Indy 500 Winner Passes Away

Gordon Johncock, the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner who outran rain, wrecks, and Rick Mears, died Monday at his home in South Branch, Michigan. He was 90. The cause was natural.

He learned machinery on a John Deere in Hastings, Michigan, at age 5. He joined IndyCar in 1964 and finished fifth in the 500 as a rookie in 1965. He started the race 24 times, tied for fifth-most, and logged 7,895 miles around the Brickyard while leading 339 laps.

His first 500 win came in 1973, a month still spoken of in a lower voice. Rain stretched the race across three days and cut it to 133 laps. Art Pollard and Swede Savage died. A pit crew member was killed by a fire truck racing to Savage’s crash. David “Salt” Walther burned when his car hit the catch fence on the start. Johncock started 11th and was one of two cars on the lead lap when officials stopped it.

He later told Autoweek he did not treat that win as a gift. “I didn’t feel that race was given to us,” he said. “If we had only led one or two laps and happened to be settin’ there when they stopped it and won it that way, then I guess you wouldn’t have earned it very well.”

The 1982 finish is the one he called the peak. He beat Mears to the line by 0.16 seconds, then the closest margin in 500 history and still the seventh-closest. “By far the biggest thrill of my racing career was winning Indianapolis in 1982,” he said. “The way it happened, the competition, so many near wins after 1973 and it all came together and the car lasted in 1982.”

He won 25 IndyCar races and the 1976 USAC title. From 1964 to 1992 he made 262 starts and retired twice. In 1967 he joined A.J. Foyt as an owner-driver. He was among the last men who raced both the front-engine and rear-engine eras. He also made 21 NASCAR starts and finished fifth in the 1973 Daytona 500.

The garage remembered the flannel. People called the look “Johncock casual.” He farmed and worked timber when he was not racing Foyt, Mears, the Unsers, Rutherford, and Andretti. The small-town clothes were not a costume. They were the man.

He entered the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 1997 and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1999. He is survived by his wife, Sue; three daughters; two sons; two stepdaughters; 12 grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.

The record is two 500s, a championship, and a last-lap duel that still shows up in highlight packages. The quieter line is that he outlived almost everyone he lined up against in that golden-era field.