1966 Indianapolis 500 | Official Race Film 1080p 

Yes! My Grandpa is the narrator in this film, Chris Schenkel! Thank you for posting this. My family still loves the track, the race, and all of Indianapolis in the month of May! A family tradition my grandpa started for us. See you in a few weeks!

Hill had already been World Champion by this point, and had won at Monaco three times. He still had another World Championship, two more Monaco wins and a win at LeMans in his future. Amazing career. In my opinion, only Mario Andretti's career rivals Hill's in terms of accomplishments across a variety of racing formulae.

I can’t imagine this race being run today. It was so much more dangerous back then. The cars were insanely dangerous, the crowd was literally right up on the track, the walls were lower, catch fencing too....deaths nearly every year were just accepted as part of it. Today when we sadly lose a driver, it’s major news. And they’re going almost 100 mph faster today than these cars were going. Makes you really appreciate the bravery of the old school drivers like Foyt, Rathmann, Jones, etc. Not to take anything away from today’s drivers....

It was tough being a race fan back then in the days of no live televised race coverage. Taped "highlights" of a race on Wide World of Sports was about the best you could hope for, which was an exercise in near futility. Just when you were really getting into something exiting like the Indy or Daytona 500 they'd cut away to coverage of something the polar opposite of auto racing, like figure skating semi-finals from Helsinki, or a PBA Pro-Am bowling tournament from Akron.

I attended this race, my third 500.

What's most impressive is the 1986 race from this race. Go watch the 1986 race, that was the FIRST time it was televised LIVE. Look how modern the cars looked (for being 37 years ago!!!) , and yet 1986 was only 20 years after this race here the 1966. Look how different just 20 years made from the 1960s to 80s. Amazing.

This was my first 500. I was behind sitting in the stands behind the pits.

God all those immortal drivers, even Jackie and the Europeans. And those cars?! Parnelli Jones in the AC Agajanian #98 “special” - they won in 1963. Agajanian was the guy behind Ascot Park in Gardena, another self-made legend of an immigrant family.

I have never seen so many tyres flying around like that before in my life

Surprised to see this year @Indianapolis Motor Speedway Thank you for the great content and not reposting something already on the @IndyCar channel

I remember watching this race in a movie theater with my dad back when they only showed the Indy on close-circuit TV.

The year of the snafued scoring. No one was ever 100% certain who actually won. The scoreboard kept changing back and forth between Hill and Clark. And one source said Johncock was the actual winner because he wasn't credited with a lap at the beginning of the race during the confusion over the crash.

1:36 In reference to " You will see the 500 in color ". but this vid being in black and white. In the early days, video tape was expensive so many programs ( color or not ) once recorded were transferred to black and white film. There is a procedure that can extract the color info from artifacts in the BW picture.

I love the old footage and Chris Schenkel. Chris has the weird pronunciation of the letter I. Endianpolis, Endy 500 , Fenished, Wenner. Great race! Crazy Pileup. Reminded me of 1973's Salt Walther crash on turn one.

Wow that was such a great race to watch from such a great time with the greatest of drivers, it made my eyes water a little

I was in turn one, 16 years old at Indy that year., and young. I Loved A.J. Foyt By then,From Eldora Speedway. Half of the field, "P. Jones , Andretti, Unser's, Gurney...". Sprint Cars bombed my family, "us 7 kids", with dirt ball roost in turn 1 , ...at your Track Tony Stewart, with Earl Baltas watering the track. We were very young at Eldora in the Mid 50s onward. Thanks for keeping it Real Tony. " 4-wheel Open Cock Pit... Gasoline Powered"....and better fire safety

Looks like a tire or two went into the stands. Glad no one was seriously hurt.

Never heard Dan Gurney sounding so pissed off before. He usually stayed pretty cool.

1966. My favourite Indianapolis 500 of all time apart from many others.

Look at a young Jackie Stewart in THIS RACE!!! He was so sacred of this race.

Wanted to go, but no one would go with me! I was attending the Univ of Dayton only a couple of hours from Indy! Some great drivers there!

That tire leaving the top left of the screen at 9:23 completely baffles my mind...that thing is moving so fast it looks like a bad video effect...yet its real.

The FAMOUS Race that screwed up the Lap Count, and Jimmy Clark was the Real Winner. The Greatest Driver of All-Time in my opinion. But Jackie Stewart and Mario are up there in the Top 10 Ever as well. Stacked Field of Legends.

This must have been one of the races that gave ppl the idea to tether the wheels lol that wreck at the start was nothing but a giant cloud and tires flying everywhere 😂and some very realistic crash sounds

1966 Indianapolis 500 meters

Nice jewel of the Indy 500

Since handheld color cameras weren't put into use until the fall of 1967, I suspect that film cameras were used in the pits and in the blimp (with their footage later transferred to videotape) while color TV cameras were used in "fixed" locations and their footage also videotaped. All the tapes were then edited together for the telecast shown here, which isn't the official race film, but an edited videotape that aired on "Wide World Of Sports" about a week later. As I previously noted, this is a black-and-white kinescope.

8:27 (commentator) and 8:55 (onscreen) - that was how quick the (front engined) roadsters had more or less vanished from this race forever by 1966 - just 1 qualified and on the back row - by contrast in 1964 there were just 2 rear engined cars (on the front row) and i think another one a little further back - i think the first one appeared in 1961 but by 1963 one of those little cars began to dominate the race and every other driver was soon forced to copy it.

TVRI Classic Operators :Soekarno (1901-70)

Hello, is there video of Slavko ( Pete) Romcevic of his last race? He is my cousin.

In 1966 Walt Disney's the Indianapolis 500 on ABC Via Satellite to TVRI Monochrome

Andretti: (Car belching smoke) USAC officials: Hmmm... do we black flag him? *Unrelated crash causes caution* USAC officials: OK, black flag Andretti. Andretti: Welp... time to pit, I guess. LOL

gus grissom is from my hometown

Could you please not "burn" the black bars into the left and right of the video? RU-vid will handle a 1440x1080 non-widescreen video just fine with 1080p being available and everything, but manually padding the video to 1920px wide just makes fullscreen a poor experience for anybody watching this on a display with an aspect ratio taller than 16:9 such as the multitude of 16:10 tablets, 3:2 laptops, and 4:3 iPads.

Had no idea Graham Hill raced in this

The Yanks put a man on the Moon but couldn’t count 200 laps. Clark won the race. He was robbed

My home

Why did AJ Foyt climb over the fence 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

Graham hill wins

9:14 15:40

XXXL

For every loose tire wheel that came off in that pile-up at 9:17 there was a loose NUT holding the STEERING WHEEL!!! :) :) LOL!! ;) ;)

Indy needs new “invaders” this means YOU Kurt/Kyle Busch, Lewis Hamilton

...😴lik..Bra....🔉🔊🕭🎶🎵

The canned sound effects for the wrecks though....

The engineers who built Ayrton Senna's car killed him, and never were charged for their indifference to human life- indignant bastards!

Too bad that only a black-and-white kinescope exists of ABC's color telecast of the 1966 Indy 500.

I'm surprised to see no nutjobs on here commenting on how everybody shown close-up is a shapeshifter.

Toxic masculinity @ 0:40

*announcer is either , GERMAN, DUTCH, or JEW* ........i'll deep-web it..........Da, ist asuntos.

Can't get used to the added squeal sounds...especially when they are sliding in the grass. :v

Look how low that wall is ... and how close the spectators are to the track. Seemed normal then, not so much now. And seeing AJ climb the fence ... priceless. Memories of '64 still clearly fresh.

11 people are disappointed that the "agony of defeat" clip is not the ski crash.

My grandfather, who I never met, went to 33 Indy races in a row. This was the last race he attended before passing at the young age a 56. The Indy 500 has always been a huge event in my family. I hope to attend one someday.

If I remember right, the most serious injury from the big wreck was by A.J. Foyt, who cut his finger climbing the fence.

Nice thumbnail too - Pat Vidan was the quintessential flag man. The Matador.

DONT DO THE STUPID 25/8 rule. For the 500 next year WE NEED BUMP DAY

This is the same year I was born , & the same month that they have the indy 500 , my birthday is May 9th ! 👍😊🏎🏎🏎

Whereever THIS came from.....do you access to MORE ABC races from the 60s and early 70s? Soooo many NASCAR and especially INDY races not posted from places like Trenton

AJ was like, "Fuck it - I'll go sit in the stands for a while..."

Watching old school IndyCar racing is awesome, but god… the officiation SUCKS. It makes modern NASCAR officiation look smart and like they know what they’re doing 100% of the time

The 1960's, the golden era of auto racing

Jackie Stewart very classy man. This when you did race by the seat of your pants.

Biggest opening lap crash I've seen in the 500, would see something much more bigger later on in this race's history (1973 edition).

Graham Hill, what a champ!

Neat looking cars

Thanks , great Memories. Interestingly,I was there fir the Race: with PURDUE’s Color Guard Opsning Track, Preliminary Festivities( ARMY *ROTC,1966-67,Honor* Guard, SSG)…….ps: oddly, I am a big INDY FAN, but first AND ONLY RACE Attendance!! ( born WARSAW Indiana ,primarily worked there & several Drugstores/ Towns),,,…

Only seven cars finished this race

This is friggin awesome. Brave men matched only by the soldiers

Graham Hill is the only driver to have won the Indy 500, Le Mans, and the world formula one championship which includes Monaco.

Cool cat Graham Hill

Why can't we recreate the era of manly elegance?

Insanity briefly referenced starting at 33:22 is more fully explained here-- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Indianapolis_500 Can't they count the laps????

I live when he’s explaining the track to ppl and the graphic is a diagram of the track with someone’s hand pointing at the different turns that are being explained 😂

I recall a story I read, in Circle Track Magazine perhaps. Graham Hill was at Salem Speedway and was in absolute awe of the USAC sprint cars on the high banks. It may have been Parnelli Jones who offered him a seat in his car for hot laps, and Graham wouldn't have anything to do with it. I believe he thought you had to be insane to race in such a car at that track. Frankly, I think he was right. Salem has claimed it's share of drivers over the years.

I was 6. My family just moved to the Indy area, east side. My dad was sad that the race wasn't on TV, so we listened on the radio and started a family tradition. Picnic in the backyard while listening and picking names out of a hat who would win. The winner just got bragging rights.

My first 500! It seemed like it took forever to get the race restarted

The one dude driving the roadster at the back of the field headed for the start almost looks like a mistake. Amid all the futuristic-looking sleek machines there's one driver---half his entire body is up and out of the car!

wow $12 for some firestones.

Most cars involved in Opening Lap in the most in Indianapolis 500 History?

This seems to be the oldest ABC footage of an Indy 500 that exists. This also I believe was the last filmed in black and white (the next year, 1967 was in color). Back then, the race would be shown I believe 10-15 days after the 500 was run in this format because Tony Hulman, like many sports owners of the day feared television would take away from the live gate and the networks back then were unwilling to pay anywhere close to what they pay now for sports rights (to where I suspect eventually, Roger Penske will be forced to install lights at Indy so NBC can have the Indy 500 on Saturday night instead of Sunday to get it away from Monaco and the Coca-Cola 600). The start of this race was in many ways a precursor to what we would see seven years later with the infamous 1973 edition that is likely forever the worst race of all time.

It's amazing how many Great Racers were in this one Race, also, quite a few famous future "Car Owners," were Driving here, as well,...thanks!

This is awesome in HD!

This is so friggin awesome. Bravest men since ww2/Korea/Nam

Smoking ford's , huh ...

if you take a picture of a low res picture with a high res camera what do you get?

Chris would've been great as the chief announcer for the IMS radio network

The Americans must have been flipping out at the prospect of three F1 stars, Stewart, Hill and Clark, finishing 1-2-3 at Indy, especially after Clark's win the year before.

Graham Hill rookie? I don't blame him for being upset, as he was a legendary Grand Prix driver.

Only 7 racers on track and they still couldnt keep track lol

120mph on the straight? Surely they were faster than that in 66?

Where was the in color part?

Only 7 cars finished from 33 starters. Says it all really..............

ABC Black and White TV Operator :Walt Disney (1901-66)

USAC officials stopped scoring Clark for 2 laps after his spin.they thought he was out of the race. OOPS!!!!

Ruby another hard luck driver at Indy

TVRI Operator: Soekarno

The most flying tires you will ever see in your life😂. My mom and dad both went to this race. He tried to take pics with Kodak Instamatic but was only able to see the cloud of smoke from all of the debris. I went to my 1st Indy 500 in 1979 and again 1980. Rick Mears 1st of 4 wins and Johnny Rutherford 3rd win. Still a great spectacle even today😊

This the first 500 I attended. That “rookie” from England took it. Still remember.

The 25/8 rule is a return to 1996... how did that go for you guys? Oh right... it almost ended open wheel racing in North America and set everyone back two decades! If you punish those who support you passionately again with short sighted measures to please the narrow-minded, you may not survive it this round.