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The racing world was stunned on Friday December 29, when Gil de Ferran suddenly passed away. First and foremost, he was a devoted husband and father. He was also very well respected for his career after he climbed out of an IndyCar cockpit at the end of the 2003 season. IndyCar fans know him as a two-time CART champion, and for the purposes of this post – an Indianapolis 500 winner.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had a few chance encounters with de Ferran, since I have had this website – and I described them in detail. That was not to toot my horn, but to show how kind he was to even the “least significant” people in the racing world.

This past weekend, I got the dreaded notification that my iPhone was running out of space. When we go to race weekends and I’m taking candid shots, I have a habit of taking three or four shots of the same thing – just to make sure I got a good one. That and the fact my phone will be five years old in September, may have something to do with me running out of space. I went through and started deleting duplicate and unnecessary photos from my phone. That’s when I came across this photo of Gil de Ferran that I took this past May. (Photo by George Phillips)

I wish I had remembered I had it when I wrote my tribute to de Ferran a couple of weeks ago. Little did I know that this would be the last time I would ever see him, and he would be gone just a few months later.

Kevin Lee pointed out on Trackside last week how unfortunate it is that we only focus on what kind of person a driver was after they pass away. We take them for granted and never talk about their greatness until it’s too late.

Everyone we care about in our lives should be cherished, and we should never take any of them for granted. Seeing de Ferran taken from us at the early age of 56, reminded me how we should especially always cherish our Indianapolis 500 winners.

We have lost several Indianapolis 500 winners in the past few years. In 2021, we lost both of the remaining Unser brothers – Bobby and Al. The two of them accounted for seven Indianapolis 500 wins between 1968 and 1987. Prior to losing the Unser brothers, you have to go back ten years to 2011 when, when we lost Dan Wheldon and Jim Rathmann just five weeks apart from each other. With de Ferran’s loss, Indianapolis 500 winners, accounting for eleven wins in a little over twelve years seems a bit much – but Father Time pays no attention to statistics.

Who is the earliest winner to still be alive? That would be the 1961 winner AJ Foyt, who turns 89 tomorrow. The oldest living winner is 1963 winner Parnelli Jones, who turned 90 in August. Mario Andretti is the only other living winning driver from the 60s. The 1969 driver will turn 84 next month.

Mario is the most active of these three. Parnelli is mostly housebound these days. AJ Foyt still attends a few races each year, and we always see him at Indianapolis in May; but Mario Andretti still attends most, if not all of the IndyCar races on the schedule. If anything, he appears to be getting younger.

Surprisingly, the 70s have only four living winners. You have to count AJ Foyt again, but other than Foyt – the only surviving winners are Gordon Johncock (87), Johnny Rutherford (85) and Rick Mears (72). Together, the three living drivers from the 70s, not counting AJ – account for nine Indianapolis 500 wins.

Naturally, the 80s have more living drivers than the 70s; but only four winning drivers who were not already on the list – Tom Sneva (75), Danny Sullivan (73), Bobby Rahal (71) and Emerson Fittipaldi (77).

The 1990s was when I started feeling old. That was the first time a driver younger then me won the Indianapolis 500 – Al Unser, Jr. in 1992. That was also when the last of the drivers from my childhood retired. I saw so many of the great ones race in their prime – AJ Foyt, Al Unser, Gary Bettenhausen, Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford, Mario Andretti. Between 1993 and 1996, they all officially retired or just stopped racing.

All drivers that won in the 90s are still with us. Rick Mears won the last of his four 500 victories in 1991, and is the second-oldest winner from that decade at 72. Fittipaldi is the oldest at 77. Arie Luyendyk is not too far behind Mears at 70. The first driver to win that was younger than me? Al Unser, Jr is now 61. Ouch!

After Little Al won his second in 1994, it was a changing of the guard – even before The Split. 1995 winner Jacques Villeneuve is still “only” 52. Buddy Lazier is 56, Eddie Cheever is 66 and Kenny Bräck is a youthful 57 (if you can believe that).

With Gil de Ferran’s (2003) passing last month, and Dan Wheldon (2005, 2011) being fatally injured in 2011 – the 1990s is the only decade we have in which the winners of a given decade are all still alive.

Currently, there are thirty living winners of the Indianapolis 500. Considering only seventy-five drivers in history have ever won it, it’s pretty remarkable that 40% of them are still with us. Father time doesn’t spare any of us, although AJ Foyt will probably outlive us all. Other than the seemingly immortal Foyt, Gil de Ferran showed us a few weeks ago that any of us can go at any time.

Thirty of the seventy-five that ever won the Indianapolis 500 are still with us. Cherish that – not only from an historic standpoint, but from a personal one as well. You never know how long we will be able to enjoy them.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on January 15, 2024 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.