Parnelli Jones’s radical ideas
Parnelli Jones is one of the living legends of American racing, up there in the pantheon with Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney. Jones dominated three of the seven Indy 500s he started and won the race in 1963, beating Jim Clark. He looked to be a clear winner again in ’67 with Andy Granatelli’s STP turbine car, but a driveshaft bearing broke with only four laps to go and after the race Parnelli retired from driving open cockpit cars.
Indianapolis, USA. 30th May 1966. Parnelli Jones (Shrike-Offenhauser).
Parnelli continued to race in Trans-Am, Can-Am and off-road cars and trucks. He won the 1970 Trans-Am championship with a Bud Moore Ford Mustang, beating Mark Donohue and Penske Racing by a single point when Trans-Am was one of the USA’s top racing series, brimming with manufacturer-backed teams.
Can-Am race. Riverside, California, United States. 29 October 1967. Parnelli Jones (Lola T70-Chevrolet), 4th position.
He also won the Baja 1,000 in 1971 and ’72, and his resume includes a second career as a team owner in partnership with Vel Miletich. Vel’s Parnelli Jones racing won the Indy 500 with Al Unser in 1970 and ’71, three consecutive USAC championships in 1970-72 with Unser and Joe Leonard and a total of 40 USAC races between 1968-77. VPJ also produced the first Cosworth-powered Indycar, developed by John Barnard and driven successfully by Unser, and a similar F1 car raced by Andretti from late 1974 to early ’76. VPJ’s cars were usually beautiful and often revolutionary.
Ontario, California, USA. 3rd-10th March 1974. Al Unser (Eagle-Offenhauser), 2nd position, with Parnelli Jones.
Jones became a very successful Firestone tyre distributor and property developer in Southern California, and today, at 74, he remains as sharp as ever, and as knowledgeable a man about racing as anyone alive. Parnelli is delighted to see a unified IndyCar series emerge from the sport’s long civil war, but he emphasizes that the real work begins now.
“We need to build respect for Indycar racing again and the only way we’re ever going to get there is to make some dramatic changes,” Jones observes. “It’s a great start that the two series have merged, but it’s not the answer. When you’ve got 50 cars like NASCAR, then you’ve got something. It’s been embarrassing to go watch qualifying at Indianapolis in recent years. There’s nobody there. We used to have 250,000 people show up for the first day of qualifying. But today, we don’t have the respect for the Indy winners that we used to.”
Like many of us, Parnelli believes the most important factor is for the sanctioning body to take control and devise a new formula that will create plenty of competition among engine and car builders.
“Before we go forward they’ve got to step back and take a long look,” he says. “You can’t let the manufacturer run the series. What made all the series in the world in the first place, even NASCAR, is having all those different types of cars for people to root for. But it’s easier said than done.
“They’ve got to get more than one manufacturer. I have nothing against Honda, but right now Honda is calling the shots. NASCAR controls not only the drivers and teams but also the manufacturers, and that’s what Indycar racing needs to get back to.
Parnelli Jones brings the 1968 Lotus Turbine Indy Car back to the pits after taking a ceremonial lap of the track prior to the start of qualifying. 84th Indianapolis 500, Indy Racing Northern Light Series, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 28 May, 2000
“We need to have competition and we need to look at it not just from a technical, Formula 1-type mentality. We need to look at it from an entertainment value because we have to compete against so many other entertainments in this country. It’s not about going out and seeing who’s the best racer and how many laps he can lead or how quick he can lap the field. Those days are gone.
“We need to be entertaining but you’re not going to get there with one manufacturer supplying the same thing to everybody because there’s no entertainment value.”
Jones believes the best way forward is to design a rocker arm engine formula, and that in the long run this would bring manufacturers back into Indycar racing in the best possible way.
“They ought to go to rocker arm engines because you can buy all the parts in the US,” he explains. “Get rid of the manufacturers. Let them go by the wayside and you would have the Childresses and Hendricks building engines for Indy. Make them 260 or 270 cubic inches and you can buy all those parts. Not everyone could build a Hendrick engine but they could grow into that.
“Don’t call them stock-blocks. Call them rocker arm engines and you could have guys building Chevies, Fords, Dodges and Toyotas. Then the manufacturers would come back and start supporting the teams that are running their product. But this time the sanctioning body controls it.”
Tony George (below) and the IRL might do well to consider Parnelli Jones’s ideas of how to secure a healthy future for Indycar racing.
Filed under: Blogs, Historic Racing, IRL, NASCAR, Personalities, Sportscars
Tags: AJ Foyt, Al Unser, Can-Am, Chevrolet, Cosworth, Dan Gurney, Ford, Honda, Indy 500, Jim Clark, Joe Leonard, John Barnard, Lotus, Mario Andretti, Mark Donohue, Parnelli Jones, Tony George, Toyota
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Aleš Norský:
May 2nd, 2008 1:58pm
Well, I am obviously no expert in anybody’s book, but this does not seem to make a lot of sense (with all due respect to all involved). I dread the word ENTERTAINMENT when it relates to being the primary purpose of racing. But if that is what IndyCar is aiming for, I do not see what difference it makes how many constructors are involved, other than their own marketing strategy. I assume that entertainment means constant passing, photo finishes, and an occassional crash that is spectacular enough but nobody gets hurt.
It seems to me that such objective would be best achieved in identical equipment. To promote diversity means to introduce competition, and to (at the same time) drasticly curb this competition by restrictive rules to ensure equality is just weird. I doubt that the drivers today see themselves as simple entertainers any more than Parnelli Jones did in his day. They want to race and win. And they should be allowed to gain advantage and get ahead when they and their team make the right choices. All within reason of course, we do not need another Formula 1, but do we really need another NASCAR?
Carl Forshage:
May 8th, 2008 10:40pm
Racing should be about more than Entertainment – although that is important – it should be about ideas, skill, management, and courage. Unfortunatley, it seems that everyone wants to take all of those things out of it except for the entertainment
H Donald Capps:
May 15th, 2008 12:42am
All the whining and snobbery about entertainment and automobile racing is the sort of nonsense that I have long thought to be more than slightly ridiculous. Racing is a spectator sport and, by definition, a form of entertainment. Do crowds show up to watch science fair experiments conducted by a bunch of techno-geeks? Maybe the family members will, but not many others.
Racing, whether the purists who stick their noses in the air like it or not, is first and foremost entertainment, in the many senses that we can define entertainment. If it isn't "entertaining," why would you even bother to watch? All the techno-stuff bantered about racing is really more of an excuse than a rationale for racing. People could really care less about all the technical formulae and trick technologies if the racing is exciting and, yes, entertaining.
Not everyone is a "Me Too!" when it comes to bashing the entertainment aspect of racing and extolling the virtues of technology (which 99% of those praising it are totally clueless about in the first place).
Scott Houghton:
June 5th, 2008 2:48pm
First off, good racing is entertaining. The tail wags the dog in America however, and the "entertainment" factor is a complicated and multi-layered media formula determined by marketing types, and now, as Jones points out the manufacturer as well. One can only hope that between contemporary visionaries like Rahal, and the gutsy push from guys like Jones, Unser and Andretti that good racing and technological relevance will bring back the glory of Indy racing.
THEREALDUDE:
May 21st, 2009 6:06pm
Don’t listen to any of these other comments, listen to the DUDE. Parnelli wants to bring chances to the irl to save them from themselves, their High downforce, low horsepower, high cost form of Indycar racing has driven fans away in two forms. One the cars never had enough down force for the amount of horsepower they ran which caused the drivers to balance throttle, brake and grip in the corners of ovals, which rewarded good car control, which resulted in passing and slingshot drafting (aka Excitement). Two these skills were often exibited by sprint and midget drivers ( aka American Racers ) and the core Indycar audience loves to watch Americans win. Three allowing engines that are attainable to small American teams like the push-rod engines Parnelli is talking about means you don’t need 1+ million dollars for a Honda engine lease. And if you do those things the racing will be entertaining and I agree RAISE THE HORSEPOWER, LOWER THE DOWNFORCE AND LOWER THE COST, SAVE AMERICAN OPEN WHEEL RACING BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
E. Benton Tackitt:
June 17th, 2009 7:30pm
Yea Parnelli!
I almost agree with everything you say. Except…while rocker armed motors should have their place in the formula, I believe the key to returning respect to open-wheel racing is variety. Create as many doors for entrants to go through as possible. As the europeans brought mid-engined cars over, followed by mavericks like Smokey Yunick, Mickey Thompson and Andy Granatelli, the crowds grew. Because, it was interesting.
Walt:
March 13th, 2010 4:36pm
My dad raced against Parnelli when I was a kid in Carpinteria California. On Monday nights we would go the races at the track. Had to be about 1956 I was ten years old. The guy that owned the track had a Hudson. When Parnelli became a bit more well known I knew he had it in him from the way he raced at Carpinteria.