INDIANAPOLIS 500 WINNER VUKOVICH WAS LIKE NO OTHER TWO-TIME CHAMPION LEARNED TO RACE AT BONNELLI STADIUM IN SAUGUS.

Byline: Tim Haddock Staff Writer

Before Bill Vukovich won two consecutive Indianapolis 500s, he was a West Coast midget-car racer who tackled dirt tracks in and around Los Angeles in the years after World War II.

He won one of the first races run on the West Coast - at Bonnelli Stadium in the Santa Clarita Valley - after World War II ended. Bonnelli Stadium, which would later become Saugus Speedway, was the site of several Vukovich triumphs, which included a midget national championship in 1950.

As one of only five drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 in consecutive years, Vukovich is in exclusive company. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his first Indy 500 win in 1953. He won again in 1954 and died in a roll-over crash seeking his third straight Indy 500 win in 1955. He was 36.

Burbank artist, former race track announcer and event promoter Joe Henning remembers several Vukovich victories. He was working as an usher at Balboa Stadium in San Diego the first time he met Vukovich.

The first thing Vukovich asked of Henning was to find the groundskeeper of the race track for him. Vukovich paid the groundskeeper $50 to water down the track before the race - not so much to make his car faster, but to slow down the rest of the field.

Vukovich's strategy paid off as he won that day's race.

``He was probably the most natural driver there ever was,'' said Henning, who also worked on 1950- and 1960-era midget and Indy cars for Gordon Schroeder in Burbank. ``He wasn't very bright compared to guys like Sam Hanks and Ronney Householder, but he could sure drive a race car.''

The son of a Fresno farmer during the Great Depression, Vukovich traveled up and down the West Coast racing for as much as $50 a week. The money Vukovich and his brother, Eli, made from racing generally paid for the family groceries.

Midget drivers back then would travel to tracks throughout California. Tracks like Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles, Balboa Stadium in San Diego, Bonnelli Stadium in Saugus, and other little dirt ovals in cities such as Fresno, Madera, Bakersfield and Ontario were regular stops on the midget circuit.

``There were over 100 different venues in Los Angeles at one time,'' the 74-year-old Henning said. ``Midget racing was a lot different than racing is today. The cars were simple to work on. They were just big engines that were reliable.

``Before the war, the Indy-car guys usually came from the dirt tracks and the big cars. After the war, when the midgets came along, that's when racing really developed. That was the only school in town for young drivers - were midgets.''

Vukovich turned his first laps at Indianapolis in the same Maserati that Wilbur Shaw won consecutive 500s with in 1939 and 1940.

He lasted only 29 laps in his first Indy 500 race in 1951, but was impressive enough to replace retiring driver Mauri Rose in a car owned by Howard Keck. Rose won consecutive Indy 500s in 1947 and 1948.

Vukovich led 195 of 200 laps in his first Indy 500 win in 1953. The next year, he won the race with a then-record average speed of 134.85 mph.

Henning said he would listen to the Indy 500s back then on the radio while working on Schroeder's cars at his Burbank machine shop, built on a portion of land where the Warner Bros. Studios sits today.

He listened to both of Vukovich's victories at Indianapolis on the radio. He also was listening when Vukovich died in the 1955 Indy 500.

``The announcer said there was a big wreck on the back chute,'' Henning said. ``We knew Vuky was almost a whole lap ahead. Gordon's wife said, 'Aww! It's probably Vuky.' She had a sense about a lot of things like that.

``These cars were almost two laps behind him. Vuky just went up and over the wall and down the roadway between the back chute and the fans, oh, about halfway down the straightaway. That car was a wreck. He was dead before he hit the ground. No one could have survived that wreck.''

Henning said Vukovich could have won three or four Indy 500s in a row. He was leading the 1952 Indy 500 when a pit stop mix-up cost him the lead. And he was at least a lap faster than the rest of the field before crashing in 1955.

Even after winning at Indianapolis, Vukovich would return to California to race on the midget circuit. He would race the same car built by Frank Gearhart until his death in 1955. The car changed hands several times and was driven by Johnnie Parsons and Parnelli Jones, among others, before it landed in the hands of Ken Hillberg.

The car, a Frank Curtis-Geahart Offy, that Vukovich raced at Bonnelli Stadium and throughout California survives today. Hillberg, a 70-year-old Korean War veteran from Fountain Valley, has owned the car since the 1960s - he doesn't remember the exact year he bought the car. It made its most recent appearance in an exhibition race at Madera Speedway last month. Hillberg said he has no intention of retiring it anytime soon.

``This is the third body on it,'' said Hillberg, a midget and sprint car racer originally from Washington who also raced at Bonnelli Stadium. ``It's been well-bashed and trashed. It has some battle scars on it, but you have to look twice to see it.''

Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves, who will start from the pole in Sunday's Indy 500, has a chance to become the first driver to win three straight Indy 500s.

As impressive a feat as it would be to win three Indy 500s in a row, Henning said no driver could match Vukovich's ability at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

``If you want to put it in a sense, he's probably the best driver who ever drove there,'' Henning said. ``But the equipment was awesome, too. He could really handle that doggone speedway. He said it was like shooting ducks. He liked it.''

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Burbank artist Joe Henning displays his painting of Bill Vukovich racing in 1953's Indy 500. Vukovich won that race, as well as in 1954.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(2) Bill Vukovich drove this Gearhart Drake midget car in races at Bonnelli Stadium and other tracks in California from 1940 to 1947.

(3) Vukovich battles Johnny Garrett in the No. 37 car in a race at Oildale Speedway in Bakersfield in 1947.

(4) Vukovich takes a turn at Oildale Speedway in Bakersfield, one of the stops on the California midget circuit in 1946.