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What happened to www.vukovichaccident.com?
It appears to be gone. If so, I'm sorry. It was a great piece of journalism and research.
It appears to be gone. If so, I'm sorry. It was a great piece of journalism and research.
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The dedicated and gracious owner and keeper of the site passed away a couple of years ago. My guess is that the family chose to stop paying for the upkeep.
I forget the gentleman's name (wish I hadn't) but he was a jewel.Last edited by preacher; 12-14-2013, 08:11 PM. -
Originally posted by preacher View Post
You're speaking of my friend Rex Dean, who was a great great guy.
He would have LOVED this year's 500 as he loved Tony Kanaan.
His work lives on through another close friend of mine, Dr. Steve Clinton, at this site, www.billvukovich.comComment
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jnormanh, here's the link to VukovichAccident.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20120204...haccident.com/If I were Ed Carpenter and you were a lady...Comment
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Glad to see the website has been mostly preserved. Unfortunately, the archive hasn't kept the complete site. The audio files are missing as are some photos and pages.Originally posted by richie View PostComment
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This is, unfortunately, a glimpse into the future of the "digital age," with information vanishing into the ether...And so we beat on, boats against the current, drawn back ceaselessly into the past ... F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ever have the feeling that the rest of the world is a tuxedo and you're a pair of brown shoes? ... George GobelComment
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I always knew approximately where Vuky ended up on the back straight but never knew exactly where it was.
Turns out I watched part of the Freedom 100 pretty much across the track from where the car landed a couple years ago
It would be incredibly poor taste to mark every spot where something awful like that occurred,
but its interesting and dare I say important for Indy Geeks to knowLast edited by KevMcNJ; 12-15-2013, 11:28 AM.Live like DaveComment
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All of the audio and photos have been preserved and will continue to be added to the site. Steve was very specific that he wanted Rex's work to live on.Originally posted by Thorzdad View PostComment
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Where is it? What landmark is near the area?Originally posted by KevMcNJ View Post"We are all speeding toward our deaths at 60 minutes an hour." Sid Collins on Race Day, 1964Comment
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There's an overhead shot of the track on that link that shows where the involved cars ended up. Vuky ended up just North of what looks like a maintenance building and just a few yards West of a small pond on the golf courseOriginally posted by IndyDog View PostLive like DaveComment
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Just reread my Vukovich book this past weekend. I presume the area he ended up is not now in any way the way it looked then? Leaving the 500 one year (in the 80's) we would have walked right past the location but it never entered my mind, I wonder if it had changed much then?A book fell on my head, and I only have my shelf to blame.Comment
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I'm guessing Vuky ended up a little south of that pond.Originally posted by KevMcNJ View Post"We are all speeding toward our deaths at 60 minutes an hour." Sid Collins on Race Day, 1964Comment
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That's right. And amazingly, the quonset hut type maintenance building was still there many years later. I think it finally got removed sometime around 1990 when work started on the new Pete Dye golf course.Originally posted by KevMcNJ View Post
At any rate Winfield and myself were walking out of the Speedway one night in the middle of the summer around 1986 (I think). In those days a few teams still worked on their cars in the Garage Area most of the year and we both had cars in there. The only thing was that you were supposed to be out of the track by 5:00PM. To get around that we would close and lock our garage doors and wait until the guards made a final pass and left. Sometimes we would work way after dark so we would tape up the cracks in the doors from the inside so the light wouldn't be visible. But in reality there wasn't all that much security back then outside of May. It wasn't really needed. We used to park our cars by the swimming pool at the old Speedway Motel and walk out to them via the golf course since the main gates were all closed.
On one particular night my eye caught something sitting alongside the maintenance building on the backstretch; we used the backstretch tunnel to leave the infield. It was bulky and seemed to be covered in old oiled paper. When we went over to it I remember pulling back the paper and we both just stared at what was there with our mouths open. In front of us was the original Fuel Injection Special refueling rig on what looked like its original wheels. It was still in its original gray paint and the lettering on the side had all been done by hand as the brush strokes were still very visible. It seemed like some kind of a major archaeological find to us and we couldn't figure out why it was sitting there nearly on the spot where Vukovich had crashed. The tank stayed out in the open alongside the building for some period and then one day just disappeared. I remember we carefully put the paper covering back in place that night and kept our mouths shut about what we'd found at the time. I've never seen it again and I don't think it has ever been on display in the museum either.
Years later I heard that some of Howard Keck's racing equipment was being sold off at about that same time. It had apparently been locked up in storage in California since 1955 along with some race cars including the never completed Keck Streamliner. I can only assume that somehow the IMS museum had purchased the tank (or maybe it was donated) and that explained why the thing was covered up with all of the ancient looking oiled paper. Maybe they just didn't have room for it at that point and just set it outside on the backstretch. I guess we'll never know for sure.
Last edited by indyrjc; 12-17-2013, 11:43 AM.Comment
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