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Video: Rear Engine vs Roadster – Change at the Indy 500

Submitted by on May 5, 20112 Comments

The mid sixties was a  time of massive change at the Indy 500.  Jack Brabham shocked the establishment when he debuted a rear engined car at the Speedway in 1961, and from then on nothing was ever the same again.

In this clip, Indy 500 winners A.J Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Johnny Rutherford, Gordon Johncock and Eddie Sachs discuss their thoughts about the transition from roadsters to rear engined cars.

A.J sums up the era with this quote in relation to today’s drivers. “They don’t know how much fun we had racing.”

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  • Sandeep Banerjee

    I really feel American Open Wheel Racing lost its identity with the rear-engine craze. The roadsters took a lot of raw driving talent as there was no downforce and the car was more top-heavy. But the rear-engined cars with their low center of gravity and ease of piling on the downforce with wings and ground effects made it more and more about the car than the driver. Not to mention it opened the door for European technology (and soon drivers) to take over for the most part as, especially with the advent of CART, it was getting more and more like F1 Lite, what with the increasing number of road courses too.

  • Sandeep Banerjee

    Not to mention, it ruined the excellent ladder system in place. You’d run midgets and sprint cars around dirt and pavement ovals to prepare yourself for driving the big roadsters on the national series. But once the rear-engine cars became the norm and then CART took over, you could either resort to Formula Atlantics or some other lower rung road course series or go to Europe and race in British Formula 3 or something like that as the skills from the traditional ladder system no longer transferred over, neither about the cars nor the tracks.