The Rookie Test

By Sigur Whitaker
The Rookie Test

When the Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in August 1909,  there were five fatalities. This resulted in the track being repaved with brick.  Four deaths during the 1935 Month of May also brought a change to the Speedway--the  implementation of the Rookie Orientation Test.
 
The first fatality was Johnny Hannon, an experienced dirt racer who won the 1934 eastern automobile racing championship. He arrived at Indianapolis without experience in the big racers. Earlier in the day, Tony Gulotta took him around the track for several laps so that he could become familiar with it. During the ride with Gulotta, Hannon was warned about the turns until he had become accustomed to riding on the bricks. During the ride with Gulotta, they had hit 117 mph. 
 
Afterwards, he got into the racer and, on his maiden lap, he lost control of the racer and hit the northeast (3rd) turn at an estimated 120 mph. After hitting the wall, the racer spun around, tearing away about four feet of the retaining wall and throwing Hannon from the car. The car landed on its wheels about 50 yards from the track. His riding mechanic, Harold “Shorty” Reeves, was seriously injured. Hannon had hoped to qualify for the race later in the day.
 
There was another crash later that day which killed two. Hartwell W. “Stubby” Stubblefield and his riding mechanic, Leo Whittaker, were killed during a qualifying attempt. They had just finished the seventh lap of the ten-lap qualifying trial. His racer had averaged 114.709 mph. Something went wrong and his car flew over the retaining wall. Despite wearing helmets, both died from fractured skulls.
 
Stubblefield was very familiar with the Speedway. He participated in four Indianapolis 500s from 1931 through 1934. His top finish was fifth in 1933. He finished eighth in 1931, twelfth in 1934, and 14th in 1932. In 1934, he became a charter member of the “100-Mile-an-Hour Club” for those racers whose average speed was 100-miles-per-hour.
 
Earlier in the day, another rookie, Harris Insinger, hit the wall in approximately the same place as Hannon. He was uninjured.
 
Clay Weatherly, another rookie, was killed in the race. He lost control of his car on the eighth lap while coming out of Turn 4. The car skidded across the track to the outside, crashed through a wooden fence and bumped against the outside concrete wall in front of grandstand H. He was ejected from the car and suffered a skull fracture and crushed chest.  Ironically, Weatherly was driving the Bowes Seal Fast Special No. 45, the car in which Johnny Hannon was killed.
 
Shortly after Weatherly’s crash, another car went over the wall also in Turn 4 but the driver Al Gordon and mechanic Frank Howard suffered only minor injuries. Gordon later said that the car “just got away” from him. His wild ride ended with the car suspended upside down on the wall.
 
The next year, the Speedway required those drivers without prior experience on the track to pass a driving test. Six rookie drivers showed up at the track and two participated in the race. Frank McGurk started from the eighth row with a qualifying speed of 113.102 mph. In the race, he spun on the dirt apron at Turn 1. He finished 26th in the race and walked away unscathed. Ray Pixley started from the 25th position with a qualifying speed of 116.703 mph and finished sixth.
 
The test in 1936 was to drive five different segments of 10 laps each. The first run was at 80 mph, which increased over the next four phases to 110 mph. After completing the test, a committee determined if the rookie driver had the skill to participate in the race. Over the years, the test has changed but two things have remained constant. No one is exempt from the test and there are multiple phases at different speeds. The test today is run before the track is open for practice in May. In Phase I, the driver must complete 10 laps between 205-210 mph. Phase 2 is 15 laps between 210 and 215 mph while phase 3 is over 215 mph. Today, they also require veteran drivers who have not driven in an IndyCar oval race since the previous Indianapolis 500 to successfully complete phases 2 and 3.

Sigur Whitaker, Author 

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