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By David Malsher-Lopez - May 24, 2025, 8:06 AM EDT

The low Chaparral

One of the most spectacular designs in IndyCar history came from a British drawing board for a team from Texas. They called themselves ZZ Top.
They were all sharp dressed men.

Innovation was not unusual from the Midland, Texas-based company founded by Jim Hall and Hap Sharp. Forty-five years ago, on Sunday, May 25, 1980, it conquered the Indianapolis 500.

“What that car would let me do was amazing. The only time I had to lift the throttle at Phoenix was crack it just a little to transfer weight to the front for Turns 1 and 2. The rest was flat all the way and, at the time, that was unheard of at Phoenix. The lateral G-force in Turns 3 and 4 was so great it would make you grunt. I grunted twice per lap that year and almost pooped my pants. We had to do things to the cockpit to prop me up and give me a shoulder rest.”

The words are Johnny Rutherford’s and he was speaking about his first test of the Chaparral 2K already dubbed “The Yellow Submarine,” in the fall of 1979. Sure, Rutherford had always been a wonderfully brave driver. But to push so hard on his first acquaintance with the car that the air was squeezed out of his lungs? That’s not just a courageous racer trying to find the limits of his car; that’s a car redefining the limits of its driver, and the whole series. Chaparral Cars had taken a leap and forced its rivals to follow.

Innovation was not unusual from the Midland, Texas-based company founded by Jim Hall and Hap Sharp. The tweaks and mods and experiments on their sports cars, from 2 to 2J, were relentless. But those machines hadn’t started trends. The 2K was different.

Perhaps surprisingly, it wasn’t until 1978 that Chaparral entered IndyCar racing, using a Lola T500. Hall's driver, Al Unser, was unimpressed. “I couldn’t get that car to do anything,” said the legend who died in 2021. “Any track we went, how the car was when we rolled it out was how it was going to stay. You’d make pretty big changes and it just wouldn’t respond.”

It’s worth reminding ourselves that Unser is talking about a car in which he became the only driver ever to win all three 500-mile races in one year – Indy, Pocono and Ontario – and eventually claimed second in points despite missing two races… But we’ll take his word for it that the 1978 T500 was a clumsy lump on anything but superspeedways. What Hall gave him to drive next, from Round 4 of 1979, was rather different.

 

Al Unser and Hall were an ideal combo to develop the 2K in 1979.“When I first got involved in Indy cars, I was lucky to get Al Unser,” said Hall. “He wanted to move on to another team [from Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing] and knew our capabilities. Then John Barnard [also from VPJ] came to see me later that year and said he was looking for a different deal. He wanted to go back to England. So he and I talked and he said something that had been in the back of my mind – that ground effects would be great for Indy cars because they’re running at high speed all the time. It didn’t take long to put together a deal.”

Barnard, a rising star of race car design, had already done superb work for McLaren on the M23 F1 car and M16D IndyCar, before tackling VPJ’s short-lived F1 project and once-great but now dwindling IndyCar team.

Said Barnard: “There were quite a few English guys at VPJ at the time – Jim Chapman was running it, Hughie Absalom was chief mechanic, myself, Bill Eaton and so on. Then Al Unser left for Chaparral and Hughie went with him.

“So I went out to Midland, told Jim I had one or two ideas for an Indy car, and the deal was pretty much done on a handshake. I went to England and started drawing the car in my dad’s front room. Then I called Gordon Kimball who’d been helping me at Vel’s and he came over and started drawing some bits for me,

“On the VPJ6, I’d been playing around with plastic skirts underneath the car and the drivers could feel the difference. By then, Lotus had made the 78, which had a wing shape underneath and brushes down the side, which got us all thinking. Patrick Head [of Williams F1 team] also told me, ‘You can’t believe what you get from the underside of the car, it’s incredible.’ So I think we all felt we had to go that way. But the Chaparral never saw a wind tunnel. BS Fabrications [owned by Bob Sparshott] made the bits for me – chassis, suspension, and so on – and I think Hughie organized a mock-up Cosworth engine that was twice as big as the engine we got inspected with.”

Considering Barnard didn’t put pencil to drawing board until September of ’78, it’s no wonder the new car wasn’t ready for the start of the ’79 season in the newly founded CART IndyCar series. Unser drove the one-year-old Lola – now in the team’s startling new Pennzoil livery – to top six finishes in the opening three rounds. Then, two weeks before practice began at Indy, Unser sampled the new 2K at Ontario Motor Speedway.





From front to back, the Chaparral 2K was a completely new animal.“The Chaparral was day and night better than the Lola,” he said. “What John created was superior to any other car of the time. The downforce was leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. It did exactly what I wanted it to do. I wanted to have a long tow strap out the back to pull the second place car' ”

Hall agreed, observing: “We were amazed how good it was. It didn’t have the center of pressure in quite the right place, so we needed to trim it a bit, but we had adequate wings to do a lot of trimming. We also had to reduce downforce a little, as I recall. But it was obvious that it was a tremendous change from the car we’d been running the year before.”

The huge venturi tunnels on the 2K’s underside did a great job of pulling the car down to the surface of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, while its top surfaces were so much lower than those of its rivals. Even Unser, who rarely laid it all on the line in qualifying, couldn’t help but nab a front-row slot for the Indy 500 alongside Rick Mears and Tom Sneva. Race day was when he flexed.

“When they took the green flag, Al didn’t back off for Turn 1 and everyone else did!” recalled Hall with a chuckle. “It was the most amazing thing you ever saw. He stretched 100 yards in the first turn, 100 yards in the second turn. By the time he came past us again, he had a lead of about 400 yards. But then…”

After leading 85 of the first 100 laps, Unser was forced to retire when a melted transmission seal let the gearbox oil leak away. Itty-bitty irritations and new-car niggles such as this would become a theme in ’79, despite the car’s tremendous pace that ensured Unser repeatedly qualified in the top three. At Watkins Glen, for instance, Unser took pole and was leading with 16 laps to go, when his car gearbox jammed in third, and he nursed the car home a frustrated fifth.

Then at Phoenix, the final round, everything went smoothly, Unser led 138 of 150 laps and delivered the Chaparral team a well deserved victory. Yet the celebrations were more muted than they should have been, because some principal players were departing. Barnard, offended at the lack of credit he received for a revolutionary design, was heading to McLaren’s Formula 1 team. Unser, a big fan of Barnard, was offended on his behalf and “wasn’t seeing eye-to-eye” with Hall, so he quit; engine maestro Franz Weis was leaving, Absalom had already gone.

But they had left a legacy; the groundwork had been covered. For 1980, the 2K was now pretty much bug-free. And Rutherford, who had been pondering his future following McLaren’s departure from IndyCar, was suddenly handed the keys to the best car.

“For half a day, I couldn’t get comfortable with it [at Phoenix],” he said. “Al liked to run it fairly soft, and I prefer a car that holds a constant attitude, so it won’t roll and upset the center of pressure. Fortunately, I had asked Jim to hire Steve Robey, my crew chief at McLaren. Steve started banging stiff springs on the car and before the day was over, we were nearly two seconds under the track record!”

“Lone Star J.R.” opened the season with pole and victory at Ontario, and more significantly, did the same at Indy in May, for his third victory at the Brickyard. It had looked fairly easy but it was, in fact, daunting.

“What I had driven there before, McLarens, only let you go so far,” he said. “The Chaparral let you go so much further, it really put you in a nervous situation. The edge of the universe was a lot shallower in the 2K than in an M24…”

The Chaparral led the way in 1980 but rivals were catching on as the season progressed. Here, Rutherford duels Bobby Unser and his Penske PC-9 at Michigan.With three more wins and smart top-fives elsewhere, Rutherford was comfortably IndyCar champion, for the only time in his career. Yet Chaparral’s advantage dissipated rapidly, as others – particularly Team Penske – learned the car’s aero tricks. The 2K would win just once more, in the 1981 season opener.

“The fact that the 2K won the title in 1980 is testimony to the fact that it was fundamentally right,” says Barnard. “And once I realized the forces we were dealing with, there were so many ways I could have improved the car. For example, between ’79 and ’80, I’d “found” carbon composites and I ended up applying that to the McLaren MP4/1 Formula 1 car. But if I’d stayed at Chaparral, the minimum I’d have done would have been designing proper carbon underfloors that didn’t warp at high speed. That would have improved the car immensely.

“So I know that we could have kept going with enormous success.”

Chaparral ran the 2K into 1982, but it now looked like it had suffered botched surgery and its results matched its appearance. In every sense, the magic had gone. After four outings, the team switched to running a customer March 82C. At year’s end, ground effect was banned and the team pulled out. When Hall returned in ’91, it was with a Lola.

But mention Chaparral to any IndyCar fan and their first thought will be of the glorious 2K that enjoyed a brief period of dominance that compelled others to imitate in a manner that not even its charismatic sports car forbears achieved.

Rutherford and the Chaparral en route to victory in the 1980 Indy 500.

 

2025 Oscar Mayer Wienie 500 | Full Race Replay

Thanks folks for joining us for this historical occasion.

Have a weinerful day!

Indianapolis Motor Speedway
51K subscribers
207,591 views May 23, 2025 #27 on Trending

Watch the moment history was made as six Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles completed two laps on Miller Lite Carb Day, with the INDYCAR on FOX booth on the call.

 

Bobby Unser’s legacy in IndyCar is truly legendary! Winning the Indy 500 three times is an incredible achievement that cements his place in racing history. These photos beautifully capture key moments from his career and contributions to the sport. It’s great to see his lasting impact, even presenting the pole award in 2004. Thanks for sharing this piece of Indianapolis racing history!

 

Tying some racing history together
See last post in thread:
See it before it goes away.
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Inside the NASCAR Hall of Fame*********************

NASCAR Hall of Fame Tour 2013************************


NASCAR Hall of Fame Museum Tour... Charlotte, NC

https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/a...ml#post9441920

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Honoring the architect of Rodger Ward's strangest win

Image by Don Cooke; courtesy Dave Nichols/Barcboys.com
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emailBy Robin Miller | July 30, 2019 2:16 PM ET

Ken Brenn is one of the most decorated car owners in open-wheel history, with a career that spans six decades and includes a phone book’s worth of talent behind the wheel.

During his years of owning, towing, wrenching and maintaining midgets, sprints and Indy cars, Brenn won a lot of races with guys like Tony Bettenhausen, Don Branson, Bobby Unser, Pancho Carter, Larry Dickson, Len Duncan, Johnny Coy, Jack Turner, Jiggs Peters, Bruce Walkup and Jimmy Caruthers. He also gave Mark Donohue his first-ever ride in a rear-engine midget.

For the next three nights Kyle Larson, will wheel a midget for Keith Kunz honoring the 92-year-old Brenn as part of USAC’s Pennsylvania Midget Week. But one of the best chapters of this New Jersey native’s career came compliments of Rodger Ward in a very unlikely pairing that produced a very unlikely victory.

In July of 1959 a race was staged at Lime Rock Park which, according to the wonderful story written by Brock Yates for Car & Driver in 1999, was supposed to elevate the status of sports cars and road racing. Instead of running for trophies, there was to be a sizeable cash purse in hopes of attracting name drivers instead of doctors and lawyers. And it did, as Mexico’s heroes Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez were entered, along with Indy 500 stars Duane Carter and Bettenhausen. But Brenn had no plans to run until he got a phone call.

“I came home one night and my wife Dottie told me that Rodger Ward had called,” said Brenn, who was in the business of building roads to feed his racing habit. “Well, he’d just won Indy and was a big star, and he didn’t know me from Adam. I didn’t believe her, so I didn’t call him back right away. Besides, I couldn’t afford to hire a guy like Ward, he’d want too much money.”

Well, they finally connected, and Ward revealed he was to get $2,000 in appearance fees so he suggested splitting that with Brenn and taking 40 percent of what he won in the race. A deal was made and they finally met just before Ward strapped in for the first practice session. “He was right at the track record in just a few laps,” recalled Brenn, who attends the IndyCar race at Pocono every year.

Oh yeah, one small detail that needs to be pointed out. Ward was driving a Kurtis-Kraft midget with an Offenhauser engine and a standard in-and-out gearbox against the Aston Martins, Ferraris and Maseratis.
Image by Don Cooke; courtesy Dave Nichols/Barcboys.com

After Ward broke John Fitch’s track record and won the pole position, the captain of the Maserati team, Rex Wingate, congratulated Brenn and then predicted his car wouldn’t be around at the end because the track would kill their brakes. The program called for a pair of 20-lap heats followed by a 60-lapper.

“Rodger cooled it in the first one and finished third and then we won the second heat and we changed brakes after each race,” continued Brenn, who still possess a fantastic memory and looks as good as he thinks. “We had to load it up with fuel for the main event, so we dropped back at the start while we burned off some fuel.”

But when Ward passed an Aston Martin on the outside to take the lead a third of way into the finale, he immediately began pulling away.

“Tony Bettenhausen had got out of the car he was supposed to drive because it was a dog, so he was running our pit board,” said Brenn, chuckling at the memory of the USAC national champion volunteering for that job. “Rodger had a five or six second lead but Tony kept putting up one second, and I kept asking him why. He said ‘because Ward is lazy and we don’t want him relaxing too much.’”

When the checkered flag fell, the Indy champ and his mighty midget had dusted the field and humbled the sports cars on their own turf.

“Ward had a Champ Car race the next day so he had a helicopter waiting on him, and after we shook hands he told me he’d just keep all the deal money and I could have all the purse,” said Brenn. “Well, it was $4,900, and that was a haul in 1959.”

The 6-foot trophy that supposedly went to the winning team had vanished shortly after the victory celebration, so Brenn tracked it down. “A few Mexicans were taking it apart and loading it into a box, and I yelled at them that it belonged to me,” he said. “They said ‘No, this is Pedro’s (Rodriguez) trophy, he was supposed to win and if he doesn’t get it, nobody does.’

“So I didn’t get the trophy, but I got one of the most satisfying wins of my life and a damn good payday. No midget race ever paid like that.”
__________________

 

The Upset: Beating an F1 Car and America's Best Sports Cars In A Midget At Lime Rock in 1959

Brian Lohnes
71K subscribers

Jul 15, 2025 n late July of 1959 Rodger Ward, who had won the Indy 500 in May took on the best sports cars in America at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut driving a dirt track midget and beat them all, handily. It's considered the greatest upset in American Sports Car racing history. The story is one for the ages and every last detail of it is shared here.

This is a tale about revenge, talent, machinery, mechanical brilliance, and raw skill both with wrenches and the steering wheel. You may have heard parts of this tale but now you'll get all of it. The cars, the competitors, and the curious story of how Ward ended up in a lowly midget to do battle with the likes of an F1 car and others. It truly is incredible.

 

The Legend of Joe Leonard

More Barn
96 subscribers


33,129 views Jul 24, 2014
Joe Leonard is the only American racer to win National Championships in both Motorcycles and Cars. Joe was the first AMA Grand National Champion (1954); he won 27 National races and two more AMA Grand National Championships (56-57), including winning Daytona back to back,(57-5 and he still is the speed record holder for the beach circuit. Joe is a seven-time Peoria Champion; he set an AMA record by winning 8

Grand Nationals in one year, a record that stood till 1986, before moving on to car racing. He raced in USAC Dirt SPRINTS winning the Pacific Coast Championship; was NASCAR Rookie of the year in 1963; Third at Indy in 1967; Indianapolis 500 pole position in 1968; USAC Indy Car National Champion back to back 1971-1972. Joe raced in the USAC Championship Indy Car series in the 1964-1974 seasons,

with 98 career starts, including the 1965-1973 Indianapolis 500; He finished in the top ten 60 times, and is a Multiple Triple Crown winner. Mr. Joe Leonard is The American Racing Legend. Credits: Words and Music by Lorin Guy Guitar and Vocal by Lorin Guy

 

Parnelli Jones paced the 1998 Indy 500 with this Chevrolet Corvette

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Parnelli Jones paced the 1998 Indy 500 with this Chevrolet Corvette

1998 Chevrolet Corvette by J.A. Ackley
Sep 23, 2025

There are pace car editions, and then there are the actual pace cars. This is the latter, driven by 1963 Indy 500 winner Parnelli Jones to lead the field of the 1998 race.



After its Indy 500 duties, Andy Evans purchased it and has had it ever since. Evans fielded Team Scandia, which competed in IndyCar from 1996 to 1999. He’s perhaps better known for buying IMSA with Robert Muller in 1996 and changing its name to Professional Sports Car Racing (PSCR).



Evans drove this Corvette sparingly, with a little over 5000 miles currently on the clock.



Find this 1998 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible Indianapolis 500 Pace Car for auction at Broad Arrow Auctions, with an estimated value of $30,000-$50,000.

 

An iconic piece of Penske racing history, raced by a legend

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An iconic piece of Penske racing history, raced by a legend

Four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears drove this iconic Penske-owned ride to a podium finish in IndyCar.1987 Penske PC16 IndyCar by Colin Wood
Jan 30, 2026

The chance to own a piece of Penske racing history? Try this Penske PC16 IndyCar.



The last of four chassis built for the 1987 IndyCar season, this PC16–chassis 004–was piloted by Rick Mears to a third-place finish at Portland, plus two top 10 finishes at Cleveland and Toronto.

After its racing career ended, chassis 004 was sold off to Australia’s Penrite Oil for use as a display car. (Penske would later supply an engine to be displayed with the car, per the seller.)



Not long after, the car was placed into storage until the mid 2010s, when it was acquired by Australian Porsche importer and distributor Alan Hamilton, who subsequently had the car restored.

Work included replacement of the suspension bearings, rebuilding of the brakes, fitting a new fuel tank bladder and calibrating the gauges and instruments.