Oilpressure

Monday morning, I woke up to the news that Bill Vukovich II had passed away Sunday night at the age of seventy-nine. It is always sad to learn that one of the racers from my childhood years spent going to the Indianapolis 500 has passed away. Fewer and fewer are left from my time going to the race as a kid. But hearing the news of Vukovich brings more sadness than usual, probably because he seemed to carry so much sadness with him over the past three decades.

I would hope that even the most casual IndyCar fan knows the Vukovich name. It carries just as much weight in our sport as Shaw, Foyt, Unser or Andretti. Bill Vukovich was a rookie in 1951, driving the Central Excavating Special. His day was uneventful, starting twentieth and finishing twenty-ninth, when a mechanical failure ended his day on Lap 29. That would be his only uneventful start in the Indianapolis 500.

In 1952, he returned driving the Fuel Injection Special for Howard Keck. Vukovich would start eighth, but led a total of 151 laps before his steering broke while leading on Lap 191. Troy Ruttman was a distant second at the time, but he blew past the disabled car of Vukovich to take the win.

In 1953, there was no stopping Vukovich. He won the pole (with his last lap of qualifying during a cloudburst), and led a total of 195 laps in one of the hottest 500s on record. By 1954, the Fuel Injection Special was starting to show its age. Vuky had problems in qualifying, and ended up starting from inside Row Seven. On a day just as hot as the previous year, Vukovich methodically moved up and took the lead, leading a total of ninety laps on his way to a second consecutive win.

Bill Vukovich had his sites set on winning his third straight Indianapolis 500 in 1955. Howard Keck had pressing personal matters that kept him from running a car for Vukovich; so he and his mechanics, Jim Travers and Frank Coon, ran for Lindsey Hopkins. Vukovich started in the middle of the second row, took an early lead and was dominating when a multi-car crash on Lap 56 on the backstretch took the life of Vukovich. His eleven year-old son, Billy, was back home at Fresno, California listening on the radio.

Thirteen years later, Billy Vukovich II was Rookie of the Year in the 1968 Indianapolis 500. Driving for famed car owner, JC Agajanian, Vukovich drove his Shrike to a seventh-place finish after starting twenty-third. From 1968 through 1980, Billy Vukovich II drove in twelve Indianapolis 500s. He had six Top-Ten finishes, a third-place finish in 1974 and a second-place finish in 1973. As a side note, he also has the distinction of being the last driver to race a Watson chassis in the Indianapolis 500, and the last person to race an Offy – both in 1980.

Many that knew him felt that there was an enormous pressure inside the young Vukovich to live up to his father’s legacy. Some say that Billy Vukovich II was a much better racer than he gave himself credit for. He was not the dominant hard-charger that his famous father was, but he was considered a fine racer among his peers. He didn’t dominate races, but he was considered to be similar to Al Unser – he may not be flashy and spectacular, but he took care of his equipment, brought his car home in one piece and usually got good results.

Billy Vukovich II retired from IndyCar racing for good in 1984 – just as his son Billy Vukovich III was starting to find success in racing. Like we have seen with many drivers over the years, Billy II found he was more interested in his son’s career than his own.

Like his father, Billy Vukovich III won Rookie of the Year honors in the 1988 Indianapolis 500 – exactly twenty years after Billy II had the same honor. Billy III started twenty-third and finished fourteenth. The following year he finished twelfth, while driving for Ron Hemelgarn. In 1990, Vukovich III returned with Hemelgarn Racing. He finished twenty-fourth in the 1990 Indianapolis 500, but also ran at Michigan that summer for Hemelgarn, where he finished thirteenth.

That was to be the final IndyCar start Billy Vukovich III. Later that fall, Billy III was practicing for a CRA race in Bakersfield, California at Mesa Marin Raceway, when his throttle stuck. Billy Vukovich III was fatally injured on November 25, 1990 at the age of twenty-seven.

Billy Vukovich II and his wife Joyce, were obviously devastated. Racing had brought a lot of joy to Billy II, but it had also brought much pain into his life. Racing had taken his father in 1955, and now his son just thirty-five years later. About ten years after the death of his son, I saw an interview with Billy II. He stated that he never stopped grieving for his father and he didn’t think he would ever get over Billy’s death.

Other than seeing him race in the 60s and 70s, I have seen Bill Vukovich II in-person only once. That was about five years ago, when he and his wife were up in the IMS Media Center and they were visiting with Robin Miller. To me, he looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. There seemed to be an air of sadness surrounding him, even in the company of the upbeat and comical Robin Miller.

Since we learned of his passing this week, I’ve read other accounts saying that Vukovich II could cut up with the best of them and he had a unique laughter that no one could mistake. I know that he used to be a member of the group that went to lunch regularly with Robin Miller and several others at The Workingman’s Friend or Charlie Brown’s. Someone in that crowd would have to laugh a lot in order to survive.

Maybe I saw Vukovich II on a bad day, or knowing what he had been through in life – I was looking for a sadness that he was hoping to keep hidden. Like most of us when we suffer tragic loss; you never fully get over it but you also don’t allow it to consume you. But to lose your father and son to racing, would certainly make it tempting to never visit a race track again. I’m glad to know there was also a lot of joy in his later years.

The list of racers I watched regularly in the 60s is dwindling with time. We still have AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones, Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford and others; but we’ve recently lost the last two Unser brothers along with Gary Bettenhausen, Dan Gurney and now Billy Vukovich II.

I’ve seen racers die on the track, and I’ve watched them die of old age. But things seem a little more hollow today now that we’ve lost the last remaining Vukovich. This one has hit me a little harder than most.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 23, 2023 at 4:02 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.