We Have a Winner!
Congratulations to Logan Price of Indianapolis, for winning this year’s Oilpressure.com Indianapolis 500 Trivia Contest. Like our pole sitter this year, Logan is a rookie at this trivia contest and only learned about it through a friend that sent him the link. He only missed two questions and got his entry in with 18 minutes to spare. I believe he is the third winner from Indianapolis since I’ve been doing this. "Bickelmom" won in 2010 and "BryanBe" was a co-winner in 2013. Hopefully I’ve acquired a new reader out of this.
As usual, there were a couple of questions that either had more than one correct answer or a gray area. In those cases, I gave the benefit of the doubt. Many people suspected a trick question on No. 23, thinking I was looking for Kyle Larson as the answer. I don’t do trick questions that hang on technicalities. The correct answer was Benjamin Pedersen in 2023.
Thanks for everyone that played and submitted answers. Here are the correct answers that I was looking for…
1. Name the mechanic that was with A.J. Foyt for all of his 35 starts. Bud Moyer
2. What Indianapolis 500 participant holds the record for the most F1 starts by an American driver? Eddie Cheever
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? 1949. Nathan Rounds was the entrant. Bill Taylor was the driver.
4. Name an Indianapolis 500 starting driver, whose grandson eventually became president of IMS. Joie Chitwood had seven starts between 1940 and 1950. His grandson, Joie Chitwood III, was president of IMS from 2004 to 2009.
5. Who was the Chief Starter (Flagman) for the Indianapolis 500 between 1980 and 1996? Duane Sweeney
6. What year featured the closest 1-2-3-4-5 green-flag finish in history? Who were the five drivers, in order? What was the time difference between first-place and fifth-place? 2023. Josef Newgarden, Marcus Ericsson, Santino Ferrucci, Alex Palou and Alexander Rossi. 0.9934 seconds.
7. Who was the first driver since AJ Foyt, to win the race with a turbocharged-engine and a normally-aspirated engine? Arie Luyendyk
8. Who was the most recent driver to win the race with a turbocharged-engine and a normally-aspirated engine? Helio Castroneves
9. Who had the longest tenure in years and races as the Chief Starter for the Indianapolis 500? Seth Klein was the Chief Starter from 1925 through 1953. Counting the gap for World War II, that is a span of 23 races.
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? His shoes.
11. Who was the most recent Belgian Indianapolis 500 starter? Bertrand Baguette in 2011.
12. Name a driver that finished in the Top-Four in nine consecutive races. Ted Horn
12. Name a driver that finished in the Top-Four in nine consecutive races. Ted Horn
13. Many drivers and mechanics had interesting careers before getting involved in racing. What did Janet Guthrie’s do for a living, before her driving career? Aerospace Engineer
14. Smokey Yunick falsely claimed to be the Chief Mechanic on a winning car one year. Who was the winning driver and the year? Jim Rathmann. 1960. Takeo “Chickie” Hirashima
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? Bill Puterbaugh, 1975
16. Who was the first owner/driver to win the Indianapolis 500, after AJ Foyt won in 1977? What was the year? Eddie Cheever in 1998.
17. What was the first year that featured three lead changes after Lap 190? 1997
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. Takeo “Chickie” Hirashima
19. Who currently holds the record for the most consistent qualifying run over four laps? What was the year and what was the speed difference over the four laps? Scott Dixon in 2008, with the difference between the four qualifying laps being 0.0049 seconds.
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? 1966. Rookie Graham Hill won the race, but Rookie of the Year went to Jackie Stewart
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? Insurance executive
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? Mari Hulman George
23. Who was the most recent example of a driver winning Rookie of the Year, and never driving in another Indianapolis 500? Benjamin Pedersen in 2023.
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? Duane Carter
25. What is Evelyn Cornwall’s connection to the Indianapolis 500? That is the given name for driver Lyn St. James.
26. Name a driver from this century that finished in the top ten in their first six starts? Santino Ferrucci
27. What car owner also won the Kentucky Derby? Howard Keck
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? It finished the full 500 miles in every year it competed – 11th in 1962 with Shorty Templeton, 6th in 1963 with Jim McElreath, 3rd in 1964 with Lloyd Ruby and 5th with Johncock in 1965. (confirmed in the 1965 Floyd Clymer Yearbook)
29. In 1919, Howdy Wilcox drove a Peugeot to victory. That was the last time a foreign car would win until what year? Who was the driver and who was the car manufacturer? 1939. Wilbur Shaw. Maserati.
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? Floyd Roberts, the 1938 winner who was fatally injured in the 1939 race.
31. In what year was the Parade Lap added, just before the start of the race? 1957
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? 140 laps (350 miles)
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? Bobby Rahal in 1986
Tie-Breaker: Tie-Breaker: Eleven drivers have won in their last Indianapolis 500 start. Name them.
Ray Harroun-1911
Gaston Chevrolet-1920
Joe Boyer- 1924
Ray Keech- 1929
Floyd Davis -1941
George Robson-1946
Lee Wallard -1951
Sam Hanks- 1957
Bobby Unser- 1981
Gil de Ferran -2003
Dan Wheldon- 2011
Oilpressure 
May 21, 2025 at 5:35 am
Really? Being an Insurance Executive is an interesting career?
May 21, 2025 at 6:27 am
To someone in the insurance industry, I’m sure it’s interesting. It’s interesting in that it had absolutely nothing to do with racing. Just like it’s interesting that Danny Sullivan drove a taxi-cab. It’s not an interesting career, but it’s an interesting fact.
May 21, 2025 at 6:31 am
Congratulations Logan! I’d be interested to know which two you got wrong.
I enjoy this contest every year. Thanks again George!
May 21, 2025 at 6:36 am
I would also love to know where the answer to number 3 can be found. I made a guess because I try to never leave an answer blank but it was by having my son pick a random driver. I couldn’t even make a good guess for that one.
May 21, 2025 at 8:52 am
I missed #3 as well, giving a “technically correct” (but not actually correct, I’m not arguing that) answer: the 1946 Faegol Twin Coach Spl. that Paul Russo drove. While the Faegol entry did have an Offy located behind the driver, it was not a mid-engine car… because it also had an Offy in the front!
The answer to #3 can be found online in a few places. The Rounds Rocket was apparently sold at auction relatively recently, and several profiles of the car noting its uniqueness from around this time remain posted online. While not known for being 100% accurate, champcarstats.com does list Taylor as failing to qualify the #51 Rounds Rear-Engine Offy in 1949.
May 21, 2025 at 8:31 am
A fun contest as always, I learned a lot! Kudos and congratulations to Logan Price, who now joins the names on the Oilpressure Trivia Contest Borg-Warner Trophy:
2010: Bicklemom
2011: no contest
2012: Billy The Skink
2013: BryanBe (prize winner) and Steven Kilsdonk
2014: Ryan Svaboda (prize winner) and Billy The Skink
2015: Paul Dalbey
2016: Mike from Vernon Hills
2017: Mike from Vernon Hills
2018: Mike from Vernon Hills
2019: Rick Johnson
2020: Billy The Skink
2021: Patti Nolen/ikissedthebricks
2022: Rick Johnson
2023: Billy The Skink
2024: Rick Johnson
2025: Logan Price
(Note: the 2020 contest was not unlike the 1916 Indianapolis 500, shortened by 40% of its traditional length due to international crisis)
May 21, 2025 at 9:22 am
One note and one quibble:
Interesting to note that the IMS website itself lists Pat Vidan’s 18 races as the longest tenure for a chief starter. It seems that “chief starter” was not Seth Klein’s official title for at least some of his years of service, though Klein undeniably filled the same role that Vidan and other “chief starters” have and is most definitely the more appropriate answer to question 9. IMS should update their website.
I’m a bit puzzled on the answer to question 17, but perhaps I am missing something obvious. There were 3 leaders after lap 190 in 1997, but the lead only changed hands twice as far as I can tell. Jeff Ward pitted under caution on lap 192 which put Scott Goodyear in the lead for lap 193, Arie Luyendyk passed Goodyear when the race went green on lap 194 and held the lead the rest of the way, including the controversial last lap restart.
May 21, 2025 at 9:32 am
Those were your three lead changes.
May 21, 2025 at 11:34 am
I would interpret that as two lead changes, Ward to Goodyear and then Goodyear to Luyendyk.
May 21, 2025 at 3:00 pm
This competition humbles me every year. Impressed in my ignorance !