WATSON'S INFLUENCE A KRAFT.Byline: TIM TIM Timothy TIM Technical Interchange Meeting TIM Transient Intermodulation Distortion TIM Time Is Money TIM The Invisible Man (movie) TIM Telecom Italia Mobile (Italian cellular provider) HADDOCK Staff Writer A.J. Watson has trouble remembering the details of the 1956 Indianapolis 500. But he can tell you all about the car that Pat Flaherty George Francis 'Pat' Flaherty, Jr. (January 6 1926 - April 9 2002) was an American racecar driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1956. Born in Glendale, California, Flaherty died of cancer in Oxnard, California. raced to victory. After having helped build the Kurtis Kraft Kurtis Kraft was a designer and builder of race cars. The company was founded by Frank Kurtis. Kurtis Kraft designed and built midget cars, quartermidgets, sports cars, sprint cars, Champ Cars, and Formula 1 cars. Hopkins Special that won the 1955 Indy 500, Watson struck out on his own. Watson, 82, said the car he built for the 1956 race, the first of his so-called roadsters, was modeled after the Kurtis car, with some modifications. Those included magnesium parts, which kept the weight of the car to 1,700 pounds. ``(The Kurtis Kraft) was about 200 pounds more than the car I built,'' Watson said. ``It was the weight that made it better.'' Watson started building race cars when he got out of the Army after World War II. He settled in Glendale, where he met his wife, Flaherty and Dick and Jim Rathmann Jim Rathmann (born Richard Rathmann July 16 1928 from Alhambra, CA) is a former American race car driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1960. He drove in the AAA and USAC Championship Car series in the 1949-1950 and 1952-1963 seasons with 42 starts, including the , who raced in 23 Indy 500s combined. Jim Rathmann won the Indy 500 in 1960 driving one of Watson's cars. While attending Glendale College, Watson decided to start building race cars with a friend. They competed against Flaherty and the Rathmanns at tracks around Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , including Gilmore Stadium Gilmore Stadium was a multi-use stadium in Los Angeles, California. It was opened in May 1934 and demolished in 1952, when the land was used to build CBS Television City. The stadium held 18,000. It was located next to Gilmore Field. and Bonnelli Stadium, which later became Saugus Speedway. The 1956 Indy 500 wasn't the first time Flaherty drove a Watson car. Flaherty bought one of Watson's racers in the mid-1940s. When asked how Flaherty did in that car, Watson said, ``not very good. He had a lot of trouble with it. He bought it at the end of the year when I was done with it.'' Watson, who today lives three blocks from Indianapolis Motor Speedway Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana (a separate town completely surrounded by Indianapolis) in the United States, is the second-oldest and still hangs around the garage, said the one thing he remembers about that 1956 race was Flaherty's victory lap. ``At the end, after the checkered flag, he never came around,'' Watson said. ``The throttle shaft broke and he idled around the track. It was set for 500 miles and that was it.'' CAPTION(S): photo Photo: WATSON |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion