Mark Montieth, author of ‘VUCKOVICH The Man Who Wouldn’t Lift’

BRUCE:

IndyCar fans, it's time to start your engines. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy, a production of Evergreen Podcast. I'm your host, Bruce Martin, a journalist who regularly covers the NTT IndyCar Series. Our goal at Pit Pass Indy is to give racing fans an insider's view of the exciting world of the NTT IndyCar Series in a fast-paced podcast featuring interviews with the biggest names in the sport. I bring nearly 40 years of experience covering IndyCar and NASCAR, working for such media brands as NBCSports.com, SI.com, ESPN SportsTicker, Sports Illustrated, AutoWeek and SpeedSport. So let's drop the green flag on this episode of Pit Pass Indy. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy as we continue our fourth season of giving IndyCar fans a behind-the-scenes look at the NTT IndyCar Series and the drivers and teams that compete in the Indianapolis 500. It's a season of celebration as the holidays are approaching. For IndyCar, that means it's also time for some deep-dive, behind-the-scenes interviews for some of the great stories in IndyCar and the Indianapolis 500. One of those stories is the life and tragic death of the great Bill Vukovich, who was killed while leading the Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1955. Vukovic was running away with the race at the time of the horrifying crash coming out of Turn 2 on Lap 56. He was attempting to become the first driver in Indianapolis 500 history to win the famed race three straight years. The 36-year-old racing legend was killed instantly when his car flipped wildly over the backstretch fence, trying to avoid a massive crash that left cars scattered across the track. Vukovic's car landed upside down and caught on fire. Prior to the fatal crash, Vukovic had led 50 of the 56 laps in the race. Although his IndyCar record accounts for just four wins, he was a huge star on the bull rings and the short tracks when midget and sprint car racing was the most popular form of racing in the United States after World War II. Many Indy 500 fans have heard the name Bill Vukovic, but few know the story of the man from Fresno, California, who was a midget racing legend on the West Coast before becoming one of the greatest drivers in Indianapolis 500 history. Vukovic's story and accomplishments were lost in the passing of time until an Indianapolis jewelry store owner, Pete Curliss, found a manuscript in his closet. It was written by Curliss' uncle, Angelo Angelopoulos, of the Indianapolis News. Angelopoulos was a close friend of Vukovic and had started on a book about the famed driver before Angelopoulos died of leukemia on October 14, 1962, when he was just 43 years old. Curliss offered up the manuscript to several writers in the Indianapolis area before former Indianapolis Stars sports writer Mark Monteith agreed to turn the manuscript into a book. After resurrecting the project and editing the manuscript, Monteith's finished product is Vukovic, The Man Who Wouldn't Lift. It is published by Half Court Press of Indianapolis and available on Amazon for those looking for a Christmas or holiday gift for Indianapolis 500 fans. Monteith is our guest on today's Pit Pass Indy and tells the story of how he became involved in finishing a book that was started nearly 70 years ago by another writer. The book is the most thorough remembrance of Vukovic, telling the legendary life story of one of the great drivers in Indianapolis 500 history who met a tragic ending at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But it is also the story of Angelopoulos, a popular sports writer in Indianapolis in the 1940s and 1950s, who seemingly had it all until fate intervened. Angelopolis was a 1940 graduate of Butler University and enlisted in World War II as a pilot. His missions included flying over the nuclear bombing sites of Japan that brought the war to an end. But the radiation from those sites was still heavy in the atmosphere, and Angelopolis would later develop leukemia, which ultimately took his life. On this special edition of Pit Pass Indie, we have an exclusive interview with Mark Monteith as he tells the story behind the book and the man, Bill Vukovic, in this exclusive interview for Pit Pass Indie. I go way back with our next guest. It's an author now, but he used to be a well-known sports writer in Indiana. He worked at the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, worked at the Indianapolis Star, later worked at NBA.com, worked for the Indiana Pacers. It's Mark Monteith, who now works at the Indiana Business Journal. But he's also gotten heavily involved in books, and we're going to talk a little bit about one of the great drivers in Indianapolis 500 history. We've all heard the name Bill Vukovic, but very few of us really know the story about Bill Vukovic. other than just what we've read. But Mark Monteith was able to get a hold of a manuscript that was originally written by Indianapolis news writer Angelo Angelopoulos, who passed away in 1962 from leukemia. The story behind how you got the manuscript in itself is interesting. How did you get it?

MARK:

Yeah, I became familiar with Angelo originally several years ago while researching other things and looking at microfilms at the library and Saw his articles in the Indianapolis news and was really impressed. I mean this guy had a lot of talent so I was curious about him for years and kind of researched him even 30 years ago. And then through a sequence of events in the spring of 2023, learned that his nephew, a guy named Pete Curliss, had the manuscript that Angelo had written about Bill Vukovich in his closet all these years. Now, this manuscript that floated around over the years, various people had seen it. I know Robin Miller had his hands on it at one time. And there had been talk about getting it published, but it was kind of a mess, typewritten, double-spaced. Nobody wanted to really just take it on. And I was intrigued by it. Pete Curliss loaned it to me. looked at it, showed it to my wife. She volunteered to type it into a laptop. That was the step that nobody wanted to take on before. It was typewritten. Keep in mind, this is written in 1959. Typewritten, double-spaced with a lot of handwritten edits and corrections. So it needed a lot of work, but it was good. You know, he was such a good writer. So my wife typed it in and that began the editing process and we got it turned into a book.

BRUCE:

Kind of like the days when you worked at the Indiana Daily Student and I worked at the Indiana Daily Student. That's right. We had to do double space on typewriters and then feed it into a scanner, then edit it onto the computer, where I always thought, why don't we just write it on the computer? Wouldn't that be easier? Well, thankfully with technology, that's what we started doing in the late 1970s, early 1980s, but Bill Vukovic is without a doubt one of the greatest names in Indianapolis 500 history. He won the race in 1953. He won it again in 1954. One of only six drivers in 108 Indianapolis 500s that have won back-to-back Indy 500s. But a lot of people think he could have won it Again, in 1955, he was leading the race. In 1955, when he came out of turn two, there was a crash. He was involved in it, and he died from that crash. What is it about Bill Vukovich that most people probably don't realize? Because in a lot of ways, he was a man of few words.

MARK:

Oh yeah, very withdrawn personality, didn't care about publicity, didn't cater to the media. He was always polite to fans, signing autographs and so forth, but he didn't care, you know, about being in the newspaper or being famous. This is a guy who owned gas stations in Fresno, and he'd come out and pump your gas in the summer, or when he was not racing when he was working there. So a regular guy, we might say, grew up very poor, one of several kids. Eight or nine, trying to remember now exactly, but a big family. His dad committed suicide when he was a young kid. So a very rough, difficult upbringing. A very tough guy. The reason for the subtitle, The Man Who Wouldn't Lift, is that He stayed on the throttle longer in the turns than other drivers did. He was tougher, stronger, braver than the other drivers. And as you know, the cars in the 1950s were not easy to drive, much different than today. So I compare him, Bruce, to Larry Bird. Grew up in a big family, poor. Dad committed suicide, withdrawn personality, didn't care if you paid attention to him or not, but a good guy, a regular guy with an impressively low ego for as famous as he was. So Vukovic, you know, was just, I mean, you mentioned the 53-54 wins. He had the race won in 55 because his primary competitors had already dropped out. He's got a big lead. 56 laps into the race. He also had it one to 52, you know, with eight laps to go, he's got it one and a 50 cent cotter pin on his steering wheel breaks. And so he can't even turn the wheel. So he could have, without any good luck, just the absence of terrible luck, won four in a row. And imagine what a legend he would be if he had won four Indianapolis 500s in a row. So, you know, just fate was not kind to him or his family. And the greatest driver of his era, without doubt, and a guy who, as great as he was and as much as he accomplished, should have accomplished a lot more.

BRUCE:

Imagine how it would have changed history had he won, not only four in a row, but just won four Indianapolis 500s. Because we all grew up and remember what a huge deal it was, AJ Foy's pursuit being the first four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. He finally accomplished it in 1977. And I have people who were in the grandstands that day who say grown men were in tears to see their hero A.J. Foyt win his fourth Indianapolis 500. That seems to be the platinum standard for the Indianapolis 500 is if you can become a four-time winner. But it also is a story that tells just how brave and courageous and how tough those guys were of that era because it was commonplace for their best friend or their biggest rival to get killed. And you would start off the season and look around the room and wonder who's gonna be there at the end of the year. They had the nerve of what I would consider Chuck Yeager or test pilots, people that were in the movie, The Right Stuff, the original seven NASA astronauts of Project Mercury. When those rockets went up, we didn't know whether those astronauts were gonna come back. And in a lot of ways, the Indy 500 in those days, they didn't know. Who was going to be able to make it home alive?

MARK:

Well, to give you a stat of the 33 men who started the 1955 race, 16 were eventually killed in a racing accident. Yeah, maybe not that year, maybe not until 10 years later, but eventually more than or nearly half of the field. got killed in a racing accident. And that was typical of that era. And people were almost callous about it back then, because it was so common. After Vukovic's accident, there was kind of a movement to ban auto racing. Congress was talking about it, because so many men were getting killed. the newspaper columnists all kind of defended the race and said, well, you know, it's not really that many or it's no worse than driving on the highway, this kind of thing. And I mean, it was, it's kind of funny to read some of the articles of that era, how callous everybody was toward the danger of the sport, but that's because it was commonplace. You know, people got used to drivers dying in races, not just to 500, but rink car races, dirt track races, so forth. So that was just the era. That's just how it was.

BRUCE:

Well, and I attribute a lot of that with society at that time. These were men that fought in World War II. And they had seen horrible things happen to their best friends or fellow soldiers next to them in battle. And it was almost like once World War II ended, auto racing, the fear, the danger was almost their adrenaline rush in many ways. Also, the winner of the race in 1955, Bob Sweikert, he died shortly after he won the Indianapolis 500.

MARK:

Yeah, he did. I think it was just a few months later. So yeah, I mean, it was almost, it was a 50-50 proposition whether or not you survived auto racing.

BRUCE:

The lasting memory of Bill Vukovich is the Indianapolis 500, where it was like 95 degrees. And in fact, a driver died in that race, Carl Scarborough from heat stroke. But there's a picture of Bill Vukovich just completely exhausted, sitting on his workbench, his shoes and socks off, and just totally drained. And I think that's probably the one image of Bill Vukovich that people

MARK:

Remember the most that is the back cover of the book and that's the most popular photo in the speedways photo library that they sell more Copies of that picture than any other and they have thousands as you know One detail though. That's actually that photo was taken after the 54 race Which was also very hot, you know 53 was like a record-setting and a lot of drivers dropped out. 54 wasn't quite as bad, but the photo you're referring to was actually taken after the 54 race, often mistaken for the 53 race.

BRUCE:

But the other thing though, Bill Vukovich was a huge name. He was a great driver from the sprint and midget car ranks in California. And just you being able to dive into his story, what did you learn about the early days when he was driving the bull rings in California?

MARK:

He was a wild man. I mean, he would purposely bump drivers. He was considered unsafe. Fans would boo him because he was just kind of a maniac on those tracks out in California as he was coming up. But he was also the kind of guy who would loan you equipment or help you fix your car. He was a sportsman in many ways, but once you got on the track, he didn't care. One story was he drove across the infield to go after a guy who he thought had driven irresponsibly. So he was just, you know, hell-raising kind of guy, not in his personal life. He wasn't a big drinker or anything like that. He was a family man. In fact, very much a family man. Married one time and had two kids. And of course, people know about his son, Vukovic Jr. And so, you know, he had that dichotomy about him where on the track, He was really aggressive, kind of wild in his early days. Off the track was a family man who had the respect of a lot of drivers for the way he conducted himself.

BRUCE:

You had drivers maybe a generation before him who were beloved by the Indianapolis 500 fans, people like Louis Meyer, Wilbur Shaw, even Maury Rose, Bill Holland. Of course, Rex Mays was very popular. Would you say that Vukovic was admired but not necessarily beloved?

MARK:

Yeah, I think that's fair. Although I think by the time he won those two races, he was becoming beloved because people were getting to know him better. The only real way to get to know a driver in those days was through the newspapers. They might do a radio interview or whatever, but basically you had to read about him. And Angelo Angelopoulos was a great admirer of Vukovic, so he certainly wrote positive articles about him. But early on, you know, people, didn't really know the guy. He didn't seem to care about being known. So yeah, he wasn't that popular, even after he won a race or maybe two. But by the time you get to 1955, I think he is very popular among the fans, just he got to know him. And you talked about how people reacted to H.J. Hoyt winning four. I've met people still alive today who were at that race in 55, and they still get choked up talking about it. And I met one guy who was like 12 years old at the time, and he was selling newspapers the day of the race. He was out in Plainfield walking up and down the street selling the Blue Shrika, the Indianapolis News, about Vukovic being killed. He said he had tears streaming down his face as he was selling that paper. I did one engagement at a library and a man told me, a man talked about how much he admired Vukovic and got choked up just right there, you know, talking about it. So he became very popular because I think people related to him. Of course, the drivers then were easier to relate to. They're all American. Most of them grew up fairly poor, blue collar type of guys. Vukovic was certainly that, but people began to recognize the fact that he was just better than the others, tougher, braver, stayed on the throttle longer, and didn't show any ego whatsoever. So he, as time went on, became admired, but it took a while for people to get around to that.

BRUCE:

Not to be too grim, but one of the other famous photos, I mean, it was a horrific crash. He flipped over the backstretch guardrail and landed upside down, and the car was on fire. And there's the famous photo in Life magazine of his arm. Outside the cockpit of the cars, the car's upside down. Yeah, that's in the book, too. And he's pinned inside. And I think that by today's standards, I'm not so sure many newspapers would print a photo like that, but it was one of the more famous photos of that era. In a lot of ways, it's kind of a time capsule of what the United States and especially Indianapolis was like back then. So what did you learn about that? You grew up in Indianapolis.

MARK:

Yeah, I think newspapers in general then were more, they're bolder about showing a photo like that or even a headline. There were headlines on the front page of papers, Vuki burns to death. you know, that kind of thing. They were just, the wording was different than it would be today. And you could say that's good or bad, who knows, but it's just different. I've seen photos in newspapers of that era of an automobile crash where you could see a dead person inside the car, you know, that kind of thing. I've seen a photo on the front page of the Indianapolis News once of a little kid posed with a fishing pole and the caption said, Little Johnny whatever was gonna go fishing with his dad today, but he can't make it because his dad got killed in an auto accident or something. Stuff like that, that would never go today, but that was just the era. So that photo of Vukovic with the car upside down, fire put out, and yeah, you could look closely and see his arm sticking out. And this is an example of how it was treated, mechanics, of course, they were obviously very upset, but before they left the track that day, they lined up another driver for the team to take his place. I mean, that's just how it was then. You knew it could happen at any time, and people just reacted to it differently, personally and in the media as well. So, just a completely different era.

BRUCE:

But here's the other thing, it was a completely different era of technology. If you were a spectator at the Indianapolis 500, if it wasn't for the announcement over the public address system, you had no idea. First of all, you probably had no idea there was a, you just knew there was a crash on the backstretch, but you didn't know that it killed Bill Vukovich. And many people probably didn't hear the news because in 1955, They didn't have too many transistor radios if they even existed. So it's not like you could sit in the grandstands and listen to the race on the radio while you're watching it. You were pretty dependent on the reports from the PA. And many people probably didn't know he was dead until after the race.

MARK:

Yeah, they made the announcement, I think, before the race ended, but one thing I was able to do was get a broadcast, the radio broadcast of that race, and kind of I listened to the entire thing and how leading up to the accident, and Sid Collins is doing his interviews with Dinah Shore and various people, and And then they interrupt, oh, we have an accident on the backstretch. And they go to a library, they go to report, they have a reporter back there. And he's trying to pick, I can see this car, this car, this car. It took a while because Vukovic had gone over the wall, took a while to figure out he was in it. And the way they found out was under the yellow going around the track, he's missing. So they know he's in it somehow, but they don't know how serious it was. And his wife, who's sitting in the main grandstands, sees he's not in the laps on the yellow light. So she goes to the track hospital. where eventually she's told that he had been killed, but he was obviously killed instantly. The ambulance took him directly to Conkle Funeral Home. And by the way, they changed the policy at that time for that reason. Tony Holman said, from now on, even if a driver is killed instantly, take him to Methodist Hospital because we want to be able to notify the family. what has happened because everybody could see that ambulance leave the track and turn right, meaning they're going to Concord Funeral Home and not to the hospital. And that's probably how a lot of people found out right then. So just the description, the blow by blow, people finding out that it was him, that he had died, and then his wife finding out at the track hospital as well. It's really sad in a lot of ways, and also very dramatic.

BRUCE:

The other thing about the Indianapolis 500 is even beginning in the 1930s, they used to have year by year a video or film. I should say it was a film. They would have a film crew that would basically make a documentary of that year's race. And anybody that's ever watched the 1955 race documentary, another chilling moment is when you see Herb Porter looking up at turn four, looking for Vuki. You know, the crew members of Vukovic's car, and just kind of the look of concern on their face because every other car is coming around, but their car isn't. And that was another one of just the grim reality of what had happened.

MARK:

Yeah, it was as horrific an accident as the Speedway has had, I guess, certainly up until 1964. But to that time, at least, was the worst accident that had occurred there. And then the fact that it involved a two-time champion made it that much worse. And another thing I've heard from people when I do appearances with the book, People will say, yeah, my parents never went to another race after that one. They were so upset about that accident and the way it occurred. So it was a major, major moment in the history of the race.

BRUCE:

What would you say the lasting legacy was of Bill Vukovich after that, before you had a chance to really inform people of the story of the man?

MARK:

Yeah, I think his legacy is that, you know, a champion who was the best of his era and as good a driver as the races ever had it's hard to compare then to now because the cars are so different but as good a driver as they have ever had there and Beyond that just a tough guy who grew up in difficult circumstances Kind of qualified as a man of the people Again, a guy who owned gas stations will come out and pump gas for you if you pulled up to one of his pumps out in Fresno. So I think that was his appeal. And then just the ultimate victim of fate, you know, should have won four in a row. was, and you know, if you went four in a row, Bruce, he probably didn't going to retire. I mean, there was talk that he was going to retire. He might've, but how can you retire? You know, if you've won three in a row, I think he would have come back in 56 and they were preparing a car form that was going to be way more advanced than any others of that era, a streamliner. So It's a what if story. What if he had not been killed in 55? What would have been the rest of his career? And if he could have been one of these guys like a Roger Ward or whoever who came back 20, 30 years later, what a celebrity he still would have been and all he could have done for auto racing. So it's a tragedy and it's a great mystery as well. You know, what if that had not happened?

BRUCE:

I remember sitting in the press box at Daytona International Speedway in 2001 when Dale Earnhardt was killed in the last turn of the last lap. And to me, the biggest name who had been killed in an actual race prior to that was Bill Vukovich. And perhaps to a lot of people, NASCAR fans especially, they may have been unaware of that reference, but it was like, You don't understand how huge he was and how big the, I mean, the Indianapolis 500 and the 50s dwarfed any other type of auto race anywhere.

MARK:

Yeah, easily, easily. Yeah, and you know, I started covering the 500 in 1979 and it was never in it like you had been, but covered the race every year for about a decade. And so even then, you know, Vukovic Jr. was driving. And so I was aware of Vukovic Sr. I was aware of this guy who had won two races and got killed in the 50s, but didn't really know the story until I got into this manuscript. But you know, you think about his son dies of dementia about a year ago. and his grandson dies in a practice lap accident in 1990. His son and grandson were both Rookie of the Year at the Speedway, were obviously talented drivers, and they both had their fate as well. So it's just amazing what that family had to endure. throughout the family history, but I just think the Vukovic story needs to be known, and he deserves all the credit he can get. And the author, Angelo Ancelopoulos, has his own story as a World War II pilot who got leukemia because of the radiation he absorbed from flying over the bombing sites in Japan. So he's withering away there in the late 50s writing this manuscript that never got published for whatever reason. So that's really why I was happy to be able to be the guy who completed it and got it out there both for Vukovic and for Angelo.

BRUCE:

Well, that was another topic of this book that I wanted to touch on. But before we go to that, you were talking about tragic figures. I look at Bill Vukovich Jr.' 's really the tragic figure because not only did he endure the loss of his father, but also the loss of his son. and you can only imagine the personal torment that that man had to live through.

MARK:

ESPN did those sports century documentaries around the year 2000, and they did a really good one on Bill Vukovich, and you can find it on YouTube, and they talked to Vukie Jr., and he says, you know, I lost my dad to racing, I lost my son to racing, there's never gonna be another Vukovich races, and I'm just fine with that. You know, I mean, yeah, it's just incredible what he had to endure. Can you imagine losing your dad and your son to auto racing accidents? He survived racing. He winds up with dementia, has his own personal tragedy, but at least he got to live a long life. So yeah, I would encourage people to go to YouTube or whatever and look for that ESPN documentary on Bill Vukovich because it does a good job of telling the story.

BRUCE:

Those two men, Bill Vukovic Jr. and Billy Vukovic III, they were very popular amongst the fans at the Indianapolis 500. And in a lot of ways, that just shows the reverence and respect that all of those fans, all those years had for the Vukovic name.

MARK:

Yeah. And Vukovic Jr. admitted, I'm not like my dad. I'm a safety first driver. I'm going to try to win. And he did finish second one year. And he was good, but he didn't take the chances his dad did. For that reason, he wanted to survive. You know, I can't blame him. He was not reckless in any way, but he was very talented. Like I said, Rookie of the Year. I think it was 1968 that he was Rookie of the Year. So, you know, and then, you know, The third is Rookie of the Year, was it 88? I think late 80s, he's Rookie of the Year. And then again, he gets killed in a practice lap accident. Only car on the track out in California in 1990. So just terrible, terrible fate for that family.

BRUCE:

We'll be right back to Pit Pass Indy after this short break. Welcome back to Pit Pass Indy. Here is the second part of my exclusive interview with Mark Bonteith, author of Vukovic, The Man Who Wouldn't Lift on Pit Pass Indy. Now I'd like to give some time to Angelo Angelopoulos because I found his story to be just as fascinating as Bill Vukovic. In many ways, it was a bit of a time capsule of what Indianapolis was like back in the 40s and the 50s. I grew up in northern Indiana, you grew up in Indianapolis. A lot of us knew Indianapolis before it became a big city. Back then, Indianapolis was kind of a big town, was its own unique city. Today, a lot of the cities we've traveled all over the world. country, maybe even all over the world. And cities don't have their own unique feel like they used to. But back then, Indianapolis certainly did. And I really thought that you did a real good job of portraying Angelo Angelopoulos' life. In fact, he was married to a model. They were a bit of a high society type group, the movers and shakers of Indianapolis at that time. They were kind of the it couple, as you referred to them as. What was it that you learned about Angelo Angelopoulos that you said he was very talented, he was a great sports writer. But that was a period of time when there weren't that many sports to write about in Indianapolis.

MARK:

Well, yeah, Angelo covered it all, high school stuff. Butler, he was a Butler graduate from 1940. And so he covered Butler. He covered the professional basketball teams of that era, the Cowskies and the Olympians. That's why I was reading his stories. So he did it all. In a later era, he would have done probably television or radio. He was a very handsome guy. He was a very humble guy, had no ego about him. He was very popular with the other media members. And he, like you said, he married a local model. He just seemed to have everything going for him. Had the looks, had the talent, had the charisma, had the popularity, just everything, but, he had his own fate and got leukemia. Diagnosed in 1955, probably shortly after the race, probably that summer of 55 when he learned that he had leukemia. So what a year that was for him. Vukovic was a great friend of his and he loses him and then he finds out he's got leukemia. But to Angelo's credit, He kept working. He kept writing. He wrote up until about six weeks before he died. He went out to New York for a while and was freelancing, worked on this book. He was writing for national magazines. He was doing a lot of different things. So he showed a lot of courage as well, just by, he just kept working, kept working, not just for the news, but for a lot of magazines of that era too. So I thought he also kind of was a heroic figure.

BRUCE:

You and I still grew up in an era where, to a lot of people that may listen to this show all over the country, they don't understand how big Indiana high school basketball was to the community, to the state. And you would see top-notch, big-time sports writers at a high school basketball game in Indiana because that was the Indiana State Basketball Tournament, month of March. Hoosier hysteria was just as big as the month of May in many ways. Those were the two months that people in Indiana lived for. And what did that really say about living in Indianapolis in the 40s and 50s and even into the 60s and 70s?

MARK:

Small town feel, you know, like you say, those were the two big events. You know, that's why when the Pacers were formed in 67 in the ABA, it started to feel like a major league city because they were winners and they were on national television. But up until that point, it was Indian no place, right? It was, people joked about, you know, a racetrack in the middle of a cornfield. I mean, it was just a whole different city than it is today. It did have that small town feel. People who lived here, for the most part, liked living here. But if you weren't from here, you just thought of it as a hick town. And so that's, you know, Angelo was a part of that. He grew up in the city, came back to, stayed in the city, came back to the city after the war and worked in the city. So he was a major part of the city and reflected how the city was, you know, low ego. Angelo, I thought, you know, was really good about recognizing the historical merits of certain things. Like when Attucks won its first state championship in 1955, you know, Angelo covered that and he wrote about how this kind of nudges society forward a little bit. You know, it's all black school winning state championship and the way they were accepted. So, He was, without doing this book, he would still have been a major media figure in Indianapolis. And then to have his life cut short at the age of 43, I think it was, 42 or 43 in 1962, you know, that adds to the dramatic element as well. Two men who were at the top of their field having their life cut short in a tragic manner.

BRUCE:

I remember growing up in northern Indiana, small town on Plymouth, which was close to South Bend. And whenever we'd talk about Indianapolis, I would always hear that they roll the sidewalks up at five o'clock. And then when you would come to Indianapolis, you would be there at five o'clock and legitimately there's nobody on the streets five o'clock. And it was really a mind blowing experience. thing because you think big city, there's got to be a lot of activity. It was almost like the social places, the activities really weren't in downtown Indianapolis. They were in the outer areas. The north side was popular. When I went to Indiana University, the thinking was that Indianapolis was a very cliquish town. There was the north side and then every other side that people didn't really give credit to. So you grew up in Indianapolis, you're from the Northwest side, so you could relate to both the West side and the North side. What did the Indianapolis 500 mean to you? When did you attend it for the first time as a fan? And also just how impactful were months of May to you growing up?

MARK:

Yeah, I always kind of saw it from a distance because my dad was not a race fan. So I was the kid on race day, with the radio on, riding my tricycle around the driveway, listening, or shooting baskets in the driveway while listening to it. It was such a major event that you paid attention to it. And I swear, I grew up on 65th Street. The track, of course, is on 16th Street, but I swear that I could, in the era of the Novice, I could hear the race from my house on race day when there were 33 cars out there. At least I thought I could, but I'm pretty sure I could. and I'd have it on the radio too. So it was an exciting thing. You paid attention to it. We always watched the victory banquet the next night. So it was a major thing, but it was from a distance. I didn't go to a qualification day until, 1968 that Joe Leonard had the wedge car, the wedge turbine. My dad got tickets. He worked at Allison's right by the track. So he got tickets and we went and had good seats behind the pits. And that was my first real exposure to it. I went to the race in high school, but then didn't go until I got a chance to cover it. for the first time in 1979. So it was always kind of from a distance, but when I started covering it, you know, I had a general background knowledge of it, but then I, I did get into it. You know, there's nothing like being at the race. I covered it throughout the eighties and into 1990. And then after that sporadically, depending on my role as a newspaper, but. I've always I'm not such a fan that I follow every race Closely, but I'm a big fan of the 500 because it's such an outrageous event and has so much history behind it That I can't resist it, but I'm kind of spoiled that unless I am going to be with the credential and helping cover the race, I don't really want to be sitting in the grandstand. I've done it a few times, but I'm one of those, I'm spoiled, you know, because I want to be part of it and be right where the action is instead of sitting up in the stands.

BRUCE:

But just the incredible respect that you have to have of just how huge that event has been for as long as it has been and what it means to the city of Indianapolis. It really put Indianapolis on the map.

MARK:

I think it's amazing to think that back in the early 1900s, some people had the vision of building a two and a half mile racing facility as a testing ground and later to race. I mean, that's just amazing. It opened in 1909, they had the first race in 1911. I tell everybody, if they're new to town, say, you got to go once. You may not like it. It's crazy that parking in the traffic and everything is a hassle, but you got to go one time just to be there among all those people and 33 cars all heading toward that first turn together. You've got to see it just once in your life. And I think it's that big of an event. And when you add the history, all the people have given their lives to the race, the courage, the technology, the brains behind the race, there's so much that goes into it. It's just humanity at its best and sometimes at its worst, but it's just an incredible event. And the loyalty of the fans is such a major part of it. You're always meeting people who have been to 40, 50 years in a row. I've written about a man in Pittsburgh. a dentist who has been to every race since 1939, every race since 1939. He went in 1938 in his mother's womb. She was pregnant with him. And the loyalty, people like that, they come back every year. He brings a bus load out from Pennsylvania and they stay in Newcastle and they get a bus escorted to the track. You know, he's been to the race literally every year of his life. And that's just, that's an incredible part of it as well, what it means to the fans to be there every single year.

BRUCE:

The other thing about it is just the insanity of the concept of the race, the danger aspect. Safety has thankfully made it less dangerous, but it's still pretty dangerous. These guys are still risking a lot. Even if they survive the crash, they might have a pretty bad injury to recover from. But we also go back to the days where in the infield, it was anything goes. Yeah. And the insanity of that, it was really every Memorial Day or Memorial Day weekend, Woodstock would come to the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

MARK:

Yeah, you're right. Anything goes, and we've all heard about the photographs they couldn't put in the newspaper that the photographers took out there. And the other amazing thing to me was the days when the opening day of qualifications would draw a couple hundred thousand people. 200,000 people out there just to watch one car at a time drive around the track. That's how big a deal it was. That's what it was like when I went the first time, when Joe Leonard was the first guy to go 170. So it's just an amazing, outrageous event for many different reasons that I think everybody should experience at least one time.

BRUCE:

My theory on why we had those huge crowds, especially for qualifications, was after a long Indiana winter, that was really the first time you could really go out and do something outside in decent weather.

MARK:

Like the first day of summer. The whole month of May, I guess, was kind of the beginning of summer. It was getting warm. It was like spring. Everything was getting green, and here's the race, and life has returned to Indianapolis.

BRUCE:

Indianapolis is a far different city in 2024 than it was back in the 1950s and 1960s. Indiana Pacers won three ABA championships, established themselves as a very good team, a popular team in the National Basketball Association. Indiana's produced unbelievable number of great basketball players and great athletes. And also beginning in 1984, it's been an NFL city when the Baltimore Colts relocated to Indianapolis, won a Super Bowl the 2006 season, it was the 2007 Super Bowl. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis is now really a football town in many ways. Do you think that's a little bit of the mystique and charm and the fact that it is now a pro sports city has maybe changed the way people look at the Indianapolis 500?

MARK:

Yeah, I do. I do. Like you said, it used to be the only thing in town. and other than high school basketball. So all sports these days have a lot of competition for fans and people can only afford to go to so many events. Now the 500 to me has been revived in a lot of ways and draws great on race day, but it certainly throughout the month of May, it's not like it used to be. Qualifications don't draw anything like what they used to, but the race itself still draws well. But yeah, you have, NFL you have NBA you have a lot of other things going on amateur sports that Draw from the fans interest in their dollars. So the 500 Does have a lot more competition and I suppose isn't as big a deal locally as it used to be But still a completely unique event that can never be duplicated And I think it's going to remain a big deal for as long as it's around

BRUCE:

So how can people get your book, especially with Christmas coming up?

MARK:

Yeah, Vukovic's The Man Who Wouldn't Lift, it's on Amazon. If people know how to get a hold of me, Mark Monteith, on social media, I can get copies sent out, signed copies sent out directly. But it should be in bookstores throughout Indiana, maybe nationally, I'm not sure, but certainly in Indiana. And but I guess the easiest way for most fans would be on Amazon or other online opportunities. Or again, if you could find me, I can work with you directly.

BRUCE:

And it would certainly make a great Christmas gift or at least a stocking stuffer for people who are Indianapolis 500 fans and want to know more about one of the great names in Indy 500 history. But before we wrap up, You and I go back all the way to the 1970s. You're a few years older than I am. You'd already worked at the Indiana Daily Student by the time I had arrived, and you were already a professional media person starting at the Merriam-Paper, Merriam Chronicle-Tribune, and then later the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. When you think, when you look back at your career, you've covered Indiana University Basketball National Championships. You've covered a lot of the biggest stories that happened in those eras, the Indiana Pacers and just in the city of Indianapolis. So when you look back, I remember one time, one of the things that I always admired about you is You were a regular member of the media, and I was the kid working for the student paper at Indiana University. You treated me the same as you did anybody else that worked for any other paper in the state of Indiana, and helped show me the ropes and gave me advice, and that's something that I'm forever grateful for. But I remember having dinner with you one night many, many years ago and you talk about that era that we were experiencing at that moment in the 70s and 80s was indeed the golden age of sports writing. Because journalism is not the same as it was back then.

MARK:

Yeah, I consider myself really lucky. I'm sure you do too, to come up in the era we did when newspapers were almost a necessity for most people. They had money to spend on budgets for travel. And now with the internet, a lot of that has gone away, and it's really a shame. It's not a good thing either. People like to be mad at newspapers, but they have been incredibly important to a democratic society, and the importance of them is greatly missed today, I believe. So I feel really lucky that I came out when I did. In the 70s was kind of the Watergate era, and journalism was an important thing in our democracy. I started out, as you mentioned, at the Chronicle Tribune in Marion, circulation about 22,000. That summer, they hired me, two Northwestern University grads, a Missouri grad, and a Ball State grad. You know, that's how newspapers were at the time that, you know, a small paper like that was getting kids out of great journalism schools. And all of us went on to bigger papers, but we had to start out there because it was so competitive at that time to get a job. And then I went to Fort Wayne and then Indianapolis, and I just feel like I've been very fortunate that I've had the opportunities I've had covering IU and Purdue, Big Ten sports, football and basketball, covered the Bears in their Super Bowl season, and then I covered the Pacers for about 12 years during the Larry Bird coaching era when they went to the finals and everything. I remember at a time, Bruce, of being really frustrated that I wasn't working for the star. I grew up here, wanted to work there. I'm working in Marion. I'm working in Fort Wayne. I'm thinking, Why can't I get hired at the Star? I'm as good as those guys. And as I look back on it, I think I was really lucky, my timing, that I got opportunities in Fort Wayne that I would not have gotten at the Star. And when I did finally get a chance to cover the Pacers, I got to do it when they were good. I didn't have to cover them in the 80s when they won 22 games or whatever. So as I look back, very fortunate in my timing when things came along and to have worked for newspapers when I did and to have been able to leave on my own terms when I did and not get kicked out the door like so many have.

BRUCE:

The other thing about journalism at that era, you had to be educated, you had to be trained, you had to basically go to university, go through journalism school. We both went to the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University. You had to get it right. You had to make sure your stories were right. There was no excuses for making mistakes. and today somebody's a fan they think wow I want to like get some followers and they'll just throw anything out there and what's mind-boggling is people will believe stuff that's flat out wrong.

MARK:

The internet rumor mill is always grinding and I like you you know there somebody who's not even being paid throws out a trade rumor And people jump on, oh, I don't think that's a good idea, you know, and people just get constantly fooled. And, you know, people love to criticize the media. Well, what is the media today? You know, to me, if you're not, if it's not a full-time job, you're not working for a media outlet. And I feel bad for the kids who, like us, were at one time, they come out and they want to be a sports writer or a sportscaster. And how do you do it? You know, the small town papers aren't hiring. So you have to, you start a blog or you'd find some online position that you're not being paid for. So I don't blame them, but you wind up having a lot of Amateurs so to speak doing the job and trying to draw attention to themselves. And so how did you go about that? Well, you say something kind of outrageous And the accuracy doesn't matter and people do fall for it, you know, but people don't want to pay for their media anymore so they'll listen to a blogger or read something online as opposed to subscribing to a newspaper or magazine and that's Greatly frustrating for me as I know it is for you, too

BRUCE:

They used to call them citizen journalists, and I always used to ask, I feel sorry for the person that's going to the citizen cardiologist. That's right. Yeah. You've got to know what you're doing just from a liable standpoint and from an ethic standpoint. And you learn that by going to journalism school. You don't learn that necessarily by sitting in the grandstands being a fan. Now, I'm not questioning the passion of fans, but it's a different world. We've seen how that thinking has infiltrated itself into bigger stories than what we cover, whether it be sports or news or anything else. Like I said, I remember you saying this is the golden age of sports journalism, and we got to travel all over. We got to go on a lot of good trips. got to meet some incredible characters some were even co-workers like robin miller yeah bob collins people like that they don't make them like that anymore no they don't it was a colorful profession back in the day i mean uh there were alcoholics you know or people

MARK:

could get away with things back then that you couldn't now. And it made for a colorful time for sure. And, you know, I hear the stories of the people who worked at the Star in the 60s into the 70s and what it was like. And it sounds like a good time. You know, I do think the 70s kind of cleaned things up and the standards were raised during that era of Watergate. But it was a, you know, journalism is a legitimate profession it was it still is and should be and I think people need to respect it and support it financially you know subscribe do something if you want to be told the truth if you want you know, journalism to play a role in democracy, then you've got to pay for it sometimes and support it. So whether that's a newspaper or magazine subscription, could be online, you know, you don't have to take the physical publication, but people need to support it and not try to get everything for free.

BRUCE:

So you wrote the book on the history of the Indiana Pacers and you also wrote the book on Bill Vukovic. Do you consider those both really highlights of your career?

MARK:

Yeah, I'd say so because Nobody asked me to do it. It wasn't an assignment. There's never a guarantee when you write a book that you'll make a dollar off of it. But I feel good that I'm leaving something behind that even 50 years from now, somebody might pick up and they'll know, you know, how the Pacers got formed and got off the ground in the ABA. They'll know the story of Bill Vukovich. I spent a season with Purdue's basketball team in the 1987, 88, season. And that book, Passion Play, can still be found various places, you know, no longer in print, but it's out there. I've got a dozen copies in my garage, I think. It can be found. So I like the idea of leaving something behind that will contribute to history and that people will always be able to find and read about if they want. just like I think it would have been really cool if somebody wrote a book on Purdue basketball when Johnny Wooden was playing there in 1932. I'd love to read about that, what that was really like from the inside. So I want to leave things behind that give insight to people that might still be interesting to read about 50 years, 100 years from now.

BRUCE:

And also you write a lot of interesting stories for the Indiana Business Journal. So how much fun is that?

MARK:

Yeah, it keeps me current. I write sports articles for the Indianapolis Business Journal, whatever I'm interested in writing about. So that's going to be usually something current. Sometimes I'll write about something that happened years ago or somebody who was popular years ago, or it'll be sometimes an obituary about somebody locally who passed away. But, um, And that kind of keeps me in the game and keeps me up with current events and article that came out in today's issue of the IBJ was about the Purdue coaching change and how low the odds are of finding the right candidate to coach a team at Purdue or Indiana for that matter. How many successful coaches have they ever had there? you know, that left on their own and had winning records and did well, it's rare. So is this next guy, Odom, going to be a winning coach? It sounds good on the day of the press conference, but history tells us that the odds are against it. So we'll have to wait and see. So I enjoy being able to do things, write about things that are happening today as well.

BRUCE:

And finally, I guess you could say that we remember when sports writing was, we had cover the game from center court at courtside. Now they put the media up in the rafter.

MARK:

Up in the boondocks. A lot of fans probably liked that, but I, yeah, I got, and I appreciated it when I covered the Pacers sitting courtside, right there near center court. And we could hear what the coach is yelling to the players. You could hear the players talking at times. I remember a game when Isaiah Thomas coached the Pacers. They were playing Cleveland and Darius Miles came over to Isaiah during a dead ball when there'd been a foul. He said, hey, Isaiah, come and get me. I want to play for you guys. Cause Cleveland wasn't any good at the time. And you could pick up things like that, you know, put it in the paper. So yeah, that's another reason we were lucky. Cause you were in the action and now everything's about adding a few more dollars. So they kick the media upstairs. They sell those seats to fans. I guess you can't blame the team for that, but it's a shame that the media has less access, but the fact is they don't need us like they used to, you know, the teams don't need us.

BRUCE:

I remember when I was covering the Charlotte Hornets sitting courtside down having the right is in the fourth quarter game was pretty much already decided. It was the Hornets playing the Pistons and I'm writing the running because back then you had to do that before going and getting quotes from the coach and the players. All of a sudden I look up and no further than from me to you is Alonzo Mourning and Bill Lambere throwing haymakers at each other. And I'm thinking to myself, if one of them misses and connected with me, I'm dead because those guys are so much stronger than the average person taking a direct hit from them. It'd be lights out for

MARK:

Yeah, I was at a game against Dallas when Sean Bradley was playing for Dallas and he dove for a ball and went right over the table and landed on top of my laptop and broke it during the game. So fortunately, we had a second person there and he wrote the game story that night. But, you know, that kind of thing could happen. Somebody could land in your lap. It was great.

BRUCE:

Well, I really enjoyed spending time with you again. Like I said, you were a mentor of mine when I was learning the ropes at Indiana University, and I've always respected that. And also when we, when I did get into the regular journalism ranks, a lot of times we both covered the NBA and covered a lot of college basketball and things like that. The 1981 Indiana Hoosiers that won the NCAA championship. Even before that, the 1979 Indiana University football team that won the holiday. Yeah, yeah. I was there for that. The first bowl winning team in Indiana University history.

MARK:

Everybody thought Lee Corso had it going at that time, thought he was going to stay there a long time and be a winner.

BRUCE:

The best thing about that holiday bowl was... man that we all loved and respected Tom Miller, the sports information director, famous for no cheering in the press box. When the BYU kicker came out and kicked that ball straight up and I, you won the game by a point, this man in the front row of the press box jumps up and cheers. And it was Tom Miller.

MARK:

I did not remember that, but I'm not surprised.

BRUCE:

Yes, and I took a little bit of pride, even though I was a college student, I should have known better than them. It was like, hey, no cheering in the press box.

MARK:

I remember how bad the deadline was, because it was a late game, and it was all out west, and somehow I had to get a story back to the Journal and Gazette in Fort Wayne. That's how you earn your stripes in the business.

BRUCE:

Well, and I'm telling you what, there were times when you didn't think you were ever going to meet deadline, but somehow you did. For fans that, like I said, want to get a late Christmas gift or a stocking stuffer, or if they have Christmas money that they get on Christmas Day or holidays or whatever holidays they celebrate and want to spend it later, once again, the best way to get the book.

MARK:

Yeah, Amazon, probably the easiest for most. If you're in Indiana, a bookstore could and should have it. If you have a way of reaching me on social media or markmont55 at gmail.com, I can get a book to you directly.

BRUCE:

Well, Mark, it's been a pleasure and it's great because I've learned a lot about both Bill Vukovic and Angelo Angelopoulos by reading the book. Good luck with your future endeavors. And thank you for joining us today on Pit Pass Indy. All right. Thank you, Bruce. And that puts a checkered flag on this edition of Pit Pass Indy. We want to thank our guest, Indianapolis author and former sports writer Mark Monteith, who revived the book Vukovic, The Man Who Wouldn't Lift, for joining us on this special edition of Pit Pass Indy. Along with loyal listeners like you, our guests help make Pit Pass Indy your path to victory lane in IndyCar. For more IndyCar coverage, follow me at X, previously known as Twitter, at BruceMartin, one word, uppercase B, uppercase M, underscore 500. This has been a production of Evergreen Podcast. A special thanks to our production team, executive producers are Bridget Coyne and Gerardo Orlando. Recordings and edits were done by me, Bruce Martin, and final mixing was done by Dave Douglas. Learn more at evergreenpodcast.com. Until next time, be sure to keep it out of the wall.