Indy 500 Pace Car Drivers

By Sigur Whitaker
Speedway co-founder Carl Fisher began the tradition of the pace car starting the Indianapolis 500 when he drove a Stoddard-Dayton to start the 1911 race. He drove the pace car to start the first five Indianapolis 500s (1911-1915). He owned a Stoddard-Dayton dealership and in 1911, 1913, and 1914 this was the brand driven. In 1912, he drove a Stutz and in 1915, he drove the Packard “6”.
 
Popular race car driver Jim Rathmann also started the race on five occasions (1972-1974, 1978, and 1982), but it was Sam Hanks who drove the pace car for six years (1958-1963). Hanks, a Columbus, Ohio native, grew up in California. Like many young Californians, he started racing hot rods when he was 18 and quickly moved up to midgets winning his first feature race in 1937 at Gilmore Stadium. He was national midget champion in 1941 and 1949.  
 
Hanks won the American Automobile Association National Driving title in 1953. In that year, he started eleven championship car races, scored two victories, and finished fifth or better in nine of the races. He began driving in the Indianapolis 500 in 1940 and competed in twelve races, finishing second once and third three times.
 
Finally, on his twelfth attempt at winning the Indianapolis 500, he was successful with an average speed of 135.601 mph. He established a new record topping that of Bill Vukovich 1954 by nearly five mph. He led 141 of the 200 laps beating Jim Rathmann by 21.46 seconds. When he pulled into Victory Lane, he announced his retirement from racing effective with the end of the racing season but promised “I’ll be here next year but strictly as a spectator.”
 
In May 1958, Hanks was hired by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the Director of Racing. That led to him leading the start of the race in a Pontiac Bonneville convertible. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway modified the start to the race. Instead of lining up on the racetrack, the thirty-three cars lined up in pit row. They were to follow Hanks on the parade lap and line up in eleven rows of three cars. They did not succeed.  Four cars got ahead of the pace car. By the second lap, the racers were in the proper order except for they were ahead of, not behind, the pace car. That resulted in the field being given a yellow flag. When the racers finally got themselves into the proper order behind the pace car after four laps, the first lap was disastrous. Pat O’Connor was killed in a wreck involving fifteen racers in Turn 3. When asked if the start from the pits would be changed, Hanks replied, “It certainly looks like it will. We have to think for those drivers.”
 
In 1959, the Indianapolis 500 start was again single file from the pit area. Unlike the previous year, the drivers were able to line up their cars. In 1960, the Indianapolis 500 returned to the format of the racers lining up in eleven rows of three cars for the start.
 
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