 

The third Corvette, as it turned out, had been purchased by a South Florida amateur sports car racer, who inexplicably commissioned a crude re-shaping of the Corvette’s fiberglass body into something resembling a 1950-ish Zagato gran turismo. A 1970s-era V8, believed to be from a Pontiac, was also installed. It then found its way to a Tampa area drag racer who painted it purple. 

But Miller and his restoration expert Kevin Mackay, of Valley Stream, N.Y., thought they had made the discovery of a lifetime when they responded to a newspaper ad for a “Zagato-bodied Pontiac prototype” that turned out to have the VIN of the missing Corvette. They eagerly bought the misshapen monstrosity from the purported owner, who couldn’t find the title, on a bill of sale.

Junkyard dog Pontiac V8

On the eve of its much-ballyhooed public unveiling in Carlisle they were interrupted by police, armed with a Florida title and a stolen vehicle report. The now-deceased drag racer’s son, a retired policeman, claimed it had been purloined from his dad’s yard many years earlier. 

A complicated legal battle ensued. Miller wanted out of the controversy and sold his interest to Mackay, who vowed to fight to the end. 

Along the way, the drag racer’s son, an Indiana car dealer, a self-described Florida “treasure hunter” and others all asserted an interest in the car. At least three of them subsequently experienced financial difficulties which also brought their creditors into the picture. And it all culminated with a frustrated judge ordering the sale of the car, with proceeds to be divided among the claimants, and a clear title to be issued to the winning bidder. 

Uh…where do I begin?

Mackay, who retained rights to a 30 percent share of the proceeds, declared it the “end of a long road” for the Corvette’s identity crisis. He predicted the car would eventually be restored and take its rightful place in history with its other two pristine teammates.

(Please note: A version of this story appeared in The New York Times, May 23, 2021)

Jerry Garrett

May 24, 2021

A tattered souvenir postcard shows Cyrus Patschke working on his Acme prior to the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup, flanked by admirers. This is one of the few photos of him known to exist.

INDIANAPOLIS

Cyrus Patschke was a co-winner of the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911. Until he wasn’t.

Patschke was a driver of the winning car – of that there is no doubt. And he was just 21 that day, which would still rank him – all these years later – as the youngest driver ever to win the Indy 500. But, Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s records don’t even mention his name.

Why not? It took some modern digging in old, almost forgotten records to find the surprising answer.

The young phenom had signed on to share driving duties with Ray Harroun in the Marmon Wasp. Harroun, himself only 32, had nevertheless retired at the end of the previous season; he didn’t want to race at all anymore. And he certainly didn’t want to drive the new 500-mile “International Sweepstakes” – it wasn’t called the Indianapolis 500 yet – because it was an extreme distance in those days, and considerably farther than he’d ever raced before.

“I don’t know if it possible for one man to drive for that long, at such a pace,” Harroun complained. However, when his car owner, Howard Marmon, told him Patschke wanted to be his co-driver, Harroun brightened. “You can get Cyrus Patschke?”

Patschke, about 19 here, was just 21 when he raced at Indy.

Harroun knew who Patschke was; he had raced against him back east. Though only racing a couple of years, Patschke already had notched some impressive victories for Acme, Stearns and Lozier in important endurance races. He was a regular in the Vanderbilt Cup and the “speed king” of the wildly popular Brighton Beach 24-hour races; he and Ralph Mulford had co-driven to a record-smashing victory there in 1909; Patschke won there again in 1910 with a different co-driver. Later in 1911, Patschke would also win a shorter doubleheader there.

Several teams preparing for the 500 had tried to hire Patschke, who had a reputation as steady-handed, iron-nerved and bullet-quick. Benz was trying to sign him for their third team car, right up until practice began. But Patschke preferred the Marmon team of Harroun, the 1910 national champion, and Joe Dawson.

Patschke racing the Acme

Harroun, a clever engineer and innovator, had designed the first and only single-seat race car, the Wasp, just for Indy-type racing. Every other team entered in the 500-miler was a wobbly-looking, modified passenger car, with a second seat for a “mechanician”. Harroun considered the riding mechanic superfluous, and he reasoned that with the extra seat eliminated, he could make the Wasp narrow enough to give it a significant aerodynamic advantage. Fellow competitors protested the Wasp violated the spirit of the new race’s then poorly defined rules and would be unsafe without someone onboard to spot nearby cars. (Harroun installed a rear-view mirror to shut them up).

Patschke never even got to practice in the Wasp, because he arrived in town barely in time for the race. He was delayed because he had just eloped with a girl in his hometown of Lebanon, Pa. He had returned from his honeymoon, dropped his new wife off with his mother for a week, and told her, “I’m off to drive in a new endurance race in Indianapolis for Mr. Howard Marmon.”

If Patschke is in this pre-race drivers photo, please point him out. (IMS)

Harroun, the Wasp’s “driver of record”, started the car and planned to drive it at a conservative pace to preserve his tires. He calculated that over the race’s full distance he would have to make fewer pit stops to change rubber than the hard chargers. But the plan didn’t work as well as Harroun hoped, and after just 150 or miles, he had fallen so far behind the leaders he was no longer even on the lead lap.

Harroun pitted for tires after the 160^th mile, exhausted and dispirited, in seventh place.

“I was about all in,” Harroun revealed afterward to an Indianapolis Star reporter. “A man never gets tired in a race when he’s ahead. It’s when he is behind that the wear and tear tells on him.” He turned the Wasp over to Patschke, told him to forget about the conservative pace, and to go as hard as he could after the leaders.

“I’ll give it back to you in first place,” Patschke reportedly promised Harroun.

Most in the crowd failed to notice a new driver had taken over, when the Wasp left the pits. “The car was far behind the leaders at the time,” the reporter wrote. “However, when the Wasp flashed by the grand stand again, there was a shout of approval from hundreds of throats, ‘Harroun is beating it right!’”

Despite Patschke’s unfamiliarity with the Wasp, “he and the car made friends rapidly,” the reporter added.

Incessant smoke from the castor oil fuel often obscured who was driving.

“The Wasp continued to tear off the miles,” the dispatch continued. “Car after car was passed by the flying Wasp and the spectators were wildly excited.” They would soon be startled to learn Harroun was not the driver.

Within 40 miles of driving, Patschke was challenging leader David Bruce-Brown’s Fiat. “At the 200-mile mark, Patschke was traveling just one second slower than the record for that distance,” the report continued. “In the 249^th mile, Patschke flashed by with Bruce-Brown in close pursuit.”

“Patschke’s eighty mile spin was one of the best exhibitions of fast driving ever seen on the speedway,” read another report. “The Wasp responded gallantly to Patschke’s call for more speed.” It was at this point, Patschke handed the Wasp back over to the “rejuvenated” Harroun.

“A man never gets tired driving in a race when he’s ahead,” Harroun said with his “Mona Lisa” smile. “When I got back in, with the lead secured, then it was easy.”

Harroun at speed (IMS)

But Patschke’s heroics didn’t end with the Wasp drive; he then relieved Marmon’s other driver, Dawson, and got that two-seat passenger car version up to second place behind Harroun – Marmons running one-two!

“For a while there, it looked as though Patschke would have had a hand in driving both the first and second place finishers!” raved a racing official. “He deserves a lot of credit for keeping both cars up there.” With three laps to go, the car suffered a punctured radiator that slowed it to fifth; it was not clear who was driving at the end.

Patschke never had a bobble; he had no flat tires (Mulford, the race’s runner-up, had to change 14!); he drove relentlessly. It was a virtuoso performance. Newspapers raved about his “spellbinding mastery” and “lightning speed.”

After the runnerup Mulford publicly conceded victory, he graciously recognized the “co-winners” and offered “full credit to Ray Harroun and Cyrus Patschke for their great victory.”

Harroun acknowledged that winning the race was definitely a two-man job and that he could not have done it without Patschke’s “spectacular” stint behind the wheel. Harroun marveled at Patschke’s ability to turn the race’s fastest speeds, without shredding the Wasp’s tires.

Unfortunately for Patschke’s claim to fame, he doesn’t appear in any known photo driving the Wasp. A modest man, Patschke also wasn’t photographed in the winner’s enclosure with Harroun. He did no interviews. Did he just slip away afterward or was he still with Dawson’s car? Some sportswriters to referred to him as “the mysterious Cyrus Patschke.”

“Where’s Cy?” (IMS)

“Much credit for the Wasp’s feat goes to Patschke,” the Indianapolis Star opined after the race. “Many of the racing people in the paddock were loud in their praises of Patschke’s driving, and they said that without his assistance, Harroun would not have come in first in the big event.”

Harroun retired again from driving, but he thought he had his perfect replacement on Marmon’s driving team: Cyrus Patschke. In fact, Harroun went to work as Patschke’s crew chief and ran his team! Marmon okayed a three-car factory-backed stable of cars for Patschke and Dawson to race coast to coast in 1911 and 1912. Patschke was often the fastest driver, a record-setter and a frequent winner.

Harroun and Patschke toured the country together, celebrated as co-winners of the 500. They made personal appearances at automobile shows, trade fairs and theaters from Los Angeles to Detroit to New York. They were sent by Marmon on a two-year nationwide public relations tour.

A 1912 newspaper clipping raved about Patschke’s car control skills.

But at some point in 1912 or so, the bubble of fame burst for Patschke. Indy racing’s sanctioning body back then, AAA, made sure no one would take advantage of the 500’s rules, like they felt Marmon had with the Wasp. For 1912, they outlawed single-seaters like the Wasp (Marmon didn’t return to defend its title). They also ruled the starter would be the “driver of record”. Co-drivers weren’t credited – which, intentionally or not, cancelled Patschke and his scintillating drive. It was a rather odd decision: Traditions of the day tended to acclaim any co-drivers who teamed up for a victory as “co-winners” – especially in endurance races.

AAA’s decision would also end up hurting Don Herr, who drove a stint in relief of 1912 500 winner Dawson (who had to find a new team – National – due to Marmon’s absence), and Howdy Wilcox, who provided essential mid-race relief in the HCS of injured Tommy Milton in 1923.

But in the 1924 500, a sticky situation developed and AAA decided it was necessary to “clarify” the co-driver rules: Joe Boyer took the checkered flag, but he was driving the Duesenberg that his teammate Lora Corum had started. Corum, despite running third, was unceremoniously yanked out of the drivers seat mid-race and replaced by Boyer. Boyer initially celebrated victory, but the chief steward declared Corum the winner as “driver of record”. A snit ensued, but Boyer was a very popular driver, and a close friend of the official. So, after some negotiating, it was decided the rules could be bent enough to declare Corum and Boyer as the Indy 500’s first “co-winners”. Corum, who still felt disrespected, left racing to drive a Yellow Cab.

A similar situation developed in 1941’s 500, when Floyd Davis was fired while running 12th, and replaced by Mauri Rose, who rallied their shared Maserati to victory. Precedent established, they were also recognized as “co-winners”. Davis, unmollified, left in a huff and enlisted for a long tour in the Navy.

Patschke’s legendary Indy drive is now little more than a sepia-tone memory.

But none of that rule tweaking helped Patschke regain his co-winner status. Not only that, his name still is nowhere to be found in Indy’s record books. It’s like his legendary drive never happened. Sadly, he never raced at Indy again (he was to be Dawson’s co-driver in 1914, but Dawson crashed out early). By age 24, despite his impeccable resume (many wins and top finishes, many speed records, no injuries, not even crashes), he decided to heed his wife’s pleas to retire from racing, get a “regular” job, and raise a family.

Over the years, many drivers and even some speedway officials have crusaded in vain (to date) for the rules to be adjusted enough to extend recognition to the 500’s “unofficial co-winners” such as Patschke, Herr, Wilcox and Norman Batten (Peter DePaolo’s relief driver briefly in 1925).

With all due respect, IMHO, the speedway’s rules have it backwards: The guys like Patschke, who did a great job, got shafted. The guys who embarrassingly got canned in the middle of the race? They got their names on a trophy.

Jerry Garrett

May 16, 2021

Hand Painted El Rancho Desert Rose

GLENDALE, California

The Desert Rose pattern, the best-selling American dinnerware pattern in history, was designed by a Warner Brothers cartoonist.

Most folks associate Desert Rose with Franciscan Ware, which dates back to 1941. But the story began even earlier than that. Exactly how early is hard to tell, and when the cartoonist entered the picture is even harder to determine.

Before “Franciscan Ware” Desert Rose pattern dishes, there was El Rancho Desert Rose (or Wild Rose) dinnerware. These dishes, with the “Hand Painted El Rancho” stamp on each piece were manufactured from 1931 (when a patent was applied for) to 1938, possibly earlier according to some reports. A few one-of-a-kind plates exist which look like the artist’s early prototypes.

Annette Honeywell Desert Rose prototype?

Every piece in every set, though, is unique and slightly different; they’re each little works of art, from a time when craftsmanship meant more than it does today. Though people often refer to the El Rancho line as “Made in Japan” it was not; it is merely a Japanese-style pattern, or a pattern inspired by Japanese paintings and drawings.

Some say El Rancho Desert Rose tableware may have been manufactured by United China and Glass Company (UCAGCO), an American company (not Japanese, even though their logo included the word “Japan”). That’s harder to pin down.

Desert Rose is very typical of Oriental-influenced Southern California art and home décor of the early 20^th Century. The artist responsible for the Desert Rose pattern was noted contract designer Annette Honeywell (1902-1959) of Los Angeles. It is known Ms. Honeywell sold Desert Rose designs to Gladden, McBean & Co., in 1940 that were used to produce the Franciscan Ware versions.

It is not known if Ms. Honeywell, who also worked as a cartoonist in the animation studios famed for its Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies characters, was the source of the El Rancho Desert Rose patterns, or whether the designs she sold to Gladding, McBean were merely inspired by El Rancho’s line. But her known works with the pattern seem to be evolutionary, from understated and minimalist, to the bolder Franciscan Ware version – largely similar to the delicate but rococo El Rancho pieces – which featured stronger coloring.

Franciscan Ware Desert Rose

The delicate El Rancho patterns, with pink roses, yellow buds, green leaves and brown branches were very popular; pieces and sets seem to have been sold worldwide. Collectors in Europe, Africa, North America and Australia claim to have large holdings of the El Rancho sets.

If the line truly went out of production around 1938, the reasons why are not clear.

After Gladding, McBean, which became one of America’s big five ceramics manufacturers after a series of Depression-era acquisitions of competitors’ lines, purchased Ms. Honeywell’s patterns in 1940, within a year they began producing Desert Rose dish sets from those patterns, in the Franciscan Ware genre at its factory in Glendale, California. Many imitators and innovators have done subsequent versions.

Early logo

Desert Rose would become one of the best known, most iconic, most copied tableware patterns in history. But it all started with the El Rancho line

Jerry Garrett

February 27, 2021

P.S. Whatever happened to Franciscan Ware? It’s still being made. But the quality of today’s dinnerware differs greatly from its origins. See photo:

Six hours of this? Count this television viewer out. (CBS)

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida

One thing racers, racing fans and national television audiences can agree on: They hate when races are rain-delayed or rained out. They tune out en masse.

The latest case in point for this? Ladies and gentlemen, we present the 2021 Daytona 500. It was a real barn-burner of a race – those NASCAR guys really know how to put on a show – from beginning to end. It’s just that, in the middle, there were six hours of delays for rain, pitchfork lightning and golf ball-sized hail. Dead air time, essentially.

The TV ratings for the Fox Sports broadcast of the race, not surprisingly, were the worst in recorded history. (Recorded history dates back 42 years, by the way.)

The sad thing about this unfortunate situation? It was TOTALLY AVOIDABLE, as well as completely predictable.

Blame television.

The traditional start time for the Daytona 500 used to be around 12 noon ET. Back in the day, the people at NASCAR and Daytona International Speedway (essentially the France family) lived in Daytona Beach, and they knew that late afternoon and early evening thundershowers are almost a given this time of year. So they knew if they started the 500 around noon, it would likely be over by about 3:30 p.m. That was usually early enough to conclude the racing before the 4 p.m. lightning-and-thunder show rolled in. Even if the race was still going at that time, it was at least past halfway, which is the point at which any NASCAR race is considered “official”; it can be prematurely ended after halfway and count as a “complete” race. No sitting out the rain storm, or watching Air Titans try to dry the track for hours on end.

Television executives (who don’t live in Daytona) became impressed with the large crowds and good racing going on at Daytona (and other stops on the circuit) and decided to start televising them. A deal was worked out, and the initial ratings were very good indeed. But the television execs perceived two problems: 1. The ratings could be even higher, if the races were run later, right? Typically prime time ratings are higher than midday audience numbers. 2. The 500 started at 9 a.m. on the West Coast. Surely that must be hurting ratings? People Out West are barely awake then, yes?

So the TV execs used their considerable clout to force the race’s start time to be moved back more than three hours. So, the race was supposed to finish about 7 p.m. ET. The ratings would soar, yes? Actually, no. They plummeted. Why?

Here are some possible answers: Rain, lightning, hail.

Since Daytona has started later, that usually puts the race square in the crosshairs of whatever storm system moves into central Florida any given afternoon. I can’t remember when the last time the Daytona 500 ran without rain delays. Oh, the TV people say it was 2019. Ratings weren’t bad that year; the whole telecast averaged 9.17 million. But in 2014, there was another 6:22 rain delay. The all-time record was set in 2012, when the race took 37+ hours to complete, and wasn’t over until 1:00 a.m. TUESDAY!

But compare the last decade’s worth of ratings to 2006: the broadcast on NBC “attracted 37 million total, un-duplicated viewers and drew a record 11.3 household rating and 23 share – the highest NASCAR rating in history and the most-viewed Daytona 500 ever,” according to Nielsen Media Research.

So you get an idea about how the corrosive effects of rain delays, rain-outs and TV audience turn-offs are contributing to NASCAR’s struggling TV ratings. Of course, there are other factors, such as a lousy economy and a pandemic. But if people are trapped at home during a pandemic, one might wonder: Shouldn’t the ratings be going up, not down? I digress.

In 2021, the average viewership for the Daytona 500 was a disastrous 4.83 million! Maybe disastrous isn’t a strong enough word. Ratings like that are driving sponsors away, turning off fans (who wants to spend six hours shivering under metal bleachers during a lightning storm?), and turning off more and more television sets the longer this is allowed to go on.

In 2020, the 500 averaged 7.33 million viewers for the whole telecast. But that was nothing to get excited about either; remember, the 2020 race was completely rained out on Sunday and had to be carried over to Monday.

TV execs might try to rationalize 2021’s dismal numbers by pointing out that the telecast was averaging over 8 million viewers for the first 45 minutes of the race, before the rains came. But races that end in the wee hours of Monday morning, or are completely pushed over to a Monday rain date are going to end up with appalling ratings. That’s not hard to figure out.

Here’s an interesting factoid: If the 2021 Daytona 500 had started at the traditional noonish start time, the race would have been OVER by the time the rains came at 3:40 p.m.!

But what about ratings Out West? Well, if you have ever lived Out West, you would know that live sports on the weekend just start early (see: NFL); it’s a fact of life, and you just plan your day around it. In fact, many West Coasters are just fine with a sporting event ending at 1 p.m. because they have the rest of their Sunday free for golf, surfing, motorcycle riding or just working on a tan.

If a race starts at noon or 1 p.m. on Sunday for a West Coaster, that means a perfectly good weekend day is completely blocked out That’s unacceptable.

And that is yet another reason why, instead of ratings going up with a later start time, they are going down.

This faulty thinking on the part of TV execs who should know better is also hammering IndyCar racing, especially the Indianapolis 500. It used to start at 10 a.m. (or 11) so it would have a better chance of being finished before Indiana’s completely predictable afternoon thunderstorms arrived (Indianapolis has a higher average annual rainfall than Seattle).

The 2020 Indianapolis 500 averaged only 3.43 million viewers – like Daytona, the worst EVER. (Yes, there were some possible mitigating factors, like NBC insisting the race be run on a random August Sunday afternoon.)

The bottom line here is that moving the start times around for racing’s traditional crown jewel events, to satisfy the curiosity of clueless television executives, is having ruinous consequences that won’t be easy to arrest, much less reverse. It’s called “demand destruction.”

Run the races at start times that make sense, or move them to different times of year when rain is not inevitable.

Jerry Garrett

February 18, 2021

2021 Daytona 500 Winner Michael McDowell (USA Today)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Michael McDowell, a 36-year-old journeyman driver from Glendale, Ariz., has been racing in NASCAR for 14 years, with precious little to show for it. When he started Sunday’s Daytona 500, it was his 358th career start. Up to that point, he’d never won a race, but Sunday that all changed. He finally broke through, and scored his first victory, in NASCAR’s premier race. He says it is too early to tell how his life, and his racing fortunes might change, now that he’s a Daytona 500 champion. But he says, “I will never be a Dark Horse again.”

Our post-race chat had a surprise ending:

It’s the last lap of the Daytona 500. You have two guys between you and the checkered flag and they are crashing in front of you. What do you do?

It was Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano and I going to the checker. We had such a good run going, I felt like we were in control of the race. I knew Brad was going to make a move, so Brad and I got together. We had a big run coming to Joey. Brad made his move and Joey blocked it and, you know, they got together.  One went left, one went right and I just drove right through the middle.

What were your chances if you all stay in a pack all the way around the track to the finish line, without crashing? Were you feeling like you had a chance in that scenario?

You’re coming to the end of the Daytona 500. Nobody’s going to stay in line. I knew that Brad wasn’t content to finish second and let Joey win the race. And I knew that Joey wasn’t content to let Brad win. So I felt like I was in a great spot, no matter what, even if there wasn’t the crash. I knew that Brad was going to make a move on Joey and my plan was to come off turn four when he made that move and stay glued to that car. When he made that move, I was going hopefully to be able to make my own race-winning pass and snooker both of them.

When people are crashing around you in such an important moment, do you have to constantly remind yourself not to back off the throttle, which might be your first instinct in a dangerous situation, but keep your foot flat on the accelerator pedal?

Right you can’t lift. You don’t have time to recharge that momentum. Because you are coming to the line, you know once you let off at all, you’re done. Once you make that run, you know you have to stay committed to it.

You ran a long time with the likes of Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Logano and Keselowski – these are NASCAR’s tough guys. They have a real “checkers or wreckers” mind-set. You must have thought “I’m swimming with the sharks here.”

Exactly right. I knew I was swimming in shark-infested waters. I’m swimming with the sharks here all the time. So you knew that you were in those waters and something was going to happen. So you know you have to position yourself to win the race when it inevitably does. But I don’t think that you do anything differently in how you approach it. I just knew this was the Daytona 500 and the intensity was going to be ratcheted way up there.

People who might not follow NASCAR regularly might think, “Wow some Dark Horse just won the Daytona 500. What a fluky deal.” Do you feel it was? Or do you feel you paid your dues, you executed the perfect race strategy, and you earned your chance to win?

Yeah absolutely. You know it’s not a quirk thing. Daytona is a place where I’ve had some success. Obviously I hadn’t won. But I have a couple top fives and a handful of top 10 at the track. So when I go there I feel like, you know, we have an opportunity to be in the conversation and potentially win the race. But I do understand, I mean for the millions of fans that might not regularly watch NASCAR, this is my first win and we’re typically not the favorite to win that race, obviously. It’s not offensive to me. I feel like time and time again we have put ourselves in a good position to win, but we haven’t won. I believed I could. But when I come back here next year, I won’t be looked at as the Dark Horse anymore. I’ll like that.

What part in this did Ford’s strategy play? Was there a specific strategy or laid out before the race that “we’re going to run all together like this; we’re going to pit together; we’re going to get back out on the track together”?

We do have a strategy with the manufacturer. Ford is a huge part of that. Getting the drivers on their various teams to work together at Talladega and Daytona. Because we know that there’s strength in numbers. We know that you have to have a good pusher in the draft. Strategy is important. Like when you come down pit road together. I think that was the key to us winning that race. That last stop near end – when the Fords came down together – we executed those stops really well. We came out together and we were able to pin the Toyotas and Chevys behind us, and keep them there coming to the white flag.

You’re backing off, running at less than 100 percent in a scenario like that, just to stay together, are you?

No, we’re racing our guts out. They don’t want us to not race our guts out. They just want to make sure that we’re all giving ourselves the best chance to put a bullet up front, to get us to Victory Lane. I feel like from that standpoint we did that super well. We were in that spot and we had a lot of Fords up there, like you said, at the right time. Once we got 3/4s of the way into the race, we really had control of the race at that point.

Who did you feel had the strongest car? Denny Hamlin’s Toyota?

What he’s been able to do with only a handful of teammates is very impressive. He’s done such a great job preparing for this race. He’s very strong and the other Toyotas were working together and they were making big moves at the end.

But he was running 12th or something there at the end and that is just too far back to have a chance.

Right. If you are back much further than 6th or 7th, that’s really too far back too be able to make a big move to the front.

How did you rate your car against the others you were racing with? Were you just along for the ride? Or on a pretty equal footing, all things considered?

I thought I had a strong car all week.

You actually got through the big crash at the start of the race, not just the big fiery pileup at the end. Your car got some damage in that one, didn’t it? How did it drive after that? Any after-effects?

We did have some light contact. I just brushed the wall. I hit it very square. It wasn’t something that hurt our performance. But we definitely had to execute the repairs well. My team did an excellent job. We are on the clock so to speak, when you’re involved in an accident. You only have six minutes to make the repairs on pit road before you’re disqualified from the race. So we were tasked with doing that well. But we got the repairs done. We didn’t lose a lap and obviously you know we got the car extremely quick. My guys had a plan.

I suppose, before this race, if anybody asked what Michael McDowell is most famous for, it would likely be from the millions of YouTube views of you trying to knock the wall down at Texas Motor Speedway some years ago. Have you given people something new to remember you by?

I hope so, but we all know that crash footage is going to live on forever. You know whether I win the Daytona 500 or crash, it’s just part of the history in the sport. (The Texas crash) was obviously very significant and unfortunately it’s part of my history. But I’ve been in this world long enough now and had to persevere and grind it. I have respect for my competitors and I feel they have respect for me. I feel really good about where I’m at. I didn’t have any doubts about my ability to do the job before this week, and I mean the win just solidifies my belief that we’re heading in a good direction.

You talk about earning the respect of your competitors. It seems like most of them like you. I don’t know that you have any real enemy in that garage area. Even Logano said afterwards, “If I couldn’t win I would prefer Michael would.” Does it help not have enemies out there on the final lap, or is it better to have friends at a time like that?

You always want to have friends. But being realistic here, you know those guys you’re racing with would have done whatever they had to do to win the race. That’s just what we do as competitors. Like I said, Joey is going to do anything he can to win that race. I wouldn’t expect anything different. But to have their respect off the track I think means a lot. It’s nice to hear those comments from Joey and some others. You know I think one of the most rewarding parts of this sport, it’s just knowing that you not only made an impact on the race track but off the racetrack as well. I feel real relationships, among other things, last forever.

The history books will show that you only led the final lap in this Daytona 500. But, really, you never did lead a full lap, at any point, did you? And you only led a tiny portion of the last lap. The race was over before you even got to the checkered flag. Does that bother you at all?

I don’t believe so. I think that any other way that they categorize that is he was a leading that lap coming across the start-finish line. So yes we did technically not lead a lap. In fact, we were only in the lead for about three or four seconds and then the race was over. That’s amazing to me. And mind-boggling!

Toyota Tundra TRD and Airstream Basecamp 20X (Jerry Garrett Photos)

BUTTE, Montana

A chatty couple approached us at the KOA campground. The conversation soon turned to the coronavirus, which for months, we had been trying our damnedest to avoid.

“Oh, we got it!” said the woman.

When?

“We still have it!” she answered. “Yeah, we’ve been stuck here in our RV, throwing up, having diarrhea for almost a month now. Sick as dogs. We have no idea where we got it – maybe at the gas station, maybe another camper.” She looked around, warily.

Horrified, we politely excused ourselves, while the maskless couple moved on to chat up a neighboring group of RVers. We overheard them trying to organize a caravan of fellow travelers to the big motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D. – destined to be a “super-spreader event” that would be blamed for sickening at least 70,000 and lead to 700-plus deaths, as of this writing.

Home!

Scenic Wonders!

At this point, our fanciful plan to take a 1,700-mile RV trip through Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Bryce, Zion and other national parks, monuments and forests, was over. We had blocked out two weeks on our calendars, but a week proved more than enough.

We thought traveling with an RV would be our literal escape vehicle, to leave civilization behind, experience the wild, be a part of the environment, and revel in nature.

We thought we had planned this trip out pretty well. Turns out we didn’t. We didn’t foresee the myriad problems that would force daily improvisations needed to keep moving down the road, the unexpected costs of meals and motels, and stops at seemingly every gas station – much less surprise exposures to the virus we were trying so hard to avoid.

Airstream Basecamp 20X

We had arranged to tow a new $48,900 Airstream Basecamp 20X, which is a version with off-roading capabilities facilitated by beefier tires and suspension, higher ground clearance, skid plates (which unfortunately leave the underbody PVC plumbing too exposed), and stone guard protection for the aluminum panel exterior.

To best leverage the 20X’s enhanced abilities, we paired it with a stout four-wheel-drive Toyota Tundra pickup, which also retails for close to $50,000. So, our rolling revue represented an investment of close to $100,000 – before we even left our driveway; not exactly an escape for the everyman.

Rear view of the Basecamp

In combined city/highway driving, the Tundra TRD can be expected to average about 14 miles per gallon, according to FuelEconomy.gov; towing the 20-foot RV knocked that down to near 10 m.p.g. Ouch.

We had three adults and some little Pomeranians that are generally wonderful to travel with. The Tundra was more than roomy enough for all of us and our gear. (“Remind me again: Why are we towing this thing?”)

intrepid travelers

The Basecamp features expanded water tanks that handle the flushing toilet, shower and kitchen sink. A stove, fridge and heater are propane-powered, but the twin tanks lack fill-level meters.

There are also seats, benches and tables that can be reconfigured into Spartan beds for up to three adults.

When we picked up the RV, we learned that optional solar panels were not available. Neither was a side tent that could nearly double floor space.

Basecamp 20X interior

Other features such as the air conditioning don’t run without a 30-amp power source. That means either purchasing a substantial generator, which would take up a lot of room in such a relatively small RV, or finding a campground or RV park with an upgraded electric hook-up (standard hookups are usually 20 amps).

The internet router required purchase of a pricey, duplicative data plan from AT&T; it also wouldn’t work out of cell phone range. If you have cell phone receptivity, why not just use that?

Dry camping with a Basecamp 20X

So, setting up a real off-the-grid “basecamp” with the Basecamp can be problematic.

The first leg of our trip was supposed run about 400 miles from scenic Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks in southern Utah to Evanston, Wyoming.

Big Horn Sheep in Zion

There were no campground spots available in Bryce or Zion, or upon our arrival in windy, cold Evanston. The state had closed all the rest areas along the highway. So we ended up driving 60 more miles to the nearest affordable hotel (that also welcomed pets) in Little America. This is an overgrown truck stop in the middle of nowhere; no sit-down restaurants were open, no grocery stores, no RV hookups. That night, we dined on the few leftover snacks we had brought to munch on in the truck.

Little America, Wyoming

This ended up being a recurring theme; we would have been better off reserving a hotel room and driving there in the truck – without the RV.

The RV required at least two spots in any parking lot, and an easy way to get and out (without backing up – our most dreaded chore). We avoided drive-thru fast food lanes, low overhangs and awnings at motels, and crowded parking lots at malls and grocery stores. This quickly got tiring.

The next day, without breakfast, we hit the road for Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was a wonderfully scenic drive. But a lot of attractions were closed along the way: restaurants, tourist camps, stores, even motels.

When we arrived in Jackson, however, despite the raging pandemic, the place was teeming with tourists. We couldn’t find a place to park downtown. So we kept on going toward the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.

On to the Grand Tetons!

Our plan to wait at Grand Teton and nearby campgrounds for a site to open up had some flaws. Many campers have figured how to game the system, in which stays are supposed to be limited. In actual practice, there are devious ways to keep rolling over your departure day; in some instances, aggressive campers manage to stay in one place all summer season. A small number of spots theoretically open up each day – they usually don’t – but competition for the few that do is intense (and often cutthroat).

We ended up staying in the Signal Mountain Lodge, which was memorable but expensive. Staying in the lodge would have been much cheaper if we had reserved ahead (but why would we, if we had an RV?). Sadly, many of the features of the lodge, including the highly desirable restaurants, were closed due to the virus. So, again, we were reduced to eating snacks.

Signal Mountain Lodge area, campgrounds at left

We unsuccessfully tried daily for three days to snag a camping spot. Without a camp site, we had to keep moving the RV around inconveniently distant parking lots to store it; we weren’t allowed to park it near our cabin. Which also meant we couldn’t use it.

We could have ventured off road, and tried dry camping. But it seemed there were too many unknowns around how long our propane or water supplies could serve our needs, and if we had enough power to keep us warm and safe.

The unexpected cost of renting a cabin totaled almost $1,000 – about ten times what we had budgeted for a campground. That, added to the Little America stay, and the cost of eating junk food from truck stops and sandwich stops – rather than preparing meals in the RV – was starting to add up into the thousands.

The drive through Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks was magical – especially for the passengers. For the driver, it was a fulltime nerve-wracking job keeping the RV from wandering off the edge of narrow roads.

Grand Teton National Park

About six hours of driving per day was the absolute maximum that this driver could handle before fatigue set in. Roadside parking was severely limited for trucks towing an RV. And most sites were restricted for pets.

Not surprisingly, to me, I came home with only five photos on my camera.

From Yellowstone, we headed north into Montana, through the Gallatin River canyon – “A River Runs Through It” country. Again, we didn’t – and couldn’t – stop for long anywhere. After coming out into the Bitterroot Valley and a pleasant sightseeing loop through old mining camps and ghost towns, we were thankful to find a spot at the Butte KOA.

But after our eye-rolling encounter there with virus-carriers, we made a bee-line home. We did stop to overnight in an RV lot in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, but it proved too crowded, with zero health and safety considerations. A second choice was much more agreeable – a quiet creekside park along the historic Oregon Trail – but it lacked wastewater dumping facilities, showers, toilets or a store like the first one had. We ended up using the facilities at a nearby truck stop.

Roughing it

After one night of this, we were more determined than ever to get home.

When we arrived, I was surprised how dirty the RV had gotten, despite using it very little. It took almost a full day to clean it.

One the one hand, RV life and living or working off the grid has never been easier or more convenient – and it is getting more so all the time. But significant challenges remain for intrepid RVers, around such issues as finding reliable sources of water, power and food; sanitation and hygiene needs; daily scheduling; budgeting; dealing with feelings of disconnect and isolation. And perhaps most important of all location, location, location: Where will you go, where will you stay, how long will you remain there?

Essentially these are the same challenges faced by city dwellers, but RV living requires overcoming them with new, unconventional solutions.

My solution so far is to leave the RV parked in the driveway. In the two months that have passed since this trip, I have never had occasion to wish we could hitch the RV back up and take it on another trip.

Jerry Garrett

November 22, 2020

Quick: Decide how the 104th Indy 500 will end (NBC)

INDIANAPOLIS

The 104th running of the Indianapolis 500 was within three minutes of an incredible finish when a horrible crash happened. The track was littered with debris. A driver was injured.

Officials had to make literally a split-second decision how to end the race. The options:

1. Display a yellow flag to slow the race for its remaining distance.

2. Display a red flag and stop the race, and let safety and cleanup crews, and medical personnel take whatever time needed to clean up the mess; then, restart the race and run it at speed until the prescribed distance of 500 miles was completed.

The pressure was on; the decision would go into the history books. What did they decide, and why?

Here’s the scene: A wonderful duel had been developing the last quarter of the race between Scott Dixon, who had led the most laps (111 of 200), and Takuma Sato, who had taken the lead from him after a final round of pit stops, just a few laps before. Dixon believed he had the faster car, plenty of fuel for maximum power, and a strategy that would net him his second victory in the IndyCar classic. Sato conceded his fuel situation was “tight” and that his car tended to go its fastest right after a pit stop; Dixon was reeling him in. Sato led by one second.

Well behind them, 15th place runner (out of 33 starters) Spencer Pigot decided to let it all hang out, with five laps left and pass Will Power for another position. It was a bad idea; too much risk, for too little reward. He lost control entering the front straightaway and crashed spectacularly. His car bounced off the outside wall and careened toward a tire barrier, called an attenuator, that separated the track from the entrance to the pits. He t-boned the attenuator, demolished it, and threw literally tons of debris everywhere, before his car slid to a stop. Pigot appeared to be injured – perhaps seriously; safety crews rushed to aid him. The track and pit entrances were all but blocked.

Meanwhile, Sato and Dixon and the rest of the field came hurtling around the fourth turn, bearing down on the accident site, at 200 m.p.h.

A system of yellow safety lights suddenly blinked on, around the track. Cars were obligated to slow immediately to highway speeds – about 70 m.p.h. – and stay single file. No passing was permitted under the yellow.

Dixon radioed in to his crew, offering his unsurprising opinion that the race should be stopped via the red flag. “They are going to throw the red, aren’t they?” he asked, almost incredulous when advised they might not. Dixon had been victimized by two previous 500s that finished under yellow, while he was running second, denying him an opportunity to go for the win. He didn’t want this to happen to him a third time.

No red. The yellow stayed out. Why?

The ruling:

1. “There were not enough laps left to gather the field behind the pace car, issue a red flag, then restart for a green flag finish”, officials decided.
2. IndyCar has no provision in its rulebook to extend a race with caution laps until a green-white-checkered flag can be achieved, like NASCAR racing does.
3. The Indianapolis 500 is 500 miles. Period. (Although the race is considered “official” after it reaches half-distance, and it can be ended early anytime after that for rain or other unsafe conditions that might prevent it from going the full distance.)
4. There was no precedent for stopping a race with only four laps – two percent of the distance – to go. The closest precedent: the 2014 race was red-flagged with seven laps to go to clean up a wreck. (Even that 2014 stoppage is considered a borderline call by purists; a different race director,  no longer with the series, decided that.)
5. During a red flag, teams are not allowed to work on their cars. Several cars had taken evasive action to avoid Pigot’s wreck; others had driven through the debris. If they had suffered damage, that damage might not manifest itself until the race restarted. A punctured tire or damaged part on one of those cars, with a return to racing speeds, might have had disastrous consequences.
6. Pigot was laying on the ground next to his wreck. Safety crews had pulled him from his demolished car, and propped him up on the ground to examine him. He was in and out of consciousness, and it was inadvisable to move him at that time. An ambulance, tow trucks, track cleaners and a large number of safety personnel were also on the track.
7. A safety feature of the track – the tire attenuator – was destroyed; the race could not resume with a safety feature disabled. Also, piles of tires fastened together, a component of the attenuator, had been pushed out onto the race track itself.
8. Repairs to the attenuator might have taken an hour or longer. The attenuator is a complicated structure, comprised of a system of belts, tires and foam, with a covering over it.
9. Because the race had not started until 2:30 p.m. (latest ever) due to conflicts involving other programming being shown by broadcaster NBC, a lengthy delay might push the finish of the race closer to sunset at 8:30 p.m. The track has no lighting.
10. It was already coming up on 6 p.m. Eastern time, and NBC had optimistically scheduled its Indianapolis 500 coverage to go off the air by that time, so it could then switch to a hockey playoff game (or local news on the West Coast). A red flag would cause chaos for its Sunday night primetime lineup. (Note to IndyCar: Next year, maybe tell NBC to come up with a more flexible plan.)

Any one of these reasons could have been enough to call it; but ten? Case closed. So, Takuma Sato goes into the record books as the winner. Dixon was a dissatisfied second. Sato’s teammate Graham Rahal was third. That’s the way it is.

It is easy to see how things might have been decided differently had the race been run May 24 (instead of August 23, without fans, due to the pandemic) as originally scheduled.

In May, the race would have started at a more traditional time, like 1 p.m., instead of 2:30. NBC programming executive Jon Miller said the network required the late start because the Democratic National Convention had just ended and the Republican National Convention was about to start, so its Meet The Press and Today show news programs dealing with those events had to be aired before NBC would green-light its Indianapolis 500 telecast. With an earlier, more traditional start time, approaching darkness might have been less of a consideration.

Election coverage conflicts, of course, did not exist in May.

Also in May, NBC would have had fewer scheduling issues with other sports properties. In addition to hockey, NBC was also trying to broadcast a NASCAR race on Sunday on NBCSN. In May, the NASCAR TV contract is still with Fox.

More importantly, perhaps, in May in excess of 300,000 fans would have been in the stands, screaming for a crowd-pleasing finish, NBC be damned. The final seven laps of the 2014 race produced an epic razor-close finish between Ryan Hunter-Reay and Helio Castroneves that fans are still rhapsodizing about.

(Editor’s Note: How did the fans like NBC’s broadcast of the 500? They apparently hated it. The ratings for the 2020 Indy 500 on NBC were the lowest in recorded history.)

Jerry Garrett

August 25, 2020