Sixty years ago at the Indy 500, Parnelli Jones and his Watson-Offy roadster taught Lotus and Jim Clark a few lessons... DavidMalsher recounts the events of a contentious month at the Brickyard.
Jim Hurtubise was the man who warned them all. He set a four-lap qualifying average of 149.056mph on the fourth day of time trials for the 1960 Indianapolis 500 – a new record and about 2.5mph faster than Eddie Sachs's pole-winning average from a week earlier. Then he informed anyone who'd listen that there was someone even better coming soon…
His rookie test at Indy was not a cinch. Initially, Jones was overcharging the corner and then braking; the best of the veterans urged him to back off earlier, brake more gently, then get back to the throttle earlier. He listened, learned and applied not only that lesson but also one he had observed while spectating the previous year.
When he returned to Indy for '63, Parnelli wasn't just one to watch: he was The One. His opposition? Well, the likely candidates would be '59 and '62 winner Ward, '61 winner Foyt, Hurtubise, Don Branson… And maybe some of those funny foreign cars with their engines at the wrong end. Up front, on pole for the second straight year, was Jones in the #98"Ol' Calhoun" Watson-Offy, alongside Hurtubise in the Kurtis powered by the cataclysmically loud Novi, and Branson in the Leader Card Watson-Offy. Two more examples of this go-to chassis-engine combo sat on Row 2, flanking Clark's Lotus, with Ward on the inside, Jim McElreath on the outside.
When Gurney and Clark finally stopped on Laps 92 and 95 respectively, Jones re-took the lead, and the now fuel-heavy Lotus duo could do nothing about him. Nor could anyone else, in fact. Clark was able to retain second ahead of Hurtubise and Foyt, but when Jones made his second stop, he was far enough ahead of the little Lotus that he didn't surrender P1, and by Lap 150 – three-quarter distance – he was almost 50 seconds clear.
"Of course, towards the end of the race I had obviously slowed way down during that time and that gave Jimmy Clark a chance to start closing up a little bit. But I was long gone and then I started picking up the pace again." "That close to the end of the race, I wouldn't have come in anyway," said Jones when discussing the black flag – or lack thereof."They may have disqualified me or whatever but I was going to win the race one way or the other.
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