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The 1971 Indy 500 Pace Car Pandemonium
That was the first and the last time there were viewing stands at the end of pit road

Press photo snapped by Chicago Today photographer Frank Hanes of the most infamous Indy 500 pace car, the Dodge Challenger used in 1971, at the moment it crashed into the photographers’ stand at the end of pit lane.
Driving the pace car that day was local Dodge dealer Eldon Palmer, who fielded the car himself that year (Chrysler, along with Ford and GM, sensed the impending end of the muscle car era and chose not to supply an official pace car in 1971. Palmer got together with other local Dodge dealers to round up 50 Challengers for the Indy 500). As the story goes, Palmer had practiced braking in the pits before the race and positioned either a flag or a cone at the point where he should have started to brake. However, before the pace lap and the start of the race, somebody removed the marker, so Palmer – with Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony Hulman, astronaut John Glenn and Chris Schenkel of ABC Sports in the car – ended up braking late and careening out of control into the stand. Several photographers were injured, but none fatally.
Palmer reportedly felt so awful about the incident that he held on to that Challenger for decades afterward. Only five years ago did he restore it and sell it to Indiana collector Steven Cage, who currently has it in his RPM Collection museum in Fishers, Indiana, just outside of Indianapolis.

[AlvinKarpis]

Frank Rupert blows his engine at the Hot Rod Nationals at Indy in 1979

His turbo charger flew down the track hitting cameraman Joe Rooks

Rupert suffered a badly broken leg which had to be amputated and Rooks was killed instantly

[Norwegian1]

wow, heard about this accident but never seen the photos until now.

[AlvinKarpis]

Here is the rare last photo of Joe Rooks and Frank Rupert

[Buford61]

My family was good friends with Doctor Vincinte Alvarez an Argentine surgeon and racing journalist who was the most critically injured of the people on the photographer stand. We saw the accident and that there were injuries reported from our front row paddock seats near the starting line and some time during the race heard on the radio his name and he was in critical condition. After the race we went immediately down to Methodist Hospital. Doctor Alvarez had no family in the states as he came up to Indianapolis from his country for the month every year as his vacation.

When we got to Methodist Hospital the doctors said he was in very bad condition and was ranting incoherently in Spanish but they had no authorization to operate. My dad signed the papers saying he would take responsibility just save his life. Which they did in a long brain surgery operation.

While we were there that night Mike Mosley was also in critical condition, much more critical than ever was reported in the press. He was not expected to live. We were there in the waiting room with Alice Mosley and it was amazing to see the racing people arrive and rally around their own. Betty Rutherford who was a registered nurse took charge and was assuring Alice she had checked and he was getting the very best care. Chris Econimacki arrived and was very concerned about Doctor Alvarez who wrote for NSSN. Long story short both recovered eventually. Mike went back to racing and Doctor Alvarez took about two years to fully recover but he never did go back to being chief surgeon for Kaiser Industries in Argentina after that. In subsequent years when he came back to Indianapolis he stayed in the home of Eldon Palmer the driver of the pace car who lost control.

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wow, thanks for sharing this story Buford61

[Buford61]

Many false reports have been written over the years why Palmer lost control and how stupid it was. Well it was stupid but explainable. How could he run the entire length of the pit lane and slam into the stand at the end without stopping? Was he a complete idiot? Well kind of but it was because he was an amateur who had no business driving the pace car in the first place.

The reason he was the driver was because there was a big recession going on and none of the car companies would provide the pace car. Which was more than one car it was 33 cars or more plus a bunch of trucks. It was a big expense. Palmer was head of the local dealers association and he arranged for local dealers to provide the cars. As a reward he was named pace car driver.

He practiced all month with coaching from a professional driver I forget who. There was a flag pole at the starting line he used as his braking point and he had plenty of room, half the pit lane to get stopped and had no trouble doing so. But he always did it with empty grandstands.

Race day the stands were full with multi colors and he didn't notice the flag pole had been removed. So he comes charging down pit lane looking for his flag pole trying to spot it in the sea of background colors he had never practiced with and manages to run down the whole pit lane looking to his right and not ahead until the last minute when he realized where he was.

He wanted to go to the right and back out on the track below the yellow line which would have worked even as the cars were going by. But that was blocked by a line of yellow shirts holding a rope. In a panic he locked it up and slammed head on into the photographers stand critically injuring Doctor Alvarez and seriously injuring several more including a yellow shirt who had a badly broken leg he hit before he hit the stand.

He was naturally totally heartbroken by this and he was an idiot but still a good man. As mentioned above he did everything he could to help the victims and Dr Alvarez forgave him, it was just a dumb mistake and stayed in his home for years after when he came to Indy.

[windowlicker]

The Marcos Mantis XP fitted with a 3.0 litre Repco V8 engine only took place briefly in one round of the Sport Car World Championship, at Spa in 1968 and was certainly one of the more bizarre cars to ever enter a sportscar race.

Prior to the event the car had only very brief shakedown tests at Castle Combe and Goodwood and due to this team manager Jem Marsh gave the Mantis place to another car for the race after running a few laps and being plagued with wet electrics.

[windowlicker]

The Andy Cox entered Ford GT40 driven by John Raeburn and Tim Schenken at the Spa 1000km 1968 having spun out on lap one.

[windowlicker]

The Scuderia Filipinetti entered Ford GT40 of Denis Borel and Claude Ballot-Léna burning on lap 85 of the Monza 1000km race.