Is Dan Wheldon the Eddie Sachs of my era?

[clovis]

I have been a life long Indy fan. I think the first time I ever went to the "track" was in 1974, when I was 6 years old. I fell in love with the place...not that I hadn't loved it before, mostly because Donald Davidson's descriptive broadcasts had brought life to the track, and delivered them to me in my home.

In my world, I discovered that the loss of Eddie Sachs was painful to so many people, even though he was killed four years before I was born.

I learned many years ago that people in my area remembered two stark realities, and could recall them with precision.

Everyone I know can tell you exactly what and where they were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. They can tell you that the principal of their school announced the news, in person, room to room, that school was dismissed early, that it was a chilly but sunny day, and that they found their mother crying when they arrived home after school.

Those same people can tell you where they were and what they were doing when Eddie Sachs was tragically killed during the first laps of the 1964 Indianapolis 500.

My father can tell an interesting story, with great detail, because he was in the infield of Turn 4. He didn't see the accident first hand, but saw the smoke ("Black smoke was everywhere"), and the orange flames, and of course, the awful wreckage that was left behind.

"I was at 512 South Walnut, in the backyard, having a family cookout with my dad's brothers. We were stunned. Eddie was my favorite driver" my best friend says.

My neighbor was just a boy, and lived far away from the Circle City. Of course, when I learned that he had always followed Indy racing, I asked him the same question..."Where were you when Sachs was killed?" He replied, "I was just a lad. I couldn't have been 6 or 7 years old at the time. I loved Sachs, and when they announced his death over the radio, it was like someone had abruptly ended our annual backyard cookout. My dad turned off the radio, and we sat quietly for a while. My dad turned the race back on later, but the party was over."

I swear that I have never met a single person who didn't like Eddie Sachs. In my world, Sachs is a legendary figure, with a one-of-a-kind personality.

I think I can say the same thing about Dan Wheldon.

So, is Dan Wheldon the Eddie Sachs of my generation, or at least my 10 year old daughter's era?

By the way, we were listening to the Las Vegas race in our trusty silver Chevy, parked in the Meijer grocery store parking lot, when we heard that Wheldon had been killed. It was cloudy and overcast that day, and we weren't the only people in Meijer that were a little tearful that evening.

[Niseguy]

No, Eddie never won

[Rick Jones]

Eddie was loved by countless fans and his fellow competitors. He was the "clown prince" of Indycar drivers in his day. He had a HUGE passion for the Indianapolis 500. In one of Donald Davidson's classes he shared that he has a film that shows Eddie crying in the cockpit of his car during the singing of Back Home Again in Indiana. He shared this detail to illustrate how passionate Eddie was about the 500. Eddie did not win Indy and he died trying to win his most coveted race. His loss was huge and how he and Dave MacDonald died was horrific. Any life taken is very sad, and it's worse when as a fan you feel a connection to the driver.
I saw the smoke from the 1964 crash but was not there. My parents though were on the main straight and it did affect them. For me loosing Swede Savage hurt the most. I saw his crash. 1973 was a bad year at Indy and loosing Swede was tough because to me, he was the future that never could happen.

[Tifositoo]

In hindsight, there are some similarities with both deaths...but it should be remembered that the 1964 crash caused the death of another driver, Dave MacDonald, in addition to Eddie Sachs. That alone makes the 1964 crash much more devastating.

In both cases, public relations gimmicks were put into play with little regard for possible outcomes; and the results were predictably disastrous. In 1964 it was the Ford Motor Company's edict that their cars were to burn gasoline instead of the more accepted(and much safer)methanol. In 2011, it was the decision to start 34 cars on a 11/2 mile high banked track that virtually demanded pack racing with vehicles unable to accelerate away from each other should trouble occur. In each instance, the worst possible scenario occurred, and the consequences were grisly, to say the least.

So, one could make a case that both Sachs and Wheldon were pawns, victims of the whims of others who really should have known better.

On the other hand, each knew the risks...so, they weren't exactly innocent victims.

There is a lot of folklore and legend regarding the 1964 Indianapolis crash the elevates Sachs' status as a folk hero to near-martyr levels in some circles. Most of the mystique surrounding his demise is based on exaggerated hyperbole and half-truths. Eddie Sachs was, at best, an average driver with superior public relations skills, especially for his era. He took many unnecessary chances, and frequently drove over his head...he admitted pushing himself and his car too hard on Pole day, 1964; crashing out of a first day qualifying run when he had displayed the speed to have started on the second row...and that would have put him far ahead of the accident that claimed his life.

Dan Wheldon was a two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. He, too, had excellent public relations skills and was the favorite of many who follow the sport. I was mildly surprised that he decided to race at Las Vegas, but he did so. He knew the risks involved, and he accepted them. Was it foolhardy on his part? He was a racer, and he raced...simple logic.

As for the similarities regarding their deaths, I'd sooner compare the decision to race Indycars at Las Vegas to the 1959 decision to race Indycars at Daytona. The track really wasn't suitable for the roadsters, and again the results were disastrous.

The biggest similarity I can find between the tragedies of Dan Wheldon's and Eddie Sachs' deaths is that both were really very likeable people, the kind you love to meet and talk with and get close to. In that regard, they're always going to be the same.


Dan

[NoviVespa]

That year, my brother and I took a co-worker of mine to the Indy 500, he never saw an auto race. We went to the bleachers that used to line the backstretch. After the cars did not come around for another lap, we looked back over our shoulders to see the black smoke rising in the sky. Heard the announcement about Eddie. Driving back from the race, not much was talked about the events. But, it surprised me when we took my co-worker back to his house, he lived with his parents. Then, he started to talk about the race and how exciting it was.

[Pelican Joe]

Interesting mention of Savage. My mom has attended her fair share of 500's...but only because she's married to my rabid race fan of a father. She was there in 1973 (the year before they were married and four years before I was born) and they met Savage in the lobby of the hotel the day before the race. She still talks about how charming he was and how profoundly saddened she was when he was killed. I think the point is that it's different being a race fan because we have a different relationship with our heroes because we have a different kind of access to them. I'm never going to go to Lambeau Field and see Aaron Rodgers hanging out before a game...but I could easily run into Dario Franchitti or Will Power. I could shake their hand and pose for a photo or ask for an autograph. No, I'm never going to "know" them...but there is that potential to at least catch a glimpse of them as people and not just athletes. We feel closer to our heroes and when we lose one of them it hurts.

[impact]

Tifosi: Would agree, for the most part with what you stated in post #4. I would disagree with your judgement that Eddie Sachs "was, at best, an average driver". Eddie had eight championship car wins, and 25 top five finishes in 65 AAA/USAC starts. He was also the 1958 USAC Midwest Sprint Car Champion - the toughest, most demanding sprint car series, ever. Those of us that witnessed his performances in all venues of racing, including stock cars, knew first hand how good this man really was. His luck wasn't alway the greatest and his heart, at times, over ruled his head, but Sachs was a fantastic racer - the key word being, racer.

[Indyote]

What I think to be eery about 1964 and "Wheldon" is that it appears to me that at the time of the accidents there was a feeling of looking for the one who was guilty for this. There was talk about what caused the accidents and the deaths. In the case of 1964 that guilt went conveniently to MacDonald. But in hindsight, too quick and without proper accessing what really happened. But just get over it and quick please. And since he is dead anyway he hasn't to live with that guilt.
In the case of Wheldon I feel that the blame is put on the people who organized that race at that location and with all the hullabaloo to make it an event that would come close to the prestige of Indy, just for the show, the good PR and getting the media attention. And never even thought what kind of death trap they created.

Other then that, the simularity for me is that both Sachs and Wheldon were victims of something that they had nothing to do with if it came to what caused th tragedy. But especially Wheldon's death was not necessary at all since Las Vegas should never have been held to begin with.



Indyote

[Turn13]

I have seen parallels in my granddaughters' dealing with the loss of Dan (whom she met) with my loss of Jim Clark (whom I didn't).

[kevin99]

Really sick of those that say Indycar shouldn't have raced at LVMS. They have in the past and should be next year.

[pdas1996]

Wouldn't you say that "SAVAGE was the Sachs of your era?"

[paper]

Eddie Sachs was, at best, an average driver with superior public relations skills, especially for his era. as said by tifosi

obviously you never saw him in a sprint car on the hi banks,

[Indyote]

Really sick of those that say Indycar shouldn't have raced at LVMS. They have in the past and should be next year.

Hope youi make it in time to a bucket....
Never again Las Vegas with 34 car on the track and with speeds of 220+.



As for Eddie's credentials as a driver,

Wasn't he the driver who, once in the late 58's won a race on a paved oval in a dirt car, beating all the present (theorethically superior) roadsters and had a misfiring engine too?


Indyote

[kevin99]

Eddie Sachs was, at best, an average driver with superior public relations skills, especially for his era. as said by tifosi

obviously you never saw him in a sprint car on the hi banks,

Absolutley, anyone who saw Sachs race could never call him an "average driver".

[Niseguy]

Eddie won 7 times at tracks like Langhorne, trenton, Indy fairgrounds, Syracuse. One of his Trenton wins finished the last few laps on 3 cylinders.

He was a force in sprints from 1955 through 1960, winning the midwest title in 1958. He was not an average driver!

[Indyote]

Eddie won 7 times at tracks like Langhorne, trenton, Indy fairgrounds, Syracuse. One of his Trenton wins finished the last few laps on 3 cylinders.

He was a force in sprints from 1955 through 1960, winning the midwest title in 1958. He was not an average driver!

That Trenton thing was what I was thinking of that I had read about. Thanks Niseguy fer mentioning it.

Indyote

[lotuspoweredbyford]

Eddie Sachs was FAR more than an average driver, and I definitely understand the comparisons to Dan for sure.

[kevin99]

Not an average driver at all. He should have won Indy in 1961.

[NoviVespa]

I would not blame the track. I would not blame the size of the field. I would not blame the speeds. It was just circumstances that came into play on that day. That accident could have happened at any track. Even streets or road courses.

[fasteddy]

Similar personalities, but IMO that is the extent of it.

[kevin99]

By the thinking of some today, had they been there in 1964 they would have been wringing their hands saying we need to stop racing at Indianapolis.

[Niseguy]

Oh there were cries to stop things. Jim Murray the LA Times writer was the loudest of the stop racing gang.

[JThur1]

In terms of the folklore that likely will be built up around it, probably. Then again, it seems as if there is more than a fair share of folklore and tall tales connected with many racing fatalities, which sometimes rears its ugly head here on this forum. But past that, I don't see it being similar at all.

I'm not a good person to gauge "remembered where they were" because I remember that detail for any and all events, and usually with the kind of details described by clovis.

[JThur1]

Oh there were cries to stop things. Jim Murray the LA Times writer was the loudest of the stop racing gang.

Exactly, it happened then. There were calls to ban racing in 1955 and many sportswriters and general columnists continued the screed. It reached a fever pitch after the '73 '500'. But, it returned seemingly any time there was a high profile racing fatality.

I've always found it interesting that Murray later changed his tone after he married an IMS tour guide, and more interestingly, none of the sportswriters who worship or idolize him ever note or quote him from that period, instead preferring to mimic (in a far inferior writing style) and quote Murray from his anti-auto racing columns.

[JThur1]

...not to mention the Pope and the Vatican calling for auto racing to be banned.

[Tifositoo]

Tifosi: Would agree, for the most part with what you stated in post #4. I would disagree with your judgement that Eddie Sachs "was, at best, an average driver". Eddie had eight championship car wins, and 25 top five finishes in 65 AAA/USAC starts. He was also the 1958 USAC Midwest Sprint Car Champion - the toughest, most demanding sprint car series, ever. Those of us that witnessed his performances in all venues of racing, including stock cars, knew first hand how good this man really was. His luck wasn't alway the greatest and his heart, at times, over ruled his head, but Sachs was a fantastic racer - the key word being, racer.

I'm not saying Sachs wasn't gifted behind the wheel, and there were flashes of brilliance in his career. However, he definitely was not the equal of, say...Foyt, Ward or Jones. Many of Eddie's contemporaries praised his PR skills and his congeniality but were less charitable when it came to assessing his driving skills.

Clint Brawner told the story in his book about Eddie's lack of mechanical savvy pretty vividly. He recalled how the Champion Spark Plug company was conducting some plug readings, and how Eddie was determined to provide a good one for the team. Sachs took the Dean car out onto the track, turned a couple of laps, and then took the car out of gear and floored it on the backstretch. The plugs were clean, but every valve in the engine was bent. Another year, Eddie was convinced that his steering gear was binding, and insisted that it be adjusted. It was, and the box failed. Some members of the racing establishment thought that in 1961, once Eddie had the lead over Foyt late in the race, knowing that Foyt didn't have enough fuel; that Eddie should have slowed down to save his tires, but he was too busy composing a victory lane speech in his head.

Eddie seemed to have been his own worst enemy...it took him 5 years to pass his rookie test at Indy, for example. Once he did so, he was fast, but also unreliable and inconsistent. His mouth got him into a lot of trouble, too. He sat out one year at Indy because of a critical speech he made regarding the sanctioning body.

By the last couple of years of his life, his business interests were encroaching into his racing efforts. Brawner released him, in part because he felt Eddie was spending too much time developing his moving van franchise. Some thought he was "over the hill" by 1963-64, and he had curtailed his racing activity quite a bit.

I was never privileged to see Eddie Sachs behind the wheel except for a few laps in 1963 on Pole Day, and I was only 8 years old. I knew he was a terror at Langhorne and in Sprints, but he always seemed to come up short at Indy. If he'd only backed off a little in 1961, he probably would have won. And if he'd stuck to his word, he would have retired from racing then and there.

Maybe "average" wasn't the best term to describe Eddie's racing talents, I don't know. He didn't posess the mechanical savvy of AJ Foyt, or the caginess of Roger Ward. And he didn't have the finesse of Parnelli Jones. At least, not in an Indy car.

But when I was a kid, he was my favorite.


Dan

[Roadster Fan]

Absolutley, anyone who saw Sachs race could never call him an "average driver".

Absolutely, +2.!!!!!.. My gosh, even A.J. Foyt himself has said that Eddie was one of the best drivers he competed against during his early years.
I have no idea how anyone could call Sachs average...

[clovis]

Wow!!! Thank you for the replies.

I have a lot to add, or at least share, on some of the comments made.

I was just a bit too young to understand what happened to Swede Savage. I remember something big happening, and the excited talk around the race, but my folks kept me protected from the death of Swede and the crew member that also died during the '73 race. It was actually years later that I understood how awful that race was.

In all actuality, I guess that Gordon Smiley was the Eddie Sachs of my era. I remember that event as if it happened yesterday. I was 14 at the time, and had plugged in my clock radio on the back porch of my parent's house, and was trying to avoid working in the garden so I could listen to qualifying. My dad was not happy to say the least, who was working hard, and I was hiding out inside the house.

I was shocked by Smiley's death. But as someone said, while I was shocked and mournful for Smiley, I had no real connection to him other than that he was a driver at my favorite place on earth.

We did have a connection with Wheldon. I had been rooting for him for years, and enjoyed celebrating his Indy victories, at least in our seats in the Southwest Vista. Then, last year, we met Wheldon outside the J.W. Marriott before the Victory Celebration. There was a guy that had just won his second Indy 500, and a purse larger than I can really comprehend. Even though he could have been arrogant and boastful, he was absolutely super with my young daughter. No matter how many times she tugged on Dan's sleeve, he stopped what he was doing, and got down on her level, and listened to her as if she were the most important person on earth. To a 10 year old and her father, Dan Wheldon became larger than life, and an epic figure in our lives.

We've been very mournful by the loss of Dan. And sadly, I can now understand why people felt so attached, and saddened, by the loss of Eddie.

[Indyote]

I'm not saying Sachs wasn't gifted behind the wheel, and there were flashes of brilliance in his career. However, he definitely was not the equal of, say...Foyt, Ward or Jones. Many of Eddie's contemporaries praised his PR skills and his congeniality but were less charitable when it came to assessing his driving skills.

Clint Brawner told the story in his book about Eddie's lack of mechanical savvy pretty vividly. He recalled how the Champion Spark Plug company was conducting some plug readings, and how Eddie was determined to provide a good one for the team. Sachs took the Dean car out onto the track, turned a couple of laps, and then took the car out of gear and floored it on the backstretch. The plugs were clean, but every valve in the engine was bent. Another year, Eddie was convinced that his steering gear was binding, and insisted that it be adjusted. It was, and the box failed. Some members of the racing establishment thought that in 1961, once Eddie had the lead over Foyt late in the race, knowing that Foyt didn't have enough fuel; that Eddie should have slowed down to save his tires, but he was too busy composing a victory lane speech in his head.

Eddie seemed to have been his own worst enemy...it took him 5 years to pass his rookie test at Indy, for example. Once he did so, he was fast, but also unreliable and inconsistent. His mouth got him into a lot of trouble, too. He sat out one year at Indy because of a critical speech he made regarding the sanctioning body.

By the last couple of years of his life, his business interests were encroaching into his racing efforts. Brawner released him, in part because he felt Eddie was spending too much time developing his moving van franchise. Some thought he was "over the hill" by 1963-64, and he had curtailed his racing activity quite a bit.

I was never privileged to see Eddie Sachs behind the wheel except for a few laps in 1963 on Pole Day, and I was only 8 years old. I knew he was a terror at Langhorne and in Sprints, but he always seemed to come up short at Indy. If he'd only backed off a little in 1961, he probably would have won. And if he'd stuck to his word, he would have retired from racing then and there.

Maybe "average" wasn't the best term to describe Eddie's racing talents, I don't know. He didn't posess the mechanical savvy of AJ Foyt, or the caginess of Roger Ward. And he didn't have the finesse of Parnelli Jones. At least, not in an Indy car.

But when I was a kid, he was my favorite.


Dan

I also recall having read about Eddie that he wasn't the most gifted driver if it came to setting up a car and improve it. Instead he had a apporach that has also been said about Juan pablo Montoya: "Drive around the problem" and work something out to make the best of it as it is.

As for the comments about Eddie not being a driver like AJ, Parnelli and Rodger Ward;
From what I have understood (regrettably by reading about it only) It isn't very fair to compare Eddie with these three drivers but for certainly not with AJ and Parnelli. Both of them were said to be extremely gifted drivers at that time (late 50's early 60's) and about the only two who had a feel for making a chassis work and improve on it.
Story goes that Andy Granatelli has begged both drivers to try his Novis and both were faster with the car then just about anybody else since they knew how to make the chassis work. But both also refusing highly paid rides in the car offered by Granatelli since the unreliability of the Novi was a larger risk then any advantage they could gain with it, even after they had set up the chassis to their likings.

Foyt and Parnelli were both in their own league if it came to chassis development capabilities, no shame for Eddie not to be on par with them, he was one of many about who could be said the same.

Indyote

[fasteddy]

I also recall having read about Eddie that he wasn't the most gifted driver if it came to setting up a car and improve it. Instead he had a apporach that has also been said about Juan pablo Montoya: "Drive around the problem" and work something out to make the best of it as it is.

As for the comments about Eddie not being a driver like AJ, Parnelli and Rodger Ward;
From what I have understood (regrettably by reading about it only) It isn't very fair to compare Eddie with these three drivers but for certainly not with AJ and Parnelli. Both of them were said to be extremely gifted drivers at that time (late 50's early 60's) and about the only two who had a feel for making a chassis work and improve on it.
Story goes that Andy Granatelli has begged both drivers to try his Novis and both were faster with the car then just about anybody else since they knew how to make the chassis work. But both also refusing highly paid rides in the car offered by Granatelli since the unreliability of the Novi was a larger risk then any advantage they could gain with it, even after they had set up the chassis to their likings.

Foyt and Parnelli were both in their own league if it came to chassis development capabilities, no shame for Eddie not to be on par with them, he was one of many about who could be said the same.

Indyote

Good post.