Its weird hearing/seeing all these names together. it's like it isn't possible. So many flat out legends and winners...but they are all racing together. Safe to say these years from the early 70s thru the mid to late 80s will never be duplicated as far as talent. Good lord 👀🤯🤯
Thanks for up loading these classic USAC IndyCar races Charles. You always come through for us old Indy Racing Fans. BTW, I had been attending the IndyCar races at Phoenix International Raceway since 1966, when I watched Jim McElreath win the Bobby Ball spring race. Mario was on pole with, at that time, the "Fastest One Mile Qualifying Lap" of 29+ seconds. A.J. was outside row one. They took each other out at the "Dog Leg" coming out of turn two in the first five laps. I was so disappointed because A.J. was, and still is, my all time favorite, and hero, driver. PS, I was also fortunate to watch A.J. and another all time great Rodger Ward split a "Twin 50's" bill in the "Champ Dirt Car" race at the Old Phoenix Fairgrounds Mile Dirt Track. I think it was 1963 or 1964. One of the very last "USAC Championship Trail" events just before PIR opened in 1964. (Which A.J. also won in his Sheraton-Thompson Watson Roadster.)
I was just getting interested in racing in the mid to late 70s. Champ cars were my favorite and Johnny Rutherford was my guy, the Rick Mears. Thanks for posting this, I love watching these old races that I haven't seen for over 40 years.
As always thanks for the UL! Really sad that NHRA has an entire channel of classic races from on Roku. But IndyCar has to rely on fans coming up with these classic races from the same era.
Personally, I don’t care what anyone says, Phoenix was built for IndyCar and NASCAR. If it wasn’t for the low attendances from 2016-2018 for IndyCar, I think we will see IndyCar still race in the desert!
1978 - a year of Indy Car series ( U.S.A.C. known as the Indy Car series sanction organized group since about the mid 1950's when the American Automobile Assocation [AAA] gave the rules committees to the fairly new organized U.S.A.C. to regulate the Indy cars). The speeds at many of these tracks fell due to the designs of the cars. Indianapolis Motor Speedway had already been over " officially" in a 200 m.p.h. range since '77. Great drivers of the 1960's & '70's were being known...some dominated the car racing scene with, like other forms of auto racing, had the other drivers off many years to literally "fill" the field. A number of the " lesser known" , if given the money and top crews, could have been well know like some of the NASCAR and F-1 drivers were (and still are just..."filling the field". ) But...there are guys with "aggressive auto racing talent" who have always dominated auto races over its history. The guy that was " hot" for 1978 in the 1978 Indy racing year was, Danny Ongais of Hawaii. This '78 year was literally the last year that any Offenhauser powered car had still a chance to win a race. British racing motor company, Cosworth, was the dominate power. My favorites for '78 was: Ongais, Tom Sneva, and A.J. Foyt. Bobby Unser and his brother, Al, were also my favorites. Nice to know as of now (March, 2021) that these Indy "stars" are still with us. Oh...so is Johnny Rutherford , Gordie (Johncock), Mario Andretti and of course, Rick Mears.
