50 Years On: In for a penny, in for $156,297 – Hill’s Brickyard Bonus

Luckily the reigning world champion walked away from the accident and, wisely, away from the event.

He had no plan to return.

That changed in 1966 – when he became the first rookie to win in 39 years.

It would be wrong to say that he blew everyone’s doors off – he qualified conservatively and ran a lonely race – but he was the right man in the right place at the right time.

The chance to drive a Lola-Ford entered by expansive Texas oil baron John Mecom Jr and prepared by twice-winning crew chief George Bignotti was too good to turn down. Particularly when Mecom agreed to pay him the same as the precocious Jackie Stewart.

“Graham knew already that I was making deals as good as anybody’s,” says Stewart with a chuckle. Theirs was a two-way street as Formula 1 team-mates at BRM.

Hill’s Indy opportunity came late – and after Walt Hansgen’s fatal accident in a works Ford GT at the Le Mans Test – and his Month of May didn’t begin until the Monday before Pole Day.

“He caught on pretty well,” says Bignotti, an eventual seven-time winner, who died in September 2013, aged 97. “He was a mechanic originally. That helped. There were no spins or anything like that.”

But Wednesday and Friday were rained off. The American Red Ball Special, aka Lola T90, was twitchy on light tanks. And the clashing Monaco Grand Prix the following weekend meant that there could be no second chance.

So Hill did what he had to do and (bar avoiding a sparrow in Turn Three!) no more: he was 15^th among the 17 who qualified at the first time of asking.

“He was a very smart driver,” says Mecom Racing Team’s “newbie” Canadian refueller Jim Dilamarter. “Some of the GP guys couldn’t get on with Indy: it’s wide, but its groove is narrow, and all you can see approaching the turns is a concrete wall dead ahead. Those who tried the classic line – swooping from high to low – just didn’t get it. You must turn-in more from the centre of the road. Graham understood that.

“Nor did he try to emulate Jackie [who had tested with the team as early as 1965]. He didn’t have the experience and there was no point pretending he had.”

Frustrating carburetion problems on Carburation Day, the Friday test before Monday’s race, didn’t help. And but for the unusual granting of an extra half-hour on Saturday, Hill would have started on unscrubbed Firestones and with a rebuilt V8 not yet run-in.

The only thing he ‘knew for sure’ was that the Indy 500 was inclined to pile-ups.

“Because that’s all they ever showed us Brits on the highlights reels,” says Stewart. “It seemed like a Demolition Derby. The biggest deal for us was to get through the first corner.”

Easier said than done from the middle of a pack that contained a gaggle of urgent atmos amid a smattering of stuttering turbos, fitted with either snappy multi-speed or strong-but-long two-speed gearboxes. A jinking Hill was the last “through the gate” as carnage eliminated a third of the field just seconds into the race and caused a 90-minute delay.

“If he had a plan to be more aggressive, I think that crash would have made him reconsider,” says Dilamarter.

And then a car spun directly in front of him immediately upon the restart.

Managing oversteer and a braking instability on an oily track, Hill settled into the focused rhythm that had served him so well at attritional Monaco.

Jim Clark, in contrast, twice spun his ill-handling Lotus-Ford from the lead. The Scot, a dominant winner here in 1965, reckoned that he had in fact “‘spun’ six times but caught four”.

The beneficiary on both occasions was Lloyd Ruby. But the luckless Texan – arguably the best never to win Indy – was black-flagged at three-quarter distance when the tail of his Eagle-Ford became streaked with its own oil.

Stewart had qualified 11^th and enlivened the race with dices versus Jim McElreath and Roger McCluskey. Now the rookie was leading: “I didn’t feel I had earned it, but I took it.”

Bignotti: “Jackie came up behind Graham and was about to lap him [for a second time]. We tried to slow him down but he wouldn’t – and a connecting rod broke.”

A BRM rivalry at Indy?

That’s not how Stewart views it: “No, no, no. I never saw that as a problem. Graham and I were good friends and had a great relationship.”

Dilamarter concurs: “I don’t remember there being a problem with them speeding up [by 3mph according to some]. That didn’t cause it. The part failed. These things happen.”

Suddenly Hill, who had overtaken no one, found himself nine laps from victory.

Or was he?

Lotus thought that Clark was leading and the famous pylon scoreboard on pit lane agreed – until it went blank briefly. When it flickered back into life it was topped by Hill’s 24 not Clark’s 19.

“We were convinced that Graham was the winner,” says Dilamarter. “Bignotti had an amazing ability for knowing precisely where our cars were at all times during a race. He could tell that just from their engine notes, even in a full field.

“I was feeling a little bit burned by my late switch [from Stewart’s to Hill’s car] and thinking life was unfair when – son of a gun! – Graham came through. It’s not that I didn’t have faith in him, it’s just that Jackie looked the better bet.”

Clark paused to console Stewart before swinging into Victory Lane.

Hill was already there, with milk on his moustache, a laurel wreath on his neck and a blonde beauty queen on his arm. There was a newspaper with his name splashed on its front page and pressmen were surrounding him for a quote.

Clark shyly tugged Hill’s’s sleeve and asked who’d won.

A grinning Graham – he had 156,297 reasons to be cheerful – responded with a knowing sweep of his eyes.

The charting controversy raged into the night, however, before Team Lotus conceded its error: it had missed one of Hill’s unobtrusive laps either during Clark’s spins or team-mate Al Unser Jr’s crash on oil.

Final results were posted at 8am.

“Sure, Graham had some luck,” says Dilamarter, who became team manager of Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing. “That’s part of it. It was a crazy race [only four cars went the full distance], but he stayed calm and kept it between the walls. That’s also part of it.

“He made good pitstops [Stewart stalled at one of his], didn’t overshoot his marks, and read the race well.

“He was very capable, no question.”

Bignotti: “Graham came to Indianapolis and made a bit of a splash. And, by God, they came the next day and fixed them.”

Dilamarter: “They fitted doors and dividers to the toilets. That was a big thing at Indy, believe me.”

And the restroom, as they say, is history.

Images courtesy of LAT