Energetic Simon Content to Hang Up Helmet after One Last Dash at Indy

Dick Simon is finally approaching the end of his racing road as a driver, although the 84-year-old competitor still has too much spunk to accept the assertion it’s time to take it easy.

“I’m afraid if I slow down,” Simon said Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, “then I might get old.”

Although his eyesight and hearing have diminished during an IndyCar career that includes 17 Indianapolis 500 starts as a driver, Simon sounds like he would prefer to keep driving after the Indy Legends Charity Pro-Am Presented by RACER Magazine at 1 p.m. Saturday, part of the SVRA Brickyard Vintage Racing Invitational.

Racing vintage muscle cars for the past four years has been a welcome extension to his career, but Simon’s wife, Diane, was quite definitive about the end of the line. That will come this weekend at IMS.

“I think if it were up to him, he would continue to drive until the very end,” Diane Simon said. “But I think now is a good time for him to quit. He knows it is.”

Simon is teaming up for a fourth time with James Heck to drive a black No. 64 Chevrolet Corvette against a field that includes 19 other former Indy 500 drivers, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott and road racing legend Ron Fellows. And the task became more challenging Friday when the car experienced a mechanical malfunction in the tail end. Simon didn’t get to drive the car in practice before qualifying 21st out of 22 entrants.

Not that he sounded worried.

“You know when you pay your own bills all those years, you learn to come out on that first lap at nine-tenths,” Simon said. “Then the next two laps are 10-tenths. I won’t need to wear the car out. I’ll do fine in three laps.”

For many, he’s known more in IndyCar for being the owner who gave young, promising drivers a chance. That list includes Arie Luyendyk, who would go on to win two Indy 500s. It also includes Stephan Gregoire, Raul Boesel and Lyn St. James.

Some might forget or don’t realize that Simon, the driver, had an ideal opportunity to win the Indy 500 in 1987.

“I ran out of fuel and finished sixth,” he said. “Mario (Andretti) blew an engine. The two of us were superior to the entire field. It was my chance to win the race.

“But the way I look at it, the good Lord made it possible for me to be here in the first place. Who knows the reasoning behind certain things. We made the mistakes ourselves. We stretched the car a little further than we should have between fuel stops, and that’s what caught us. I lost a few laps and made those back up. There’s no question I could have won it if we hadn’t been pushed down pit row after running out of gas in Turn 2.”

Because he didn’t make his first Indy 500 start until 1970, at the age of 36, the "too-old-to-drive" refrain has been a constant for Simon.

“I’ve heard that since before the very first race,” he said. “That has gone on my whole racing career. When I decided to go to Indy, I was already 32 years old. And that wasn’t even starting Indy, that’s starting the preparation to go to Indy. They said I was crazy, I was too old.”

Some said he drove crazy, too.

“I would take a lot of chances,” he said with a wry grin. “There’s a line you shouldn’t go over, and a lot of people don’t know what that line is. I would go over it more than I should. It bites you once in a while.”

But after that career-best finish of sixth in the 1987 Indy 500, he came back one final time and finished ninth the next year. After so many humbling "500" starts, he went out on a high note.

That’s why Simon says he won’t back off from a manic life at home in Dana Point, California, where he is a boating broker and has a charter service.

“I’m not done,” he said of his off-track plan. “I’m only 85 in September. I feel like I’ve got another 20 years minimum. I’ve probably got 10 health-wise, then I’ll probably go downhill from there.”

Too old? Don’t make him laugh. Again.

“No-o-o,” he said. “No way. I feel great.

“Nobody walks the docks faster in Dana Point every day showing boats. They keep saying, ‘Slow down, Dick, you’re not at Indy.’”

Visit IMS.com to buy tickets, see the complete weekend schedule and for more information about the Brickyard Vintage Racing Invitational. All kids 15 and under are admitted free Saturday or Sunday when accompanied by an adult ticket holder.