Larry Lawrence | December 14, 2016
Indianapolis has always been a center of racing, not only with Indy Car, but for drag racing, sprint car and stock cars. Indianapolis was one of the biggest producers of automobiles in the 1910s and ’20 and with the construction of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909, the city has always been on the vanguard of motorsports.
In the late 1950s a group of Indianapolis businessmen and racing enthusiasts felt it was time for Indianapolis to not only have a great racing oval, but a world-class road course as well. The group of 15 businessmen pitched in $5000 a piece in 1958 to fund the development of a 267-acre tract of land on the far western outskirts of the Indianapolis metro area. The original concept was simply to create a 15-turn, 2.5-mile road course, but to increase the money-making potential of the facility they decided to also integrate a quarter-mile dragstrip into the road course. A separate half-mile paved oval was also added to complete the complex and the facility was named Indianapolis Raceway Park. The addition of other tracks in the complex would ultimately prove pivotal in the direction the business would take.
By 1961 Indianapolis Raceway Park, or IRP as it became popularly known, was fully up and running. The road course, when it was built, was considered one of the best in the country. The SCCA ran regular races on the course. IRP also holds the distinction of hosting the very first Indy Car race to be held on a road course. It was also the track where Mario Andretti won his first Indy Car race.
Motorcycles were part of the races at the IRP road course from the beginning. The first motorcycle race there was held in conjunction with SCCA club races. In 1962 the track hosted its first AMA Road Race National.
Tony Murguia, of Key West, Florida, led all but two laps to win in the 120-mile AMA Road Race National. A scant crowd of 3,000 fans turned out. Murguia, astride a Harley-Davidson, beat off early challenges, avoided much of the heavy traffic and won by more than a lap from Tom Clark of Knoxville, Tenn. Murguia’s first national championship victory was done in 1 hour, 35 minutes and 14.55 seconds. Larry Schafer of Bakersfield, Calif., was third making for one of the least known trio of riders ever to occupy the rostrum of an AMA National. Murguia traded the early lead in the national with Ralph White, but got it for keeps on the 10th circuit and held it to the end. It proved to be the only national victory for Murguia.
Striking from the photos taken at that 1962 road race at Indy show bikes like Murguia’s Harley-Davidson KRTT sporting massive eight-gallon gas tanks.
Perhaps because of the low turnout, IRP didn’t host an AMA National again for five years. In 1967 the race returned to the calendar. Former Cycle Magazine publisher Floyd Clymer promoted the event.
The ’67 race served as the beginning of dominance at the track by America’s first bona fide road racing star, Cal Rayborn. Harley-mounted Rayborn took over the lead in that year’s race from Gary Nixon, after Nixon’s Triumph had ignition problems. Dick Hammer and Mert Lawwill rounded out the podium finishers. It marked Rayborn’s second national victory, having won his first the previous summer in the road race at Carlsbad.
The ’67 race at IRP was notable in that Harley-Davidson debuted its “Lowboy” frame for the KRTT, lowering the bike about three inches from the previous road race frame.
The 1968 race will be remembered for the inspired ride by flat-track specialist Bart Markel. Markel ditched the traditional road race clip-on handlebars for wide flat track bars and raced his KRTT like a modern-day Supermoto rider, eventually sliding up the inside and past leader Cal Rayborn. Fans were cheering Markel on, but his wild and loose riding style finally caught up with him and he pitched it away spectacularly.
That left Rayborn in the lead, but facing a major challenge from Yamaha 350cc two-stroke mounted Yvon DuHamel, who opened a lot of eyes to the coming threat of the speedy little two-strokes. DuHamel’s bike propelled him to a big lead, but the Yamaha didn’t make the distance and Rayborn took his second-consecutive victory at IRP over Gary Nixon and Dan Haaby.
Rayborn and DuHamel put on another great show battling for the lead for a good number of laps in the 1969 national at IRP. After swapping positions lap after lap, Rayborn was the first to blink and ran off the track, handing Duhamel a 14-second lead. But like the year before, DuHamel could not catch a break. Shortly after taking his commanding lead, DuHamel’s Yamaha seized coming down the front straight.
Ron Grant then held the lead on a Suzuki, but he was chased down and passed by Rayborn, who went on to win comfortably, his third-straight at the event. The Suzukis of Grant and Art Baumann created some drama, when neither had pitted for the mandatory pit stop late in the race. Finally, on the last lap the two came in and still managed to hold on for second and third.
The final national at IRP came in 1972 and it was one of the most talented field ever assembled for an AMA Road Race National outside of Daytona. Besides Rayborn the field included DuHamel, Paul Smart and Cliff Carr on Kawasakis; Gary Nixon and Gene Romero on Triumphs; BSA mounted Dick Mann and Yamaha with a massive contingent which included Gary Fisher, Gary Scott, Kenny Roberts, Ron Pierce, Steve McLaughlin, Keith Mashburn and Mike Kidd.
After a long dry spell (Rayborn hadn’t won since the previous Indy race in ’69 due to longtime development and teething problems with Harley’s new XRTT) it was Rayborn putting his stamp of owning IRP with his fourth-consecutive victory at the circuit.
Incidentally, 1972 was the only year Indianapolis had the honor of hosting nationals at both Indianapolis Raceway Park and the Indy Mile, located on the north side of Indy at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.
The 1972 event proved to be the final AMA National held at IRP. The drag strip, which hosted NHRA’s U.S. Nationals and the oval, which later hosted a NASCAR Busch Series, proved to be much more popular draws than the road course. Perhaps, had it not been for the drag strip and oval, IRP would have suffered the same fate as many other Midwestern road courses and eventually gone defunct.
IRP’s road course remained a popular venue for club races and even once hosted the WERA Grand National Final, but by the end of the ‘90s it became increasingly more difficult to hold races with the deteriorating track surface.
The facility is now called Lucas Oil Raceway and if you look on the website there’s not even a section for the road course. It still survives, albeit in a state of neglect. It’s a shame too, because many top road racers who raced IRP called the section of turns two, three and four their favorite combination of any road course anywhere.
