Offy – Ground(ed) Effects

How A Mid-January Dinner recalls my first Indy 500

*Lake-effect Winter Satellite Image (c) Wikipedia Commons*

January and February in northern Indiana is sometimes referred to as “character-building” season.

Given the proximity to the Great Lakes, and Lake Michigan in particular, this time of year seems hopelessly lost in a cold, hazy-grey arctic embrace that recalls a seven-year-old’s unwanted holiday hug from an over-perfumed, slightly-frightening aunt that hasn’t seen you since you “were thiiiis tall”. You’re going to get that embrace regardless and to feign appreciation for the once-a-year relationship is to have nearly given up hope on better circumstances altogether.

So it goes with Indycar (or any other warm-seasoned activity) appreciation and winter in northern Indiana.

A generation ago, the phrase “he’s a real character” was a slightly derisory description, if not an outright warning, to others for someone who has a penchant for shenanigans. This is not the type of “character” that gets built during this season, however there may be a corollary with the term “cabin-fever” that I’ll not probe today.

During “character-building” season, with the exterior temps chilling our bodies, we often look to warm ourselves from the inside and a heaping bowl of chili amid the depths of a January evening is a rather suitable dinner. I did just that last night. My wife assembled the chili and cornbread which is now a staple food of our winters. Lower on bean count, higher on diced tomatoes, onions, and beef (sorry vegetarian/vegan/keto friends), it is a treasured little family mix that never fails to satisfy. When I saw the spent box of Jiffy cornbread mix on the counter, I was briefly whisked away to warmer days and my first Indy 500 in 1979.

The #46 Sherman Armstong entry for the 1979 Indianapolis 500 Mile Sweepstakes was a used Wildcat-Offy slated for 5-year veteran of Atlantics and Super-Vees, Howard “Howdy” Holmes. Howdy was a fairly accomplished young driver of the American open-wheel ladder whose liveries most often carried the family business brand – Jiffy Mixes of the Chelsea Milling Company, in Chelsea, Michigan. Although I’ve yet to confirm the fact, I’m fairly certain that Mr. Holmes has also shared the magic of chili and cornbread together in his locale of Michigan which would also be subject to lake-effect winters.

Just like Howdy, my first Indy 500 was in 1979 and the sensations of that day are still palpable to me as I’ve written about previously in this blog. Also easy for me to recollect was my pure and naïve disbelief in my father’s assertion that this car (the #46) was sponsored by a baking mixes company.

He assured me in his factual knowledge, and I was equally inclined to not believe him for all of racing is to be filled only with the stuff of rugged relation – automotive parts, petroleum companies, cigarettes, and beer. Even Janet Guthrie had a Texaco car. Surely my father was incorrect and a baking mixes company couldn’t adorn the front of one of the fastest 33 cars in the greatest race in the world. To whom could they possibly be advertising – these ne’er-do-wells populating the interior of the racetrack?

Certainly not.

Of course at some point, I had to take my father’s serious and insistent word and I found myself looking for that car all day long. It was also part of two-car stable entered by Sherm Armstrong so the liveries were fairly easily tracked – the #44 of Tom Bigelow and the #46 of Howdy Holmes were primarily black with larger white numbers and a smaller yellow and orange trim stripe. The broad nose of Howdy’s Wildcat was easy spot at a distance and so I was able to follow him all day.

Howdy’s career at Indy is notable. His performance in 1979 – 13th starting position (only rookie to qualify), and 7th place finish only bettered by the likes of Mears, Foyt, Mosley, Ongais, Bobby Unser, and Johncock, garnered him the Rookie of the Year honors. His performance allowed him to follow up a month later at Pocono for another 500-miler, starting and finishing a very notable 7th.

For 1980, he was brought on full-time for the team and was slated to help develop their new Orbiter ‘ground-effects’ type chassis. A detailed first-person article exists of that rather fascinating story here.

*Howdy Holmes, Armstrong Orbiter Chassis, (c) unknown*

Success came in waves for Howdy as he moved from team to team. He left the Armstrong Mould (AMI) racing team after 1980 and did not participate in Indycar racing altogether in 1981. For 1982, Howdy joined up with the brand new Doug Shierson Racing Team as the original driver of the now-famous #30 Domino’s Pizza livery through 1983.

Howdy had a very respectable and rather consistently-performing career in Indycars including a career best finish of 2nd at Phoenix and barely a month later, started middle of the front row at Indy in 1984 for Mayer Racing, back with the Jiffy Mix livery/sponsorship in a current March-Cosworth. He moved to Forsythe Racing with the Jiffy Mix brand in a 1985 Lola-Cosworth.

Passing on the 1986 and 1987 seasons, Howdy returned for one more season with Jiffy Mixes and Morales Racing in 1988, again racing a current March-Cosworth, finishing his career with the 26th and final career Top 10, finishing 8th at Tamiami Park.

*1988 – Howdy Holmes March Cosworth, (c) IMS archives*

According to ChampCarStats.com, Howdy’s career in the top-flight of open-wheel racing in America is rather notable for his considerable ability to finish higher than he started and on the variety of tracks presented by CART in the mid-1980s. Of his 82 career Indycar starts, he only lost places from his starting position 1 in 4 races. The record shows that most often, those drops were less than 5 positions. He finished in the top-10 in 26 of 82 starts.

After his retirement from racing, he returned to Chelsea Milling Company, authored a book on motorsports technology, formed a motorsports marketing and advertising firm, and eventually replaced his father as President and CEO of Cheslea Milling, where he still works today.

So, if you ever find yourself in the depth of winter, heading into the supermarket eyeing up the corn muffin mixes to match up with your chili or a cupcake mix for your next Indycar watch party, don’t forget about the endearing Indycar driver Howdy Holmes, and his family’s Jiffy mix.

Favorite Engines of Indy – Part 2

Today we go back in time a bit when motors weren’t specified by the sanctioning body, yet one was so dominant there was nearly no competition with it for decades.

When power was king and reliability his queen, the racing countryside was ruled by the ‘house of Offenhauser’. From the mid-1930s through the 1970s, the nearly bulletproof Offy dominated the American midget and sprint car scenes and also won the Indianapolis 500 27 times; 1935, ’37, ’41, ’47-’64, ’68, ’72-76. It remains to this day the all-time leader in wins at Indy.

Its design lineage is traced back through the early 1920s in motors (and chassis) produced by Harry Miller, also famous for his wins at Indy. Miller’s cars and/or engines won 12 times in Indianapolis; 1922-’23, ’26, ’28-34, ’36, ’38, Miller’s design was based on a successful Peugeot motor design that won Indy back in 1913, ’16, and ’19. Personal bankruptcy forced Miller to sell his assets and Fred Offenhauser (Miller’s ‘understudy’) bought the rights and continued to develop the motor with the help of shop designer and draftsman Leo Goosen.

Now with the tangible bits of its racing heritage fading, I thought it would be great to hear that sound again. That wonderfully majestic rumble and deep staccato of the four (yes, just four massive) cylinders of over 1 liter in displacement EACH and double-overhead cams that frighten with noise, leaving no doubt as to the power that lies within. Ever-popular with gearheads and collectors to this day, many still exist and are refurbished to working (racing) condition from midgets to collectible race cars that parade at festivals such as Goodwood.

Here’s a video which reproduces the signature engine sound quite well, but honestly, nothing beats hearing them (and smelling them) burn methanol in person. For extra fun, put on some quality headphones, turn the volume up, and enjoy a trip back to the Kingdom of Offenhauser…

Here’s a nice bit of history I found on the interwebnettubes: an audio recording (with slide show of 60s-era cars) of the start and first laps of the 1963 race. If you must (he said begrudgingly) skip the golden voice of Tom Carnegie, Tony Hulman’s Command, and the parade laps, then go to the 6:50 moment to hear the field of 33 (26 Offys, 3 Novis, 2 Fords, 2 Chevys) coming at you in full song which certainly tell a race fan they were in the right place…

Currently the rights the Offenhauser legacy and many Offy rebuilds are held by Van Dyne Engineering in Huntington Beach, CA. A nice tribute site to the Miller-Offy legacy also exists here, with a concise racing engine history of Harry Arminius Miller here.

Anyone else care to dream about the moonlight on the Wabash tonight? I know I will.

Funkiest Cars of Indy, Part I

Sometimes, I believe we’ve all been That Kid. The one that seems a bit out of place and time.

Did you feel like maybe people didn’t understand you fully? Did close friends laugh at something you said while others were left scratching their heads? Deep down you knew you were just as typical and shared common ideals with most everyone else, yet the world and you were a bit out of step. Indycars are no different and this post is to start a series of the funkiest, off-beat, head-scratch-inducing forms to ever enter the Speedway.

There are several that come to mind quickly and I’ve enjoyed wondering what would’ve happened if that car would’ve won Indy? How would the racing/automotive world have changed? Just a quirk of fate may have opened our eyes to a new kind of way (to quote Gregg Rolie).

My first offering comes from the early days of racing revolution that swept the Speedway in the 1960s on through the 1970s, Smokey Yunick’s 1964 Hurst Floor-shifter Special:

Definitely a head-turner, Yunick was famous for producing some very ‘out-of-the-box’ solutions to engines and general racing problems. Often his ideas lead to rules changes due to the effectiveness of his solutions. After several years in NASCAR and at Indianapolis, 1964 saw what may have been, at the time, the most unusual chassis to debut. His sidecar-type chassis with Offenhauser power certainly didn’t look like anything before it.

Bobby Johns was the driver/pilot of this wacky machine whose offset certainly promoted left-turning. The car reportedly spun and made contact getting ready for qualifications in May of 1964 but never re-emerged. Possibly this very car or another chassis has been maintained to this day, in Yunick’s trademark gloss black and metallic gold color scheme, which makes the tours of the Goodwood Festival and various automotive museums around the country. I saw the current one at the IMS museum within the last two years, not fully realizing the story of the machine and man behind it.

When seeing these funky creations, it takes little imagination to feel the anticipation and excitement of each May when creativity and innovation was truly the hallmark of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

End of Season Thoughts, Part 2

3. Indycar is a niche sport. We fans may not like the sound of that statement but it alas, is true and until the people who run it understand this, it will continue to flail about until exhaustion and ultimately drown. Indycar has always had a small (relative to the stick and ball sports) legion of devotees but the total size of the crowd (literally until TV coverage), was based on this legion plus whatever casual observers would be intrigued. Instead of trying to ‘grow’ the sport through sheer mass exposure and hoping some come along, I contend it needs to grow by providing a means to better experience the racing product and by giving the casual observer something to be interested in. The first must be done through better television production and viewing. The second comes from thoughts which can be summed up by Peter DeLorenzo (an example of which can be found here) on making Indycar a viable product of interest to casual viewer. By involving them more directly through Indycar returning to represent a true ‘car of tomorrow’ and incubate new technolgies on the racetrack, the general public would be clamoring to see Indycars again and thereby what may lie ahead for their next purchase in the showrooms.

4. Indycar has one of the best hardcore fan bases of any sport. You all know who you are. You’d know a ’67 Lotus Turbine from a ’70 Lotus Turbine in with a scant glance at the two. You know the venerable Offy had only 4 cylinders that produced the power of many contemporary V-8s. You know the importance of the ’61 Cooper Climax and the ’73 Eagle and the ’79 Chaparral. You’ve seen Johncock hold off Mears, Helio climb the fence and Sandi Andretti’s hat. Indycar is about an overwhelming combined experience of sights, sounds, smells, and what’s felt which produces indelible marks on our brains. Dearest Keepers of Indycar, please don’t forego understanding what this sport means to us. We are the few and proud devotees who just wish for a return to a product that actually means something to people. Racing used to = an experience and progress, not the inverse of that formula.

More thoughts to come…