Indianapolis 500

Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 30 May 1963

Notes on the cars:

1. Lotus 29 [3] (Jim Clark): New for Jim Clark at the 1963 Indianapolis 500, entered as #92. Clark qualified fifth and finished second. The team returned for the Milwaukee race in August which Clark dominated, winning from pole position. Also raced by Clark at Trenton in September but he retired. Later sold to Lindsey Hopkins to replace 29/2 crashed by his driver Bobby Marshman at Milwaukee in June 1964. Raced by Marshman for the rest of the season. Crashed at Phoenix late November 1964 during tyre testing and destroyed by fire. Marshmann later died from his burns.
2. Lotus 29 [1] (Dan Gurney): New for Dan Gurney at the 1963 Indianapolis 500, entered as #93. Gurney finished 7th. Then raced again by Gurney at Milwaukee in August where he finished third, and at Trenton in September where he retired. The car was then given to Ford and was used as a promotional car for some years, before being donated to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, where it was displayed in the #92 colours of Jim Clark's sister car. The car was present for the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June 2013.
3. Thompson 63 (Duane Carter): Car and Driver (June 1963 p40) identifies the #81, #82 and #83 cars at the 1963 Indy 500 as new 1963 Thompsons and the #84 and #85 cars as 1962 Thompsons.
4. Thompson 63 (Bill Krause): Car and Driver (June 1963 p40) identifies the #81, #82 and #83 cars at the 1963 Indy 500 as new 1963 Thompsons and the #84 and #85 cars as 1962 Thompsons.
5. Thompson 63 (Graham Hill): Car and Driver (June 1963 p40) identifies the #81, #82 and #83 cars at the 1963 Indy 500 as new 1963 Thompsons and the #84 and #85 cars as 1962 Thompsons.
6. Thompson 62 (Bill Cheesbourg): Entered for Dan Gurney at the 1962 Indy 500 as the #34 Thompson Enterprises car. Gurney qualified eighth but was out early. Returned to Indy in 1963 as Thompson's #85 MT Harvey Aluminum entry for Bill Cheesbourg at the 1963 Indy 500. He crashed the car in practice on 6 May, hitting the wall six times and damaging the car beyond immediate repair according to the Clymer yearbook. Retained thereafter by Micky Thompson and, following his death in 1988. by his son Danny Thompson. The car was still in very original condition when sold to George Lyons (Erie. PA) in 2014.
7. Lotus 29 [2] (Dan Gurney): New for Dan Gurney at the 1963 Indianapolis 500, entered as #91, but crashed during practice. Repaired by Lotus in England and sold to Lindsey Hopkins who entered it as the #51 Pure Oil Firebird car for Bobby Marshman during 1964. Crashed by Marshman at Milwaukee in June and replaced with the sister car, 29/3. After Marshman wrecked 29/3, both damaged cars were sold to Jerry Alderman who had 29/2 rebuilt by his chief mechanic Carroll Horton as a runner. It was raced at Indy in 1965 by Al Miller as the #74 car and finished fourth. Raced again during the 1965 season and returned to Indy one last time in 1966 where Miller crashed it. Alderman then withdrew from racing, and the Lotus was taken over by Horton, together with Ford's entire stock of Lotus 29 components. It was rebuilt by Horton as a show car for team sponsors the Stewart-Warner Corporation, then reportedly to "Nelson Carr" for "libre racing". To Jim Toensing (Newport Beach, CA) 1976, who sold it to a UK consortium led by Tom Candlish (Burnham, Bucks) in 1991. Fully restored in England, and first raced in historic events in 1995. Acquired by Richard Drewett some time in the next few years, and appeared several times at the Goodwood Revival. Some time between 2003 and 2006, Drewett sold his Lotus 70 to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum (Birmingham, AL), and his Lotus 29 is thought to have gone at the same time. It was fully restored for the museum by Classic Team Lotus to Gurney's #91 colours. Driven by John Surtees in a Gurney parade at the 2012 Goodwood Revival.
8. Thompson 63 (Masten Gregory): Car and Driver (June 1963 p40) identifies the #81, #82 and #83 cars at the 1963 Indy 500 as new 1963 Thompsons and the #84 and #85 cars as 1962 Thompsons.
9. Cooper T54 (Pedro Rodriguez): Entered for Jack Brabham in the 1961 Indy 500 and qualified 13th. Ran well in the race and finished ninth. Returned to the Speedway in 1962 but only on display in the museum as Jim Kimberly focused his efforts on the new Mickey Thompson cars. Then sold to Kjell H. Qvale, the BMC distributor from San Francisco, and fitted with an Aston Martin Le Mans sports car engine for the 1963 Indy 500 as the #48 Cooper Special. Although underpowered, the car's handling was excellent and Pedro Rodriguez qualified only to be later bumped. It was next seen in 1965 when Don Radbruch (Palo Alto, CA) had fitted a Buick engine and was running it in local SCCA Formula A events. It was then advertised by Dick Terrell (San Bruno, CA) in April 1966. According to later owner Philippe de Lespinay, it was owned in the 1970s by Bob McLease (Seattle, WA) who sold it to Tony Soleski (Tacoma, WA). Solecki fitted a Chevrolet engine and it was raced for him by Darrel Lopeman until crashed badly at Spanaway in 1975. The remains were used by team mechanic Robert Wintrip to build a special but all that was left, including bodywork, corners, and much of the frame, were sold to 1990 to de Lespinay (Newport Beach, CA) and Robert Arnold. The chassis was reconstructed using Dave Friedman pictures and the car was restored in time for the 1991 Monterey Historics where it was driven by Sir Jack Brabham. Later seen at the 1994 Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2006 Monterey Historics, 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed, and 2016 Historic Indycar Exhibition.
10. Thompson 63 (Masten Gregory): Car and Driver (June 1963 p40) identifies the #81, #82 and #83 cars at the 1963 Indy 500 as new 1963 Thompsons and the #84 and #85 cars as 1962 Thompsons.
11. Thompson 62 (Keith Rachwitz): Entered for Keith Rachwitz at the 1962 Indy 500 as the #33 Kimberly Buick car. Rachwitz did not qualify but did race the car at Milwaukee a week or so later. It returned to Indy in 1963 as the #64 Kimberly entry but again Rachwitz did not qualify. Kimberly then sold his two-car team to Indianapolis Ford dealer Jerry Alderman, and the Thompson was raced by Rachwitz at Phoenix in November 1964. According to the late Bill Enoch, who researched Indycar lineages, it was the #75 backup car for Al Miller's Lotus 29 at Indy in 1965. Enoch told Gerald Johnson that it was in the garage but probably never fired up. Subsequent history unknown.

Sources

Note that the identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' published results.

The foundation for this research is the work done by the late Phil Harms collating the results of all AAA, USAC and CART races, including the period covered here. His data was refined by Michael Ferner who added more information before making it available to OldRacingCars.com. Since the start of the USAC project on OldRacingCars.com in 2004, a wealth of further information has been gleaned from the Carl Hungness and Donald Davidson Yearbooks, Formula and On Track magazines, USAC News, National Speed Sport News and other published sources. Gerry Measures has also provided much information from his files as have others on TNF and Trackforum. Since 2009, the work of Simmo Iskül and others identifying cars from period photographs has has moved this research forward significantly.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you can help in any way with our research.