This past Monday might, I was getting settled in to watch some football. I had not been on social media for a few hours when I got a text from a friend of mine telling me that two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Gordon Johncock had passed away at the age of 90.
First of all, I had no idea he was that old. In 2022, we celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his second 500 win, and I remembered he was 86 at the time. In my mind, he was still 86. I also had no idea he was in bad shape. I don’t know the circumstances around his death, whether he had been ill over time or if it was sudden. I don’t follow the day to day lives of drivers from my childhood, but in my mind Gordon Johncock was as he was the last time I saw anything about him – 86 and relatively healthy.
As I grow older (I turn 68 next week), I am getting more and more numb to the idea that my peers, co-workers and classmates are dying with regularity. Twenty years ago, a death of one of my high school classmates would have been shocking news. Today, it brings little more than a shrug as I have grown accustomed to the idea that death is as much a part of life as going to the dentist. It’s not something you want to do, but you really can’t avoid it.
But when I learned the unexpected news that Gordon Johncock had died, it shook me. Perhaps it was nothing more than a reminder of my own mortality. After all, I was present in the stands for Johncock’s rookie Indianapolis 500 in 1965. I was also present for his very last 500 in 1992. I also saw several in-between, but I never saw him win. 1972 was my last year to go to the race as a teenager. He won the following year under tragic circumstances.
The 1973 race took three days to run, and was still called for rain. There were three fatalities from that Month of May, including Johncock’s teammate Swede Savage, who would later succumb to his injuries thirty-three days after the race. Johncock was declared the winner, but there was no celebration. He and Chief Mechanic George Bignotti visited Savage that evening in Methodist Hospital, and then dined at a Burger King on sixteenth street. Most agree that the 1973 race was the Month of May everyone would prefer to forget.
That’s why I was so happy for him to win in 1982, so that he could actually enjoy what it was like to win the 500. Not only did Johncock win the 1982 race, he did so by beating Rick Mears by 0.16 seconds, which at the time was the closest finish in the history of the Indianapolis 500. While everyone was extremely happy to see Johncock win a complete Indianapolis 500, It wasn’t all smiles for Johncock. His mother was critically ill at the time. Immediately after the race, he flew to Michigan to be at his ailing mother’s side. The next day, he returned to Indianapolis for the Victory Banquet. Before he could get back to Michigan that night to be with her, Johncock got word that his mother had passed away.
According to the late three-time winner Bobby Unser on a podcast, Johncock knew nothing about setting up a car, and even less about the engineering behind it. But Johncock was a stout racer when the car wasn’t great. If the car was right, he was unbeatable. Three-time winner Johnny Rutherford once said that if you ever saw Johncock in your mirrors, you were in trouble. He described Johncock as a tenacious bulldog, who somehow knew how to get a car to the front.
I have a lot of memories from the 1965 race. It made such an impression on me that I became a lifelong fan of the sport. But I would be lying if I claimed to remember Gordon Johncock from that day. I remember AJ Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Jim Clark and how bulky the six remaining roadsters of that era looked compared to the futuristic looking rear-engine cars. Johncock was an Indianapolis rookie that day in one of those roadsters – a Watson. He started in the middle of the fifth row and fought like everything the entire day to get that roadster to finish fifth – the highest of any of the roadsters. That performance opened the eyes of a lot of people.
The following year, Johncock started sixth and finished fourth in a race that saw a lot of attrition. In 1967, Johncock started on the front-row, but spun in Turn Three on Lap 188 and finished twelfth. It didn’t take long for Gordon Johncock to be considered one of the top drivers at Indianapolis.
But you would never know it by his demeanor. Johncock wasn’t one to seek out the spotlight. He had a no-nonsense style about him, and he was not a media darling. He said what was on his mind, whether it was what someone wanted to hear or not. While some appreciated his candor, others were a little put off by some of his gruff and direct comments.
When he finally retired for good, he seemed to make a clean break from racing. Some interpreted that as him turning his back on the sport that made him famous. They wondered if there was some riff that made Johncock walk away. After racing, Johncock entered the lumber business and stayed involved with that for pretty much the rest of his life. When asked about his outstanding racing career, he would simply say something to the effect that racing was a job he used to have.
But Johncock was all smiles back in 2022 when he came back to celebrate his 1982 win. For once, he seemed to genuinely appreciate all the attention he was getting, as he had his wife and family with him. The gruff exterior was gone and he gladly accepted all of the accolades he was getting.
The decade of the 2020s is barely more than half over, yet we have lost some of the most significant winners from Indianapolis 500 history in this current decade – Bobby Unser, Al Unser and Parnelli Jones. Now Gordon Johncock joins that group. The fastest drivers cannot outrace Father Time. Over the coming years, we will lose many more of the drivers that gained fame during my childhood and early adult life. Even though I’ve grown numb to losing my high school classmates with some regularity, it still bothers me when I see those dynamic drivers from my childhood of the 60s and 70s growing old and feeble before passing away.
Between his outstanding racing career and his success in the lumber business before eventually passing away at the age of 90, Gordon Johncock led quite a full life. May he now rest in peace.
George Phillips
