1,000 Greatest Drivers: Bob Sweikert/Jim Rathmann
Also featuring this year's Indy 500 review.
Okay, after I was slow on getting this pair of drivers done as well, I’m now going to focus on the Indy 500 and I’m going to postpone my NASCAR Hall of Fame discussion another day or two until there’s a lighter day. The broadcast initially irritated the heck out of me, particularly when Danica Patrick was hyping up Santino Ferrucci and talking over the playing of “God Bless America”, which struck me as the worst bad taste moment in an IndyCar broadcast since the infamous Josef Newgarden S&M promotion of 2014. That, a pre-race booth consisting of Patrick and Tony Stewart, and my utter irritation that Conor Daly is the most popular driver among the Indy 500 fans and getting cheers like he’s Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at Talladega had me really feeling anti-hyped at first.
I guess the Daly thing is a me problem but he just rubbed me the wrong way over and over for years. He first got big buzz when his father, former F1 and IndyCar driver/announcer Derek Daly started whining about the lack of American drivers in IndyCar (meaning his son) even though Derek himself was an American IndyCar driver from freakin’ Ireland. I wasn’t actively annoyed until 2017 when Carlos Muñoz had lost his IndyCar ride at Andretti even though he’d been the highest points finisher there, and then he consistently outran Daly at A.J. Foyt in 2018 as well and he never had a full-season ride ever again and was only given one more Indy 500 start even though he was one of the best Indy 500 drivers of his time. From then on, it just seemed like Daly was failing upward solely because he was a nepo baby * 2 thanks to his connections obtained through his father Derek and his stepfather, Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles. He also talked a lot of trash about other drivers on various podcasts and seemed to share a similar sense of entitlement to a lot of people who hung out in those circles like Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti and it just really put me off, and it feels like I’ve been alone on this. I acknowledge he’s become a pretty good oval driver in the 2020s and he’s earned his spot as an Indy one-off guy for sure, but there are so many people who I think were better than him (Muñoz, Spencer Pigot, J.R. Hildebrand, Sage Karam, Oliver Askew, Linus Lundqvist, Robert Shwartzman, Callum Ilott) who would’ve eventually achieved more if they had been given the many, many, many chances he’s had. It doesn’t bother me at this point that he’s still around, but it does bother me that people were hyping him up as a pre-race favorite despite his long, long history of losing and also that he’s the most popular driver in the field. I don’t get it. I’ve never gotten it. Maybe I’d get it if I was an Indiana native. He did have a good race.
I suppose I shouldn’t be one to talk since my favorite driver is the other nepo baby David Malukas, but Malukas is actually talented and is at this point long overdue for a win. I had predicted for pretty much the entire month that this year’s Indy 500 was going to be a duel between Álex Palou and Malukas and I pretty much got what I expected after those brief interludes with Alexander Rossi and Scott Dixon (but I didn’t think either of them would have really had staying power). Even though this race had the most lead changes in Indy 500 history with 70 and the smallest margin of victory, I don’t think it was the best race ever because I thought several portions of the first two thirds were pretty much just boring fuel-saving like we’ve seen so often since 2019 and a lot of those passes seemed very artificial. It didn’t feel like the quality you would expect from a 70-lead change race, but the last third made up for it in spades.
I’ve about had it with Ryan Over-Reayted. He needs to retire at this point just as his teammate Marco Andretti (whose advanced stats are closer to RHR than you might think) recently did. And sadly, a lot of people are going to look at Katherine Legge crashing even though it wasn’t her fault and blame her for it. At least Kyle Larson ruined his double himself, but Legge didn’t. The Josef Newgarden and Caio Collet crashes were scary. I don’t care for Newgarden anymore, but I certainly hope his foot heals. I do think Newgarden might be on thin ice with Roger Penske at this point because it is a contract year for him and he’s already the slowest of the three Penske drivers and most mistake-prone on road and street courses. What kept him viable is that he was the best oval driver and most likely to win the Indy 500, but lately it seems like Malukas has been faster and less mistake prone than both Newgarden and McLaughlin everywhere this season at an age that’s still barely older than Newgarden was when he won his first race. Newgarden suddenly looks dispensable in a way he wasn’t before, and the only thing that might save him is there’s no obvious replacement since I don’t think Penske can get Pato O’Ward, Kyle Kirkwood, or Christian Lundgaard.
As I pretty much expected, Palou and Malukas almost entirely dominated the second half of the race, but then that pit strategy kind of mucked things up for both of them. After Malukas started pulling away from Palou, I pretty much assumed he was going to win once the caution and red flag for Caio Collet’s crash came out. Although the fake red flags to ensure a green flag normally bother me, that one I think I was okay with because that was a scary-looking wreck. However, the draft ended up being too strong once Malukas did take the lead on the final lap, and it looks like all the leaders’ attempts to dive to the bottom in Turn 2 to break the draft ends up causing all these drivers to lose because they scrub off too much speed, and Felix Rosenqvist ended up getting past by the narrowest of margins, winning by the smallest-ever margin of victory (0.0233 seconds).
Even though Malukas is my favorite driver personally at the moment and even though I think he has been comically unlucky to have not won at this point since he could’ve pretty easily won like five oval races by now, I can’t complain about Rosenqvist’s win. Not only has Rosenqvist had even worse luck in his career, I also feel he is a driver who never really got his due. Rosenqvist had a very strong minor league career in Europe, winning thirteen races in European Formula 3 in 2015 against a field that included Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Formula E champion Jake Dennis, Le Mns winner Antonio Giovinazzi, prolific Formula E winner Maximilian Günther, Santino Ferrucci, and Callum Ilott. That’s a lot of good drivers he beat. I was also really impressed by his 2017 when he finished 3rd in points in both Formula E and Super Formula simultaneously, which caused him to be ranked top ten in my open wheel model for that year. He also won three races in Formula E while his teammate Nick Heidfeld (who I know was always held in high regard) went winless. I felt the talent was always there, but it seemed like every one of his previous IndyCar seasons he was underachieving his talent. He’s ranked very highly in my open wheel model at .133 (surrounded by drivers like A.J. Foyt, Simon Pagenaud, Niki Lauda, and Juan Pablo Montoya, no less). He’s obviously had speed for years as evidenced by his seven poles and literally being TNL on his IndyCar debut in 2019, but he never seemed to sustain his speed in a race and it looked like that was going to happen at Indy today too. But he finally got it done, and I’m glad for him because he might have been the most unlucky driver of the past decade until now. Much like how Erik Jones’s win in the 2022 Southern 500 was a feel-good win after Christopher Bell replaced him as Joe Gibbs Racing, the same thing happened when Palou replaced Felix Rosenqvist the same year (2021). Palou’s string of titles seemed to lead to everyone writing Rosenqvist off much like Bell’s success seemed to lead to everyone writing Jones off. I kind of felt people were wrong to write Rosenqvist off and I was worried he’d lose his ride during his injury, but I’m glad he managed to bounce back. I realize Malukas will have other chances and will almost certainly be an Indy 500 winner in the future. This might’ve been Rosenqvist’s only shot, so I guess I’m glad he won this one.
I have always regarded Rosenqvist highly and I had him as a lock for my 1,000 greatest drivers list, but admittedly I felt like that one was pretty dubious based on how mediocre his IndyCar results were (even if I feel his performance was better than his results). Now, my decision to make him a lock on my list looks a lot less sketchy…
BOB SWEIKERT………………………USA
Born: May 20, 1926
Died: June 17, 1956
Best year: 1955
Best drive: 1953 Hoosier Hundred at the Indiana State Fairgrounds
The only driver to win the Indy 500, IndyCar championship, and sprint car championship in one year, Sweikert began working in a local Ford dealership in Hayward, California at age 16. Two years later, he led a strike of students at his high school protesting the vice principal being demoted to a dean for boys and was expelled. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, he opened Sweikert Automotive in his parents’ garage, where he built a roadster and started racing in 1947. After several titles in roadsters and midgets in 1948 and 1949, Sweikert switched to the AAA and began racing sprint cars on the West Coast. After moving to Indianapolis in 1952, he won his first AAA national midget race and qualified for his first Indy 500 before a meteoric ascent in subsequent years.
In 1953, Sweikert won the inaugural Hoosier Hundred in a well-fought barnburner against Manny Ayulo, giving eventual powerhouse car owner Al Dean his first win. After another IndyCar win in 1954, Sweikert hit the jackpot in 1955. When two-time defending Indy 500 winner Bill Vukovich suffered a fatal crash while leading, Sweikert was there to pick up the pieces and won with an engine he’d built himself. Angered at fans who thought he had backed into the win, he went on an absolute tear, leading all drivers with 368 laps led and four poles and upsetting Jimmy Bryan for the title who had won every other title from 1954-1957 even though Bryan won 6 races to Sweikert’s 2. Sweikert’s AAA Midwest Big Car title completed his unusual trifecta.
In the 1956 12 Hours of Sebring, Sweikert co-drove a Jaguar with his car owner Jack Ensley, a mediocre amateur driver. After Ensley dropped back to 23rd, Sweikert recovered to second, and they eventually finished third in a race featured F1 drivers including winner Juan Manuel Fangio. This drive piqued European interest and he began exploring international opportunities, but it was not to be. Three months later in a Father’s Day sprint car race at Salem, he attempted an outside pass on Ed Elisian but his car rode the wall, left the track, fell 100 feet, crashed into a tree, and caught on fire. Although Sweikert was ejected from the car before being burned, he didn’t survive his head injuries.
Despite Sweikert’s short career peak, his contemporaries regarded him very highly as Chris Economaki called him the best driver he’d seen. He was particularly noted for being utterly fearless. His favorite tracks were the high-banked, high-speed Winchester, Dayton, and Salem, where he lost his life, tracks so dangerous that Bryan refused to race on any of them. In an era of increasing specialization, Sweikert also did more engineering himself than many of his peers and always improved his teams. As the last champion before the AAA withdrew from motorsports in the wake of the Le Mans crash and Vukovich’s death, Sweikert’s brief run marked an important turning point in motorsports history.
Open wheel model: N/A
Teammate head-to-heads: 0-1 (0-1 vs. Mike Nazaruk)
Year-by-year: 1949: C-, 1953: C+, 1954: C+, 1955: 4, 1956: C-
JIM RATHMANN…………………….USA
Born: July 16, 1928
Died: November 23, 2011
Best year: 1957
Best drive: 1958 Race of Two Worlds at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza
Arguably the greatest superspeedway driver of the late roadster period, Rathmann seldom contended for IndyCar championships because he struggled on dirt, but in his heyday, no man was faster on large paved ovals. Born Royal Richard Rathmann, he swapped names with his older brother James to flout a minimum age limit for racing roadsters and the names stuck. “Dick” eventually won 13 NASCAR Cup Series races and the pole for the 1958 Indy 500. Initially a Southern California street racer who received 48 traffic tickets by age 18, Rathmann moved to Chicago after World War II, winning three consecutive Hurricane Hot Rod championships from 1949-1951. He made his Indy 500 debut in 1949 at age 20, pretending to be 24 to violate another age limit and became a star in 1952 when he finished second to the even younger Troy Ruttman in the Indy 500.
From 1954-1956, Rathmann was more successful in stock cars than in open wheel cars, winning one race in both the 1954 and 1955 AAA Stock Car seasons and another in 1956 after USAC replaced AAA as the sanctioning body. After another second-place finish at Indy in 1957, Rathmann won his first race at Milwaukee after it had been recently paved, resulting in a career-best second-place points finish. He then earned international renown by sweeping all three heats of the 1958 500 Race of Two Worlds at Monza, where IndyCar drivers competed against major international stars, including Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn, and Phil Hill.
In 1959, Rathmann won the IndyCar season opener at Daytona, but IndyCar never attempted to race at Daytona again after George Amick was killed on the last lap. Rathmann also finished second at Indy before finally winning in 1960 in what was often cited as the greatest Indy 500 ever. The race featured 29 lead changes, the most until 2012, and Rathmann exchanged the lead with defending champion Rodger Ward 14 times in the last 78 laps. Rathmann eventually came on top as Ward let him pass with three laps left because his tires were worn. However, Rathmann fell off almost immediately afterward.
Rathmann has been overshadowed by his contemporaries because he didn’t survive into the rear-engine era, dirt specialists seemed to be more respected than pavement specialists, and he had a mild-mannered, awshucks public image. That image was something of a facade as in private, he was an inveterate practical joker, once placing an alligator in a fellow driver’s hotel bathtub. After retiring, he opened a Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Melbourne, Florida, near Cape Canaveral, where he befriended many astronauts and provided them with heavily-discounted sports cars. It is rumored that the Apollo astronauts placed a decal for his dealership on the lunar rover. Although Rathmann’s skills didn’t line up neatly with ‘50s expectations, it’s hard to argue he wasn’t ahead of his time. Since IndyCar racing would consist almost entirely of superspeedway races in the ‘70s, he probably would’ve had far more success if he’d been born only a decade later.
Open wheel model: N/A
Teammate head-to-heads: 2-2 (2-2 vs. George Amick)
Year-by-year: 1949: C-, 1950: C-, 1951: C-, 1952: C, 1954: C, 1955: C+, 1956: C-, 1957: E-, 1958: C+, 1959: E-, 1960: E