Sports Car Legend Hurley Haywood Took on Indianapolis in 1980
May 27, 2020 | By Bruce Martin
One of the greatest names in the history of American Sports Car Racing crossed paths with the Indianapolis 500 in the early days of his racing career.
It was 40 years ago that Hurley Haywood was behind the wheel of the No. 99 Sta-On Car Glaze/KISS99/Guarantee Auto Special in the 1980 Indianapolis 500. Haywood started 25th and finished 18th after dropping out of the race when his car caught on fire after 126 laps.
Johnny Rutherford scored his third Indy 500 win that year and the late Tim Richmond was the Rookie of the Year after finishing ninth. Had Haywood continued in the race, who knows, he may have been in position to challenging Richmond as top rookie at Indy in 1980.
“Lindsey Hopkins, who I drove for, called me and he and Peter Gregg were talking and said Hurley would like to try Indy,” Haywood recalled. “Lindsey stepped up to the plate and offered me the car. I came there in 1979 and didn’t get qualified. I had some problems in qualifying and in 1980 I qualified. For me that was a real big thrill but I was never comfortable with the cars. Lindsey had a good team but it was not a front-running team so I thought my efforts would be better to focus on the GT stuff. I had (a half dozen) IndyCar starts over the years but the Indy 500 was of course the big one.
“I’m very glad I did it. From a driver’s standpoint to run in the Indianapolis 500 is a big thing. To be able to experience that and have the knowledge of whether it was something I wanted to do more of or if I wasn’t going to be successful at it was a valuable lesson for me.”
Racing in the Indianapolis 500 was far different back then than the way the race plays out in recent years. There were a variety of different racing machines and some fairly older cars in the field compared to the latest and great innovations of that era.
Safety was not at the same level that it is today so it was a fairly high-risk proposition for any racing driver.
“When I was running we had articulated skirts so at the start of the race the car was terrific but as the race went on the skirts wore down and the handling got to be iffy at the end of the race,” Haywood recalled. “You had to be very precise. In that day and age there was only one line through the corner and if you got off that line you were in the wall. Now you can really run anywhere through some of those corners. Aerodynamics play such a key role the racing has got a lot better than in the days when I ran there. It was really one of the easiest physical races I ever ran because you would run 10 or 15 laps and then the yellow would come out and you could regroup yourself and start over. It was stressful but not physically straining.”
When it came to innovation, car owner Jim Hall brought the famed “Yellow Submarine” – a Pennzoil-sponsored Chaparral/Cosworth to Indy that year and with Rutherford behind the wheel it was the first successful ground effects car at the Indianapolis 500. Rutherford had the “Yellow Submarine” in front of the field seven times for 118 of the 200 laps and easily won the race by 29.92 seconds over Tom Sneva in a McLaren/Cosworth.
Ground effects would forever change IndyCar racing.
“I remember the first time we drove ground effects sports cars, and that was an awesome car,” Haywood said. “All of your wishes and dreams as a driver came true with the advent of ground effects. Cars were glued to the road and you could do anything you wanted with them. You could move around and aero didn’t make that much difference because the cars were stable. That technology changed the face of racing through IndyCar, Formula and Sports Cars in the GTP days. It was great technology but I’m of the mind of old-style of racing where the drivers make the difference in the car and not the technologies and electronics and stuff. I think ABS Brakes and traction control have been limited in all forms of racing and given it back to the driver is an important thing so the driver can make a difference.”
Haywood was born and raised in Chicago and intently following the Indianapolis 500. He attended the race with his father as a spectator in the early- to mid-1970s before actually driving in the race for his one and only time in 1980.
“I liked watching Jochen Rindt and Mark Donohue, who turned out to be a really good friend of mine. His son (David) drove for our team. Mark was instrumental in helping me adapt when I went from true sports cars over to Can-Am racing. When I got to Indy he had already passed away by that time but I had a pretty good grasp of the things I needed to come to grips with.”
Haywood is in a select group of drivers that has competed in the Indy 500, won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans – the most iconic events in all of racing.
“Each race presents its own set of problems,” Haywood said. “The Indy 500 was an endurance race where you had to pace yourself and do all the things that you do in a long-distance race. A.J. Foyt has won at Daytona, Le Mans and at Indy. He is one of those iconic names that win in anything he drives. It would be great for us to be able to win at Indy because that would be a nice trophy to put on the display case.”
And while Porsche was able to compete in CART and the Indianapolis 500 with Walker Racing in the 1980s, the famed auto manufacturer returned to the Brickyard in GRAND-AM.
Haywood has long been known as the “Master of Daytona” as the famed sports car driver won the 24 Hours of Daytona five times during his legendary career behind the wheel. He also drove to victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times and was twice the winner at the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Haywood’s last race as a driver was in the 2012 Rolex 24 at Daytona, but he continued to guide the fabled Brumos Porsche GRAND-AM team at sports car races throughout the schedule.
Before Brumos Racing suspended its GRAND-AM operation in 2014, Haywood got to return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the “Kroger Super Weekend at the Brickyard” in 2012.
“The Brickyard is a unique place as we all know,” Haywood said. "It was exciting for us to run there in GRAND-AM in both the DP and the GT situation. We were really excited about it. There was a lot of discussion about running a second car there for myself and another driver but I decided that was probably not a good thing to do so we had one car and focused on that."