Oilpressure

The tradition continues! Although things are a little less frequent at Oilpressure.com, there is no change in the coverage for the Month of May. That means that there is another Indianapolis 500 Trivia contest for 2025. I usually begin compiling questions in January and February. As most of you know, my spare time (and then some) was taken up with Susan being hospitalized for the majority of the first quarter of the year. She is much better now, but things were a bit iffy for a while. Needless to say, I had bigger priorities back then.

Things got back to normal in late March, but I had the daunting task of coming up with thirty-three original questions in a short amount of time. In the sixteen years I’ve had this site, there have only been two years that I did not have a contest In 2009, the site was too new and undeveloped. After the first contest in 2010, I did not do one in 2011, I really can’t remember why I didn’t. I did one in 2020, but like everything else that year – it was half-hearted and it only had twenty questions. With those exceptions, I have posted thirty-three new and original trivia questions each year (with an additional tie-breaker). As time goes on, that gets harder and harder to do.

With the distractions I had back in the winter, I had to rely on others for help. Thanks to previous multiple contest winner, Mike from Vernon Hills for really stepping up and providing many of these. He has helped out with a few questions each year, but I asked for help this time and he really came through by providing many of these. Of course, my good friend Paul Dalbey also came up with a couple. Still, I was able to come up with more than half of these on my own.

As usual, there are thirty-three questions representing each starting spot in the field. I also throw in a tie-breaker, which is usually a little tougher than the others. Many questions have more than one part to them. I don’t give partial credit. If you missed one part, the entire question is wrong. You will have almost two weeks to come up with your answers, which will be due on Tuesday May 20 at 6:00 pm EDT. Answers will be posted, along with the winner’s name, on Wednesday May 21.

Please send your answers to geophillips14@gmail.com. Please number your answers. If I get an e-mail with a random list of answers that have no corresponding number with it – the entry will not count. It would make life easier if the answers came in over the two weeks, but the vast majority flood in during that last hour. If I had to go back and see which answers went to which question, I would be up very late that Tuesday night.

Also, please send by e-mail only. I don’t want to receive them by Facebook Messenger or Twitter Direct Messages. A few of you have my phone number. Please don’t text your answers to me. I want then by e-mail only, so I can keep them in one place.

What are you playing for? Well, really for pride and bragging rights. If that wasn’t enough, I will also throw in a beautiful Oilpressure.com 100% cotton T-shirt.

Please keep an eye on the calendar. The race comes early this year. If you wait until mid-May to start, it will be too late. I also get a lot of blank answers. A blank is just as wrong as an incorrect answer. You might as well guess.

Don’t forget – answers are due back to me on Tue May 20 by 6:00 pm EDT. Good Luck!

George Phillips

1. Name the mechanic that was with A.J. Foyt for all of his 35 starts.
2. What Indianapolis 500 participant holds the record for the most F1 starts by an American driver?
3. What year was the first rear engine (technically mid engine) Offenhauser entered in the Indianapolis 500? Who was the entrant?  Who was the driver?
4. Name an Indianapolis 500 starting driver, whose grandson eventually became president of IMS.
5. Who was the Chief Starter (Flagman) for the Indianapolis 500 between 1980 and 1996?
6. What year featured the closest 1-2-3-4-5 green-flag finish in history? Who were the five drivers, in order?
7. Who was the first driver since AJ Foyt, to win the race with both a turbocharged-engine and a normally-aspirated engine?
8. Who was the most recent driver to win the race with both a turbocharged-engine and a normally-aspirated engine?
9. Who had the longest tenure in years and races as the Chief Starter for the Indianapolis 500?
10. In 1939, Louis Meyer struck the outside wall coming out of Turn Two, then went across the track. He struck the inside wall, which tilted the car forward. Meyer was violently thrown from the car in a scene that was captured in a very famous video clip. Once he gathered himself up and left the racing surface, something was missing. What was missing?
11. Who was the most recent Belgian Indianapolis 500 starter?
12. Name a driver that finished in the Top-Four in nine consecutive races.
13. Many drivers and mechanics had interesting careers before getting involved in racing. What did Janet Guthrie do for a living, before her driving career?
14. Smokey Yunick falsely claimed to be the Chief Mechanic on a winning car one year. Who was the winning driver and the year? Who was actually the winning Chief Mechanic that year?
15. What driver was named Rookie of the Year, after finally qualifying for the race after six years of futility and failing to qualify? What was the year?
16. Who was the first owner/driver to win the Indianapolis 500, after AJ Foyt won in 1977? What was the year?
17. What was the first year that featured three lead changes after Lap 190?
18. Name the riding mechanic that was once in the pole-winning car, who later went on to be an Indianapolis 500 winning Chief Mechanic.
19. Who currently holds the record for the most consistent qualifying run over four laps? What was the year and what was the time difference over the four laps?
20. When was the last time a rookie won the Indianapolis 500, yet did not win Rookie of the Year? What was the year, who won the race and who won Rookie of the Year?
21. In another example of interesting careers before driving, what did driver/owner Dick Simon do for a living before embarking on a racing career?
22. In 1981, Mary Fendrich Hulman was ill and was not able to be present to give the traditional command to start engines. Who gave the command in 1981?
23. Who was the most recent example of a driver winning Rookie of the Year, and never driving in another Indianapolis 500?
24. Who is the only person to have driven in the 500 in a front wheel drive car, an upright dirt car, a roadster and a rear engine car?
25. What is Evelyn Cornwall’s connection to the Indianapolis 500?
26. Name a driver from this century that finished in the top ten in their first six starts?
27. What car owner also won the Kentucky Derby?
28. In addition to being the last roadster to finish the full 500 miles, what was unique about the Watson Roadster Gordon Johncock drove in the 1965 Indianapolis 500?
29. In 1919, Howdy Wilcox drove a Peugeot to victory. That was the last time a foreign car would win until when? What was the year? Who was the driver and who was the car manufacturer?
30. Bill Vukovich was fatally injured while leading the 1955 race. He was the defending champion. Who is the only other driver to be fatally injured in the Indianapolis 500, while defending their win the year before
31. In what year was the Parade Lap added, just before the start of the race?
32. In the 1926 race, Frank Lockhart was declared the winner in a rain-shortened race on Lap 160 (400 miles). What was the required distance at that time, for the race to be considered an official race?
33. Only once has the race winner run the fastest lap of the race on Lap 200. Who was the winning driver, and in what year?

Tie-Breaker: Eleven drivers have won in their last Indianapolis 500 start. Name them.

This entry was posted on May 7, 2025 at 4:04 am and is filed under Indianapolis 500. 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.