Remembering Johnny Rutherford’s first Indy 500 win
Johnny Rutherford. Photo courtesy of IMS
By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio
Fort Worth’s Johnny Rutherford has been scooting around the massive grounds of Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Race Week in a golf cart. At age 86, it’s the perfect vehicle for transporting “Lone Star J.R.” down memory lane, 50 years after winning his first Indianapolis 500.
Johnny Rutherford – Photo by Lisa Hurley
“Who keeps count?” Rutherford joked during a phone interview leading into Sunday’s scheduled 108th running of the Indy 500. “Numerically, it was 50 years ago and when you think about all the things that have happened, I’m glad that some people remember, you know? I hope so.”
Rutherford recorded his victory in the event’s 58th edition on Sunday, May 26, 1974 in the No. 3 McLaren chassis powered by a 4-cylinder/turbocharged Offenhauser engine. His annual drive from Fort Worth to Indy earlier this month brought with it the promise of a busier-than-usual schedule.
“It’s been great and hectical,” Rutherford said. “It’s been gratifying here because the fans…I can’t go anywhere on my golf cart that I don’t get stopped for an autograph as everybody kinda gathers around. There’s all sorts of things that people have wanted to do, McLaren and everybody. So, it’s been something _ it really has. Just hard to remember…50 years.”
Rutherford caught a glimpse of the low-slung No. 3 McLaren M16C_ featuring his “Johnny Rutherford” signature in blue script on both sides of the Papaya Orange cockpit _ on Tuesday. The car has been a fixture at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
“They had engine trouble with it (recently) and found another engine and changed the engine,” Rutherford said. “It’s going to be on display and then I think it will run with the other (vintage) cars on the track before the race.”
Unfortunately, the event’s colorful pre-race activities were placed in a holding pattern by the threat of a major storm front headed into Central Indiana. Among the events impacted by the rainy conditions was the IMS Museum 500 Historic Car Lap. Arrow McLaren Sporting Director Tony Kanaan, the 2013 Indy 500 champion, was scheduled to drive Rutherford’s No. 3 car during that procession. “I guess they don’t want to trust it to an 86-year-old driver,” Rutherford deadpanned. “They don’t care what his record is.”
Rutherford has remained in contact with the ownership and current drivers at Arrow McLaren through McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, a native Californian who was 2-years-old when J.R. won the 1974 Indy 500. “Zak understands what I accomplished for McLaren, but it was a different group of people then,” Rutherford said.
The 1974 Indy 500 was Rutherford’s 11th start in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” and second with McLaren Racing. Rutherford’s best finish in 10 previous Indy 500 attempts was ninth is his debut with McLaren in 1973.
Rutherford’s career trajectory changed from journeyman to front-runner after he joined McLaren Racing, the organization founded in 1963 by driver/engineer Bruce McLaren of New Zealand. McLaren Cars enjoyed success in the FIA’s Formula One World Championship and the Canadian-American Challenge Cup before heading to the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in the late 1960s.
“They were dedicated racers. It was their business, racing cars, and I had driven for owners who it was their hobby,” said Rutherford, referring to McLaren founding partner and Team Manager Tyler Alexander; Teddy Mayer, managing director of McLaren’s F1 team and Patty McLaren, Bruce’s wife. “The three of them decided to keep the team going after Bruce McLaren died. You know…thank gosh.”
Bruce McLaren was killed in a crash while testing a new McLaren Can-Am car at the Goodwood Motor Circuit in Great Britain on June 2, 1970. McLaren, 32, never got to see any of his M16s compete at the Brickyard.
“That’s my one disappointment, that I didn’t get hired until three years after Bruce was killed testing at Goodwood,” Rutherford said. “I got to meet him, but I didn’t get to spend any time with him at the Speedway when they first came in 1968 or whatever it was. It was a good team and Tyler Alexander was as good a chief mechanic as I’ve ever witnessed.”
Mayer, the company’s business manager at the time of McLaren’s death, interviewed and then signed Rutherford to his first McLaren contract as a “works” driver in the fall of 1972. As a factory driver, Rutherford was introduced to the McLaren M16C and its radical wedge-shaped nose, front wings and larger wing in the back.
“Like I had told my wife, Betty, ‘If we ever find a team that loved racing as much as I did, I’ll be a winner,’^” Rutherford said. “And I found it with McLaren.”
Rutherford was paired with flamboyant teammate Peter Revson _heir to the Revlon cosmetics fortune _ at IMS in 1973. Rutherford made headline news via his first Indy 500 pole with a track record, four-lap/10-mile average of 198.413 mph in the No. 7 Gulf McLaren/Offy.
“The M16 McLaren was the best flat-bottomed car to ever run the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” Rutherford said, “and I took advantage of that.”
However, the M16 wasn’t a rocket out-of-the-box. “The car that Revvy drove…we tested that particular chassis at the Speedway in March (1973), I think, and it just had a terrible understeer, or pushed the front end (through the four turns, losing speed). We could not get it to stop. Tyler and I, over three days we changed everything but the paint job and could not get it to stop.
“Well, I didn’t know until years later what happened. They sent the car back to England and Gordon Coppuck, who designed the car, did some work on it. He changed the rear section on the car totally. They brought it back to the Speedway and we didn’t know what we had. And I went out and within five or eight laps I was running 200 mph (a 20 mph increase from the March test). It was a jaw-dropper. The thing was just incredible. It was so stable at the speed, it was really something to drive. And it was from that point on that we had success with the car.”
Revson’s best finish in five Indy 500 starts beginning in 1969_ including four consecutive with McLaren from 1970-73 _ was second to Al Unser in 1971. Revson placed 31st in the 1973 race as Rutherford’s teammate, completing only three laps after brushing the wall in Turn 4. It turned out to be Revson’s final race at IMS. The winner of two Formula One grand prixs, Revson was killed in a fiery crash while testing a Ford-powered Shadow DN3 at the Kyalami Circuit in South Africa on March 22, 1974. Revson was 35-years-old.
Rutherford’s ninth-place finish in 1973 placed him among the pole favorites one month later at IMS, where McLaren Cars entered Englishman David Hobbs to drive the No. 73 Carling Black Label McLaren/Offy.
Houston native A.J. Foyt Jr. _ then a three-time Indy 500 winner _ qualified P1 by averaging 191.632 mph in his No. 14 Gilmore Racing Team Coyote/Foyt.
“We knew we had a very fast race car because we were prepared to challenge Foyt for the pole,” Rutherford said. “I think we would have won the pole but for a technical situation with Chief Steward Tom Binford, who was new that year. We had engine trouble in the practice warmup for Pole Day and the guys went back and changed the engine and got it ready. We came back out to qualify and Binford said, ‘You guys weren’t here when we called for the lineup, so you’ve got to go to the end of the line.’^”
That circumstance forced Rutherford to qualify on Day 2 of time trials, during which he secured the 25th starting spot at 190.446 mph. “I started 25th but I had second-fast time in the car and actually probably the fastest time,” said Rutherford, who lined up in Row 9. “They dropped the green flag for the start and in 23 laps I was running third. So my car was definitely very good.”
Rutherford passed Bobby Unser for second on Lap 24 in pursuit of Foyt. J.R. took the lead from Foyt on Lap 65 and held it through Lap 125. The two Texans swapped the lead between Laps 126 and 140, when Foyt’s Poppy Orange car was black-flagged for dropping oil on the track. After a broken oil fitting officially eliminated “Super Tex” on Lap 142, Rutherford led all but one of the remaining 58 laps. He averaged 158.589 mph en route to finishing a comfortable 22.32-seconds in front of runnerup Unser and his No. 48 Olsonite Eagle/Offy.
Charting those tenths-of-seconds was the job of Betty Rutherford, who had begun timing-and-scoring each of her husband’s laps with a stopwatch in 1973.
“They had the official timing-and-scoring with the sanctioning body (U.S. Auto Club), but Betty also kept it so we could compare,” Rutherford said. Betty Rutherford worked with a large keyboard and printer set up on a card table across pit lane by the scoring tower. One of the first women to break the gender barrier in the pits at Indy, Betty continued those duties for more than 20 years.
Mrs. Rutherford, whom Johnny often referred to as “my favorite teammate,” died on Jan. 20, 2019 at age 80.
“It was just another race day for us (in 1974),” said J.R., whose victory in 3 hours, 09-minutes and 10.06-seconds was worth $245,032. “Get the job done.”
That win began a stretch at IMS that saw Rutherford finish 1-2-1 through 1976 with Team McLaren. “But I always refer to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as ‘the old lady’ and that ‘old lady’ can throw curves at you like you would not believe,” he said. Case in point, Rutherford finished 33rd and last in the 1977 Indy 500, completing only 12 laps after the gearbox failed in his No. 2 1st National City Travelers Checks McLaren/Cosworth.
In 1978, Rutherford started fourth and finished 13th in the No. 4 McLaren/Cosworth carrying the same sponsorship from 1977. However, J.R. ran 20 laps down to Al Unser’s race-winning No. 2 1st National City Travelers Checks Lola/Cosworth. Rutherford’s final Indy 500 start with McLaren saw him qualify eighth but finish 18th in the No. 4 Budweiser McLaren/Cosworth that completed 168 of 200 laps. It marked the fourth time Rutherford finished 18th at IMS. At the end of the 1979 season, McLaren management opted to discontinue its INDYCAR program.
“It was sad for them to leave but we were developing the M24, a new car, and it was having some growing pangs,” Rutherford said. “They couldn’t find sponsorship big enough and they also were involved with Emerson Fittipaldi in Formula One for the World Championship. I think the fact that because Marlboro, their sponsor in Formula One, wanted them to take better care of the F1 program, Teddy decided we can’t do INDYCAR.
“But I was there seven years with Tyler Alexander and Teddy Meyer…a good group. I won two of my (three) Indy 500s (1974, 1976) with McLaren. It was a good experience for me, for sure, to have winning cars and to set fast time and do whatever was needed of us _ we did. I did the whole spectrum. That’s the way racing is…chicken one day, feathers the next. It happens to everybody.”
