Indy 500 1973: Peter Revson

More on Peter Revson HERE

Indy 500 1976: Jerry Grant

Jerry Grant ran in the Indianapolis 500 in 1965-1968, 1970 and 1972-1976.

Grant was the first USAC driver to break 200 miles per hour mark.

From Wikipedia

"Grant is best remembered for his bad luck at the 1972 Indianapolis 500 that cost him first victory and then second place. He was leading the race comfortably over Mark Donohue when a punctured tire forced him to pit with 12 laps to go. As Donohue went past into the lead, Grant overshot his pit and stopped at his teammate Bobby Unser's. His mechanics changed the tire in Unser's pit, and also refueled the car - from Unser's pit tank. Grant returned to the track and finished second to Donohue, but third-place Al Unser's team filed a protest, saying that Grant had used fuel from another driver's supply. The protest was upheld and Grant's final 12 laps were not counted, dropping him from 2nd to 12th."

Indy 500 1976: Tom Sneva

From Wikipedia.

"Tom Sneva is a former Indy Car driver who was named to the prestigious Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2005. Sneva is best remembered for winning the 1983 Indianapolis 500. Nicknamed "The Gas Man," Sneva was an outstanding qualifier, winning the pole position for the Indianapolis 500 three times (1977, 1978, 1984)."

Indy 500 1976: Any Ideas?

I can't read the drivers name on this car so help me out on who it is.

I do see that he was sponsored by Ayr-Way though.

Indy 500 1976: Vern Schuppan

Vernon "Vern" Schuppan and is a driver from Whyalla, South Australia.

I spy a whole roll of duct tape in this slide.

Schuppan competed in three Indianapolis 500 races (1976, 1979, 1981), with a best result of third in 1981 driving a McLaren-Ford.


Go HERE to read more about his career.

Indy 500 1976: Salt Walther

Salt Walther in his bicentennial racing suit.

It reminds me of Evel Knievels jumpsuit.

I have posted about Salt before HERE which has video of his awful car crash.
I mention him HERE too.


Dad took a close up of his hands. He had burned some of his fingers off in that terrible crash at Indy.

I still can't believe how close they let us get to the drivers and cars back then. So cool!

Was everything better in the 70's? Probably not but I know that the 500 and the month of May in Indy were far better in the 70's than it is today.

Indy 500 1976: Al Unser

From Wikipedia

"Alfred "Al" Unser (born May 29, 1939) is a former American automobile racing driver, the younger brother of fellow racing drivers Jerry and Bobby Unser, and father of Al Unser, Jr.. He is the second of three men to have won the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race four times, the fourth of five to have won the race in consecutive years, and is the only person to have both a sibling (Bobby) and child (Al Jr.) as fellow winners."

"Unser has led the most laps of any driver in the history of the Indianapolis 500, at 644. Unser broke Ralph DePalma's long standing record of 612 laps led on the last lap of his 4th victory.

Unser holds the record of being the oldest driver to ever win the 500 at 47 years old (1987), breaking the previous record set by his brother Bobby."

He finished 7th in 1976.

I always liked the Unsers. Bobby was my favorite to cheer for.

Maybe it was because the Unsers could spend millions of dollars on a race car and still use duct tape on it their helmet.

You can find other posts about the Indy 500 HERE

"You are my prisoners," Captain Nemo proclaimed.

Spooky

The slide says it is 1974 so by looking at the size of the cat this was the year we got our cat Spooky.

We had Spooky the cat for quite a long time and we learned quite a bit from her.

We learned about birth and that cats eat the after birth. YUCK!!!


We learned how fun kittens are and that Momma cats teach the kittens how to hunt.

Spooky only killed birds to train her kittens. It was fun to watch her students all crouch down and hide as they studied their mothers movements as she went in for the kill.

We learned that for some life was short and that sometimes the kindest thing you could do was really hard to do.

I specifically remember a young kitten that was going to die.
I don't remember the details why. If it had been stepped on, of a dog had mauled it or if was just the runt and couldn't fiend for itself.

One evening my brothers and I saw our Dad talking softly to our Mother.
We also noticed that he was holding a gun.
Seeing the gun we immediately ran over to see what was going on.

That is when we saw the kitten in my Dads hand.
Our parents told us how the kitten wasn't going to make it and that the kindest thing to do was to stop its suffering.

We could see it struggle while our Dad held it.
We were young.
We pleaded for one more day. One more night.
When we woke up and went to check on the kitten we found it dead.

We felt awful.
Dad had us bury the cat and we learned a hard lesson that day.

I don't remember what happened to Spooky but I know she lived a long time.
She was a good cat.