"We outrun all of ‘em all day. We beat ‘em at their own game," -- Robert C. Wilke, May 30, 1968
Milwaukee-based car owner Robert Wilke was ecstatic after watching his driver, Bobby Unser, defeat the favored STP turbines of Andy Granatelli and win the 52nd running of the Indianapolis 500 with a then-record average of 152.882 mph.
For Wilke, the late president of Leader Cards Incorporated -- a company that specializes in formal invitations, envelopes and business cards and remains headquartered on Milwaukee's South Side -- Unser's victory represented the third triumph in the Memorial Day Classic for his Leader Cards racing team, which also won with driver Rodger Ward in 1959 and 1962.
"I enjoyed this one the most because our man was never worse than first or second. (Bobby's) the best race driver I've ever seen, bar none," said Wilke on that May afternoon.
Wilke's company, known as Leader Paper Products, currently is headed by his grandson Scott. After Robert Wilke's death in 1970, his son, Ralph, continued the family tradition of Indianapolis car ownership over the next 24 years before selling the team in 1995.
"Bob Wilke, if you go back to those years," said Unser whose 1968 victory represented the first of his three victories as a driver at Indianapolis, "people would equate (his team) to the Roger Penske (winning operation) of today. He was a big-time car owner."
"Bob Wilke's team was just top notch," said Donald Davidson, the long-time historian for Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network. "In fact, they really had two teams. They had (chief mechanics) AJ Watson head up one, and Jud Phillips the other."
Happy Family
Phillips and assistant chief mechanic Tom Herrmann, also known as "Little Red," prepared Unser's Rislone Eagle Offenhauser, the first turbocharged car to win at the Brickyard for the race in ‘68.
"I had really good mechanics," Unser said. "I had a really good man in Bob Wilke. He basically was a good car owner in that he was very active. But he let (the driver and mechanics) run the race cars. And that was very important. (Wilke) wasn't a mechanic, but he liked good results. I ended up being really close to Jud and Little Red and Bob Wilke. In other words we just were a big family.
"The '68 Eagle was fast. We figured out how to make it go really fast because we knew how to make it handle."
With the benefit of engine experimentation and testing by the Leader Cards team over the winter months, Unser was the first driver to break the 170-mph barrier during May practice at the Speedway and qualified for the race on the front row with a four-lap average speed of 169.500 mph. In qualifying trim, Unser's Offy engine was capable of delivering 625 horsepower.
"Goodyear bought the engines for me and helped us do the development on the engines. We were actually supported by the tire companies in vast amounts," Unser said.
The Wilke effort also benefitted from a special fuel mixture used during practice and qualifications.
"We would run five percent nitro-methane," said Unser. "The nitro in the turbocharger helps that much more. In other words, you get a lot of horsepower that way. That's how we broke the 170-mph lap in practice at Indianapolis and that's how we put it on the front row, and that also made us the fastest piston car in the whole field."
Jet Challenge
For the 1968 race, long-time Indianapolis car owner and STP Corporation president, Andy Granatelli, made the field with three aerodynamically-advanced, wedge-shaped Lotus 56 chassis entries produced by Colin Chapman and powered by a revolutionary Pratt & Whitney turbine engine. Granatelli first used the controversial power-plant at the Speedway in 1967 as his driver -- 1963 Indianapolis champion Parnelli Jones -- dominated the field until an inexpensive bearing failed in the gearbox less than 10 miles from the checkered flag. Although denied victory, the turbine's strong performance at Indianapolis threatened to make the engine's piston-powered rivals obsolete.
In an effort to level the competition, the United States Auto Club, then sanctioning body of the "500," adopted new turbine air-inlet restrictions for the following year to reduce the jet engine's competitive horsepower.
"Definitely it was down (on power)," said Granatelli driver, Joe Leonard, about the restricted turbine. "But the (Lotus) was a lot smaller and slicker going through the air so it kind of balanced out. It was a wonderful-handling car."
"The turbines were heavily favored (to win)," said Davidson
"The turbine had a tremendous amount of horsepower-way more than we had," said Unser. "It was an unfair situation. I could pass people, and control people and everything was good. But theoretically, we couldn't touch the turbine. They're really jet engines. They just give them a little more fuel and turn them up a little higher and they make more power. In ‘68, they had so much more power than all the piston cars."
A crowd estimated between 250,000 to 350,000 watched as race day developed into a three-way battle between Unser, Leonard and the popular Lloyd Ruby who started from fifth position in a turbocharged Mongoose Offenhauser. Leonard claimed the early lead, but was soon caught and passed by Unser on Lap 8.
"I assumed the turbines were just going to run (out front). I totally expected that," Unser said. "But all of a sudden I found out that I was getting through the turns better, and because I could go through the turns faster, I could actually gain some straightaway speed on (Leonard).
"I passed Leonard for the lead early on. And then I figured, ‘Well, that will wake him up and he'll come back again.' But he didn't. So then I found out that I could control the race, and I knew now that I had a real good chance to win the race."
The Leader Cards driver felt that he held an advantage over the turbine in traffic due to the jet engine's slow throttle response.
"It was pretty evident that (the turbines) were slow to spool up, or raise the rpm in a hurry," Unser said. "Our Offy would (raise the rpm) almost instantaneously. But in the turbines, they have to spool up. Like in an airplane that's got a jet engine, you put the throttle all the way forward, (and) you have to wait a little bit because they start spooling up slowly.
"In traffic, Joe Leonard would have to get out of the throttle, and get back into it and he had delayed (acceleration). Now, we did not know that they were going to have this (problem). So when I got in traffic I could just eat ‘em alive."
Unser logged the fastest lead lap of the event at 167.345 mph on Lap 11.
"I noticed (the car) was a little flat," said Leonard. "I said, ‘I wonder if (the crew) changed something,' because the thing didn't feel as peppy as it did all month."
The pole-sitter felt that changing the Lotus chassis from its former qualification set-up was an important factor on race day.
"Had the car not been changed from the qualifying set-up," Leonard said, "I feel we would have pulled away and left the field in the dust."
Hill became the first turbine casualty of the day, when he struck the outside wall in Turn 2 following a suspension failure on Lap 110.
Unser lead a dominant 127 of the 200 circuits around the giant 2.5-mile oval, followed by Ruby with 42 and Leonard with 31.
Unser's strong drive was complicated, however, by a faulty gearshift that left the driver with only his top gear, thereby creating a handicap when returning to action following his final two pit stops.
"The gearshift linkage became disconnected from the transmission," Unser said. "But I was lucky in that (the transmission locked) in fourth gear."
"What was remarkable was that Bobby Unser was able to stay in the hunt because he had lost all but top gear," said Davidson, who was part of the announcing crew for the race's live world-wide radio broadcast that day.
"He had to get out of the pits with a turbocharged engine and only top gear-which was a major effort to be able to do that without stalling. He would just sort of shudder down the pit lane, (and) it would take him about a lap to get up to full speed. So he was losing a lot of time every time he made a pit stop."
"The Offy engine that I ran only made 85 horsepower (in high gear) until the turbocharger got lit and came in," Unser explained. "When I would leave the pits, I've only got 85 horsepower, and I can't get the turbocharger lit until I would get clear around to Turn 3. So I had a hard time getting up to speed."
After making his final stop of the race on lap 166, Unser, with his problematic transmission, fell to third behind Ruby and Leonard.
Ruby, who registered the fastest lap of the race at 168.666 mph on lap 94, was the first of the leaders to run into late-race misfortune. The hard-luck Texan was victimized by magneto problems which cost him the lead, and made two unscheduled pit stops on laps 176 and 178.
"Ruby could easily have won the race and then he had an electrical problem with 25 laps to go," Davidson said. "They were able to fix that, and he got back in the race to finish fifth, but some distance behind."
With 17 circuits remaining and Leonard now leading, third-year driver Carl Williams hit the outside wall exiting Turn 2, caught fire and came to a stop down the backstretch bringing out the yellow light.
"I thought we possibly might finish under yellow," Leonard said.
With five cars between Leonard and second-place Unser during the slow caution period, the lapped STP Lotus of Leonard teammate Art Pollard became the center of attention. Positioned ahead of Unser, Pollard slowed and allowed Leonard to begin padding his lead.
"Art Pollard was instructed by Granatelli to hold me back," said Unser. "Jud Phillips went up and bitched like hell to the Chief Steward who was Harlan Fengler."
"(Pollard's machine) was a lapped car and everyone was supposed to slow down and hold their respective positions," Davidson said. "Leonard was able to build a huge lead because Pollard slowed way down and held Bobby Unser back. And the crowd started booing because it was so obvious what they were doing. It wasn't very sporting. You could see Jud Phillips and people like that were running over to complain. And so Fengler went out and motioned Pollard to speed up. So when the green came out it was a reasonable interval (between the two leading cars)."
But when Leonard came down the front stretch to take the green flag with less than 25 miles to go, the leader's turbine power plant shockingly quit, and the Lotus coasted toward Turn 1 out of power. Moments later, Pollard's turbine also seized, coming to a stop on the infield grass inside Turn 3.
"When the green dropped, I came off Turn 4 and started accelerating," Leonard said. "And just before the green, the thing just died on me."
Leonard guided his machine to a halt on the apron of Turn 1 where the former race leader began the long, sad walk back to the STP pits -- a stroll that took him past a readied Victory Lane.
Reporters approached the 35-year-old STP driver wanting to know what had happened and what his thoughts were. "‘You don't want to know what I'm thinking,'" Leonard recalled saying. "I said, ‘If I wasn't three times seven, I'd cry,' and I just kept walking.
"That was one of my better opportunities to try and win that thing. If you know Indy, if you follow it, it's a sad place. It can be wonderful for (the winner) and that's all."
Both Leonard and Pollard's late-race exits were determined to have been caused by broken fuel pump shafts. Reportedly, one possible cause for the nearly simultaneous mechanical failures was the decision by the STP team to run the turbine engines on gasoline rather than the recommended J-4 kerosene fuel for the race.
"We were (sponsored by) American Oil Company," said Leonard. "I think (Granatelli) decided to use white gas-like you would burn in a stove- possibly thinking that we could get a little more power. And I'm not too sure that wasn't part of the reason that fuel pump shaft broke. It's a self-lubricating shaft, and white gas is not as oily as jet fuel."
"They were running gasoline," Unser said. "There is not (as much) lubricant in gasoline as there is in jet fuel. So therefore, (Leonard's) fuel pump froze up on him. As soon as (the turbines) got down to low RPM (during the yellow caution) they had no lubrication for the fuel pump shaft and so they both seized up."
"I told you (the turbines) were nothing but a bunch of gas pipes," Wilke declared after the race. "The only reason they qualified so fast was because they were using aerated fuel for qualifications. That would be like us using about 30% nitro in our fuel. If Bobby's gears hadn't locked up, they'd have been nowhere near us."
For Granatelli, whose drivers, Leonard, Pollard and Hill finished 12th, 13th and 19th, respectively, and whose turbine-car effort had once again failed just short of victory, the car owner felt that the USAC turbine regulations were too restrictive on horsepower.
"The engines just don't have enough power this way," Granatelli said after the race. "We just couldn't pass in traffic and there wasn't enough power to pass in the corners. We've only got 480 horsepower and that just isn't enough. We qualified with 510 horsepower but we had to turn the engines back to finish. When we turned them back, we were committed to run them in the corners at their speed and no more."
For the following year, USAC adopted regulations to restrict the turbine's air inlet even further. With the corresponding drop in horsepower, the jet engine was effectively rendered uncompetitive, thus helping to end the brief but memorable STP turbine-era at the Speedway.
With Leonard eliminated and a possible late-race shootout at a sudden end, Unser commanded the final laps into the winner's circle and took the checkered by a comfortable 53.81 seconds over runner-up, Dan Gurney.
For his 3 hour 16 minute 13.76 second drive into the record books, the 34-year-old new champion was awarded a then-record winner's share of $175,140 from a non-record total purse of $708,460.
"(Winning) is the world," said Unser, who repeated as champion at Indianapolis in both 1975 and 1981 and rates his 1968 victory as his favorite.
"In other words, to a guy who came from Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was almost broke. I had no money. I had a '57 Ford station wagon and a '56 Ford pick-up truck to my name. I didn't own a house, didn't own anything. I had two young pups and a wife and life was not easy. And (winning) took me from being very broke, to kind of well off.
"I got into the endorsement business and I utilized winning the Indianapolis 500 in every way that I could. The world all of a sudden just changes. The world knew, especially in those days, the Indianapolis 500 winner was a big man around the entire world."
