Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio

Indianapolis 500 champion Parnelli Jones, whose victory in 1963 occurred amid an era of open-wheel innovation at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, passed away peacefully with his family by his side on Tuesday, June 4, 2024 in Torrance, Calif. Mr. Jones was 90.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The first driver to qualify for the Indy 500 faster than 150 mph in 1962, Jones won the 47th edition of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” from pole position on Thursday, May 30, 1963.

The versatile Jones competed against the best domestic drivers of his era, as well as a handful of Formula One stars once “The British Invasion” brought rear-engine cars to the Speedway in the early 1960s. Jones drove in the Indianapolis 500 seven times (1961-1967) yet led in all but two races for a total of 492 laps _ still the eighth-highest laps-led figure in the race’s 108-year history. In the two starts in which he did not lead _1965 and 1966 _ Jones ran many laps in second place. He finished as runner-up in 1965 behind Scotsman Jim Clark and retired from P2 with mechanical trouble in 1966, a race won by Graham Hill of Great Britain.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

“Parnelli was one of those rare individuals…one of those drivers that come along every now-and-then that kind of put it on everybody,” three-time Indy 500 champion Johnny Rutherford, 86, said in a phone interview with racedaySA.com. “Parnelli could race anything and did _ and won. He was an individual that enjoyed people and loved what he was doing. The fact that he made it to 90-years-old, I think is another sign of his talent.”

Born Rufus Parnell Jones on Aug. 12, 1933, in Texarkana, Ark., Jones is the only person to have led the Indianapolis 500 for 400 or more miles on two occasions. The first instance was during his winning drive in 1963. The second occasion was when his Andy Granatelli-entered, STP turbine-powered car failed after leading 171 of the first 196 laps in 1967.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Winner of the pole position with track-record qualifying speeds faster than 150 mph in 1962 and 1963, Jones _ and his signature crew-cut _ never started lower than sixth in any of his seven 500s.

“Parnelli and I were great, great friends and we had a lot of racing together,” said Houston native A.J. Foyt Jr., first four-time winner of the Indy 500 and a current INDYCAR team-owner. “He was a helluva Sprint Car driver, Midget driver and also Indy-car driver. We’d just become friends because we’d traveled a lot together running Sprint Car races on the East Coast, the West Coast and in the Midwest. We ran Midgets at Ascot (Park) for J.C. Agajanian many times.

“Man, we just go way back and had a lot of racing history against each other. He was a great race driver.”

Jones retired from INDYCAR competition as a driver somewhat prematurely in 1968 at the age of 34. But as a street-smart businessman, he continued and expanded his involvement in motorsports. Jones fielded a team with longtime business partner Vel Miletich that won the Indy 500 in 1970 and 1971 with a pair of Ford-powered P.J. Colt chassis _ the famed Johnny Lightning cars built in-house under the direction of chief mechanic George Bignotti and driven by Al Unser. This combination also won the United States Auto Club National Championship in 1970, followed by a second and third straight title in 1971 and 1972 with former motorcycle racing ace Joe Leonard behind the wheel.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing even briefly ventured into Formula One. The organization fielded Mario Andretti in the 1974 season-closing Canadian and United States GP rounds, followed by the entire FIA World Championship circuit in 1975, and all the races up through the Long Beach round in spring 1976.  At that point, lack of sufficient sponsorship funding brought the program to an end.

During this same period, the team also fielded Andretti and Unser in the Sports Car Club of America’s Formula 5000 road-racing series and the USAC Dirt Car (later Silver Crown) series on 1-mile dirt ovals. The Andretti-Unser collaboration consistently recorded top-three finishes in each of these widely contrasting forms of motorsport.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Jones was named after a local Arkansas judge, Rufus Parnell, whom his mother respected. The family moved from Arkansas to Fallbrook, Calif., when Parnelli was 2-years-old and then to Torrance when he was 7.

At age 17, while racing old cars in Gardena, Calif., Jones needed an alias to prevent race officials from learning he wasn’t the minimum legal age of 18 to compete. Jones’ school friend, Billy Calder, came up with a teen-age scheme. Calder used to tease Jones about his attraction to a girl in their school named Nellie. Aware Jones’ middle name was Parnell, Calder would jokingly refer to him as “Parnellie.” Calder, in fact, painted the name “Parnellie” on the door of the jalopy he raced, and the rest is history _ albeit with the “e” dropped somewhere along the way.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

As a driver, Jones burst onto the USAC scene in 1960, joining friend and traveling partner Jim “Herk” Hurtubise in defeating all the venerable Offenhauser-powered Sprint Cars with much less expensive V8 “stock block” Chevrolet powerplants. Jones was offered cars to drive at Indianapolis that first year, but chose instead to watch from the sidelines as Hurtubise smashed the qualifying track records and dominated Rookie of the Year honors in the No. 56 Travelon Trailer Christensen/Offy. The 1969 Indy 500 was won by Jim Rathmann in the No. 4 Ken-Paul Watson/Offy.

Jones had decided to make his championship debut after the 500 to potentially enjoy a full season on “the circuit” before returning to Indianapolis the following May with valuable miles under his belt. That plan worked out better than expected.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

By the time he almost won the 1960 Milwaukee 200 with a Quin Epperly-built “laydown” car that August, Jones already had been blessed with the break of a lifetime by testing tires for Firestone, racking up hundreds of miles around the 2.5-mile IMS oval before ever taking a rookie test. Everything seemed to be in place for him to drive the same Epperly car the following May until veteran Tony Bettenhausen took it out for a “test-hop,” raved over its handling and convinced car-owner Lindsey Hopkins he should purchase it for Bettenhausen to drive.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Jones wasn’t sidelined for long. Colorful Californian J.C. Agajanian, for whom Bettenhausen previously had agreed to drive in 1961, was already somewhat of a mentor to Parnelli and it didn’t take long for “Aggie” to hire him in Bettenhausen’s place. Jones qualified fifth for the 500, led 27 laps and might have been a late-race contender for victory had he not been hit in the eye by a rock. Even with blood streaming into his goggles and an Offy engine down on power due to a fouled spark plug, he refused to give up, flagged-off several laps behind at the end in 12th place. The Rookie of the Year balloting resulted in a tie between Jones and Bobby Marshman, who finished seventh.

Photo courtesy of A.J. Foyt Racing

Jones’ 1960 USAC Sprint Car season had culminated with the final Mid-West Sprint Car title and was followed in 1961 by the inaugural National Sprint Car title, the first in which the previously separate championships of the Mid-West, East and Pacific Coast were merged. Jones eventually won 25 USAC Sprint Car feature events, along with another 25 wins in USAC Midget Car features despite competing on an occasional basis.

Foyt also was a regular during that barnstorming period, highlighted by events at Ascot Park near Gardena, Calif.

Two great champions going wheel to wheel in their respective No. 1 sprint cars on the high banks of Salem (Ind.) Speedway. Foyt (on the inside) won USAC’s East Coast title while Jones captured the Midwest championship in 1960. Photo courtesy of A.J. Foyt Racing

“Ascot Park was one of the biggest races (attendance-wise) of the year when me and him (Jones) would be out there racing each other,” Foyt said. “It’s a wonder one of us didn’t kill the other because we raced so hard trying to beat each other out there. He was from California and I was from Texas, and I liked beating drivers in their backyard _ but he was tough. We raced Sprint Cars in the Midwest, a lot on the East Coast and he won the championship in the Midwest and I won it on the East Coast the same year and finished second to him in the Midwest.”

At the end of the 1961 season, Jones posted his first of six USAC National Championship victories with a win in the season-ending 100-mile dirt track event at the Arizona State Fairgrounds.

A.J. Foyt catches up with his old friend Parnelli Jones at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 2021. It was the last time they were together. Photo courtesy of A.J. Foyt Racing

By this time, Jones had begun heeding the advice of his racing hero, 1952 Indy 500 winner Troy Ruttman, as far as seeking Agajanian’s help with investments. That process began with steady contributions from Jones’ Sprint Car earnings until their holdings, as partners, grew to include a variety of valuable real estate acquisitions.

Set up with a Firestone tire store in 1965, Jones worked to grow the business and subsequently opened a second store and a third, eventually topping-out with no less than 47 franchises. Even after selling the entire enterprise many years later, he remained on-board as a consultant, with his iconic name still appearing above the main entrances.

A.J. Foyt and Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Although Rodger Ward won his second Indy 500 in 1962, he often said Jones was the “moral winner” of that race. The first _ and only _ driver to qualify under four minutes and faster than 150 mph that year at 150.370 mph, Jones, in only his second 500 start, led 120 of the race’s first 125 laps until failing brakes forced him to slow down. Refusing to give up, he nursed the ailing No. 98 Agajanian Willard Battery Watson/Offy home seventh after having run for almost 200 miles without brakes.

In 1963, Jones won the Indy 500 in the No. 98 Watson/Offy famously nicknamed “Ol’ Calhoun,” although the race was not without controversy. Late in the running, oil began to seep from a tiny crack in an externally mounted oil tank, placing Chief Steward Harlan Fengler in the unenviable position of having to decide whether or not to black-flag the leader. While Fengler was still deliberating, the leak stopped and Jones was allowed to continue to the victory.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

That “Month of May” witnessed the launch of “The British Invasion” in INDYCAR via a pair of Ford-powered Lotus chassis entered by Colin Chapman and driven by F1 star Clark and all-American ace Dan Gurney. Clark, who qualified fifth in his first oval-track race, finished second in the No. 92 Lotus while Foyt completed the podium in the No. 2 Sheaton-Thompson Trevis/Offy. Gurney, like Jones a native of California, finished seventh in the No. 93 Lotus powered by Ford.

Rutherford recalled 1963 as a year of innovation at IMS. “It was another time of growth, of change,” said Rutherford, a longtime resident of the City of River Oaks, which borders Fort Worth. “I was fortunate to have been a rookie during that period and racing and Parnelli was ‘the hero.’ He and Foyt were the exceptional talents on the scene at the time.”

Indeed, Rutherford was at the opposite end of the Garage Alley pecking order from Jones and car-owner Agajanian and Foyt, who had won his first Indy 500 in 1961.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

“The owner that brought me to the Speedway was George Walther,” Rutherford said. “He owned Dayton Steel Wheels, which made steel wheels for trucks and things. He bought a Watson Roadster and had a Championship Dirt Car and he was my opportunity to come to the Speedway as a rookie. But there were stories about the Roadster. We struggled with the car, could not get it up to speed and in fact I ran a lot of miles at the track, which was good for me.

“But the car, there was something wrong. We even had Parnelli _ ‘Ol’ Calhoun’ was just like the one I was driving, a Watson Roadster _ Parnelli came down and helped us. We could get the weight in the car right but the height would be off. We’d get the height right and the weight would be off. So the car had a tweak and I found out later that it had been crashed at Milwaukee the year previous and that was the problem.”

Rutherford started the 1963 Indy 500 in 26^th and finished 29th in the No. 37 U.S. Equipment Co. entry, completing 43 laps before the car’s transmission failed.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

In 1964, Jones was invited to drive two races for Team Lotus _ the Milwaukee 200 in August, when Clark was racing overseas and not available, and the second as Clark’s teammate for the Trenton (N.J.) 200 in September.

Jones won both races. It was quite a compliment when Englishman Chapman, the mustachioed Lotus Team Principal, offered Jones the opportunity to partner Clark _ who won his first World Driving Championship in 1963 _ on the F1 circuit. For a variety of reasons Jones politely declined, preferring to race at home. That decision led to yet another title, as Parnelli claimed the 1964 USAC Stock Car championship with eight wins in 15 starts for Bill Stroppe’s Mercury Marauder team.

Parnelli even trounced the sports car contingent in the late-season Los Angeles Times Grand Prix in 1964 at Riverside Raceway in California.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

“It was off-and-on that we raced stock cars,” said Foyt, who won NASCAR’s Daytona 500 in February 1972. “He raced at Daytona and I raced against him there. We had a lot of races together but I can’t name them all. He won some, I won some _ it was just a toss-up. He was a clean race driver but a hard race driver. You had to work to beat him.

“One story I remember was when I went to the 24-hour race over in Le Mans, I came back and picked-up the paper and read: ‘Parnelli Jones wins in A.J.’s Sprint Car in Salem, Indiana.’ And I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ I had my car in Herb Porter’s shop and Parnelli said, ‘Well, we had nothing to do that weekend and your car was sitting in the garage, so we decided to go racing with it. No wonder you run so fast, I didn’t even have to hardly drive it to win over there.’

“They didn’t give me any money either. They just borrowed my race car.”

Jones’ sixth and final USAC Championship victory came in June 1965 in the Milwaukee 100, driving the same Agajanian-owned No. 98 Agajanian Hurst Kuzma Lotus/Ford in which he had finished second to Clark’s No. 82 Lotus powered by Ford in May’s Indy 500. Clark capped his 1965 season by winning his second F1 championship.

Parnelli Jones Through the Years. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

 Parnelli had decided to cut back on INDYCAR competition at that point and made only one more start for the balance of the year, racing USAC Stock Cars instead and becoming more and more involved with off-road racing.

Despite Jones’ numerous victories and accomplishments, he also will be remembered for almost winning the Indy 500 in 1967 with Andy Granatelli’s controversial, STP-sponsored, four-wheel-drive turbine.

Jones qualified a disappointing sixth with the dominant car, but he quickly drove to the front on Race Day. Using the four-wheel-drive system to its fullest, Jones negotiated the turns above the accepted “groove” and by the time he entered Turn 2 of the opening lap, he had driven around the outside of all but pole-sitter Andretti. As they cleared Turn 2 and headed down the backstretch, Jones moved to the inside and sped past Mario with apparent ease to lead the first lap by a huge margin.

Rain fell after only 18 laps, forcing the race into a second day. The story was playing-out the same…until a $6 transmission bearing in the rear end of Jones’ No. 40 Granatelli/Pratt & Whitney car failed with only four laps to go. The turbine coasted to a stop near the entrance to pit lane, as the STP crew ran to Jones’ assistance. At that point, Jones had led a staggering 171 of 196 laps. He officially placed sixth as Foyt inherited the lead en route to his third Indy 500 victory, this time in the No. 14 Sheraton-Thompson Coyote/Ford.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Rutherford said Granatelli’s turbine car widely was viewed in Gasoline Alley as “innovation” perhaps ahead of its time _ and out-of-place.

“Well, of course, everybody would like to have one and it was another movement in technology at Indianapolis,” Rutherford said. “But the big part of the turbine thing was the expense. It was extremely expensive to build a car and install a turbine engine and there were a lot of other problems that came with the turbine.”

In a bid to curtail the power output of Granatelli’s turbine cars, USAC officials implemented a revised set of regulations for the 1968 Indy 500. Chief among them was reducing the maximum turbo inlet size from 23.999-inches to 15.999-inches to limit available horsepower. Another rule required all cars to conduct three mandatory pit stops, an increase from two that were required from 1965 to 1967.

“I think the United States Auto Club did the right thing absolutely with the rules for the size of the turbine, so there was nothing available in that category,” said Rutherford, fully-aware of the impact a turbine victory would have made on the internal combustion engine. “It was something that would have cost car-owners, if they wanted to stay (in INDYCAR), a lot of money and a lot of car-owners would have dropped out and gone to other types of racing maybe.

“But the turbine was perfect for Parnelli, because it would accelerate incredibly fast. Parnelli had proved that to Foyt’s end. But under the stress the turbine engine took in an Indy-car at Indianapolis…it failed and didn’t stick around too long.”

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Jones originally was scheduled to drive the much-revised No. 40 turbine in the 1968 Indy 500. However, he never turned a lap in the car, having weighed his chances of winning against the growing responsibilities of his many business investments and his family. He decided to step away and turn over the car to Leonard, who was driving for the team Jones co-owned with Miletich.

No longer an Indianapolis 500 driver, Jones was hardly through with competitive racing. He became part of Ford Motor Company’s effort to win the popular SCCA Trans-Am championship for “Pony Cars,” and he won the driver’s title in 1970 in a Ford Mustang.

In off-road racing, Jones again teamed with Stroppe to score five major wins with a much-modified Ford Bronco, sponsored by Olympia Beer and affectionately nicknamed “Big Oly.” The combination won the Baja 1000 in 1971 and 1972, the Baja 500 in 1970 and 1973 and the Las Vegas Mint 400 in 1973.

Jones is survived by his wife of nearly 57 years, Judy, and sons P.J. and Page, both of whom had professional racing careers. P.J. Jones followed in his father’s footsteps by starting the Indianapolis 500 in 2004 and 2006. Page Jones was making strides on Midwest short tracks until suffering serious injuries in a crash in 1994, ending his driving career.

Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of Indianapolis Motor Speedway

“The racing world has lost a great competitor and a true champion,” said Roger Penske, 87, founder/chairman of Penske Corporation and owner of the NTT IndyCar Series and IMS. “Parnelli Jones was one of the most accomplished racers in history, and his determination and will to win made him one of the toughest competitors I have ever seen.

“From racing against him on-track to competing against him as a fellow team-owner, I always respected Parnelli’s passion and commitment to the sport he loved. I was proud to call Parnelli a good friend for many years, and our thoughts are with his family as we remember one of the true legends of motorsports.”

Jones was inducted into numerous halls of fame, including the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame, the National Motorsports Hall of Fame and both the National Sprint Car and National Midget Halls of Fame.

“I know the time comes for all of us and we never know when it’s gonna happen,” said Foyt, 89. “It’s hard but I’m glad we had so many good times together and a lot of great memories. He was one of the best I ever drove against.”