Thank you for this, this was the year my grandpa Mel finished 3rd.

True innovation back in these days... the cars were as much of stars and the drivers.

Starting grid sounds like a racing Hall of Fame list.

Growing up in Indy as a Kid! We had no professional sports teams, The Pacers arrived in '68, All These guys Drivers were my Hero's From Andretti, Gurney, Foyt, Ward Etc to the Unsers..... Shout out to Andy G, Colin Chapman, Penske, Pat Patrick, Etc for dedicating their time & lives for making Racing a better place...

Ah the era of the space race. Putting men in space and turbines in race cars. Steve McQueen thrashing a Mustang Fastback around the streets of San Fransico. What a time to be alive. :) I was but a new born baby.

I was there in 68. The roar that went up when Unser passed Leonard was electric. Great memory.

@10:22 The last time a front engine roadster was on the track during the Indianapolis 500... RIP Jim Hurtubise!!

Boy, I miss the good old days. My driver was Joe Leonard. The turbine engine was cool. But short lived. Those cars rocked. Jim Mckay was the best. The Indy 500 was in its glory years then. It was the greatest race in the world.

The Lotus 56 was such an insane concept for 1968!

I attended this race with my Dad. Brings back a lot of memories.

Thanks for giving us a look back at a very historic race... Lot's of innovations and legendary drivers. Awesome.

Bobby and Al Unser were favorites of my dad. We lived and I was born in the 1967 in Colorado Springs and my dad worked for Firestone at the time. He got to meet many of these drivers over the years as my dad’s store at the time supplied many tires for the racers. He always said how nice the Unser family was and always pulled for them.

And then, the race ends, they pack up, go to MY track, the Milwaukee Mile. I lived 6 blocks from the track. I miss being young. Never missed a race...

RIP ANDY GRANATELLI! The Roger Penske of this era of Indy 500 racing...

RIP Dan Gurney. Gone in 2018

RIP Bobby you were a great driver.

One of the truly great 500's!

MR Joe Leonard has raced motorcycles,cars,turbo's.Former California hi-way patrol motorcycle cop.Anything to do with racing he was probably there.

A day like today, May 26th. 1968, 52nd. Indianapolis 500 Miles was run. Three actives Formula 1 drivers ran there: British Graham Hill 1966 Indy 500 winner , New Zealander Dennis Hulme 1967 Formula 1 World Champion and Austrian Jochen Rindt who would became the only Formula 1 Post Morten World Champion in 1970. God bless them all! 😦 And God bless James Kenneth McManus (1921 - 2008) better known professionally as Jim McKay, an excelkent sports broadcaster and commentator. Regards from a venezuelan citizen who emigrated to Chile searching a better way of life.

Superb track, superb cars, superb racing, superb coverage !! and It's all happening again in just a few days. (who the heck gave it a thumbs down ??)

It's good watching old races back in the day because you can remember what you seen

Thanks for sharing this Indy car👍🏁

It must have been 50 years ago when I saw this "Wide World of Sports" taped program ( which I think would have been somewhere in the summer of 1968). The scenes and comments are, I think, better than the other Indy coverage that had been shown. I was in the grandstands on the 4th turn. I did see the spins of "Vucky" and Mosley's ( which Mike Mosley did "know" over the next few years...some really hard hits. )

Very nice, historic race!

Thank you! Please upload more of the classic races. I am currently in the process of watching through each year's highlight video from 1946 to 2011 anyway.

Mario broke 2 cars in one day! Turbine cars actually failed due to excessive heat produced by the engines on common parts. 4 wheel drive and gobs of torque was the big advantage though. I was there on qualifications watched the wooshmobiles qualify

what a pleasure to see this !! been going to the 500 since 1976 but never seen this footage..

Ok try this again for a comment, I remember back when I was young, going to the track watching qualifications and practice, but when it came to the race we, meaning me and Dad would listen to the race on a transistor radio, also keep track on who's in the lead and all, who were in what place, by the newspaper score card. To me that was fun even year after year. You see living in Indy and having the greatest spectacle in racing within miles of your home was a big deal in those days. Im talking 200 thousand people attendance yeah so Big! and awesome you had the whole month of May, we would go out to practice and qualifications. See the men AJ Foyt, Bettenhousen thought he was Bettenhouser, Johncock, Dickson, McClusky,Andretti,Vukovich,Mosley,Snider and my Dad's favorite Flloyd Ruby. Ok yeah Gurney when watching them, kick start his car from the pit, I thought was priceless.

I was nine years old at the time. I remember Bobby Unser drinking a Mountain Dew from a bottle after the race. Just something that stuck in my mind for 50 years.

God Bless Jim Mckay & Chris Economaki

In 1961, there was one rear-engine car in the race. In 1968, there are 32.

R.I.P. Bobby. You were one of the greatest ever.

Back when the Indy 500 was about pushing speeds not done before. It’s time the lap record gets broken again.

Thanks for posting. Great to go back in time.

Thanks, this one's never been released, nor has it been in the trading circles. I really hope you guys get around to posting the 1976 race this month.

This is great, back when innovation was king, all kinds of powerplants, totally different cars. Cool to see all these cars competing against each other. These days are gone forever. Would be cool if someone started a series where you could run anything, unlimited, run what you brung. 👍👍🏁🏁

Great quality! Thanks for posting

Impensável hoje 2020 esse tanto de gente na pista na largada. Belo vídeo.

Look at this Liberty Media LOOK AT THIS, this is Fan Service thank you Indycar

Finally! The thrilling 1968 race has been posted! Can't wait to watch this!

This Was A Popular Win!🏁🏎🏆 Don't Worry, Andy! You Will Get Them, Next Year, With Mario Andretti!🏁🏎🏆( 1969 ) Rest In Peace, Bobby Unser.🥺😢😭🙏🏁🏎🏆( 1968 )🏁🏎🏆( 1975 )🏁🏎🏆( 1981 )🥺😢😭🙏

USAC had its head in the ground. Turbine-powered cars had always been allowed in their races and several failed attempts had been made to field them, but as soon as the STP Turbocar showed up in 1967, a breakthrough car that was actually competitive and a threat to the old guard, they panicked and slapped restrictions on it, violating their own rule (2-year notice on engine changes) by reducing the allowable intake size for turbines and making the restrictions effective immediately. When the STP team countered with the cars seen here (smaller intake, smaller engine, but innovative body style and retaining 4-wheel drive), they restricted the intake size again and banned 4-wheel drive.

This race was on a special closed circuit TV broadcast that was shown in theatres that year. My Dad took my brother and myself to a theatre in downtown LA to watch and it was great to see it on the big screen.

Thanks for beautiful video!

SUPERB video ! The motorsport and the cars of the 60's were beautiful

One of the best videos on KZfaq!

THANKS FOR THE POST. Sooo awesome melts my heart.

"50 years from now".

I believe Bobby Unser's win in 1968 was the first for a turbocharged car at Indy. And, my goodness, wasn't that crowd huge?

Phenomenal cars, great drivers. ACC. to my knowledge Jochen Rindt is the only German racing driver to drive in both F1 and Indianapolis. A huge talent who later died a very tragic death. RIP Jochen, still not forgotten.

There was a closed circuit TV version of this race that covered it in full. I had hopes that the Speedway would own it, but they probably would have uploaded it if they had.

Felt so Bad for Joe Leonard, One can only image coming so close, Joe was One of the true Ironmen of Racing, He could drive anything, He also risked his life & pulled Mel Kenyon outta of a burning car,

LOTUS TURBINE, THE MOST COOL RACE CAR OF ALL TIMES !!

So, what was the real reason that the maximum turbine intake area was reduced from 23.999 square inches in 1967 to 15.999 square inches in 1968 to 11.999 inches for 1969 (which limited the power that the turbine could develop to a point where they were uncompetitive)? Drake Engineering (Offenhauser) and Ford Motor Company were providing the majority of the piston engines competing with the turbines. I’ve been a Ford fan all my life, but I have come to believe that FoMoCo, after spending millions of dollars to develop their four-cam engine, put the squeeze on USAC to eliminate the turbines as a source of competition. Ford probably figured that they had Drake covered-but then Bobby Unser upset their calculations by producing the first Indy win for a turbocharged engine, a Drake.

Cars look different. This is what we need in indycar . Competition between different manufacturers .Spec cars of 2018 are good but we need real innovation which only comes when there is real competition between different manufacturers.

Very awesome film footage! Thank you for sharing It with us.

amazing how close non spec cars raced aint it :P

Grew up in Indy. That tire patch laid down by Foyt when racing Gurney side by side in turn 1 just owns it.

That Has To Be One of The Best Races I've Ever Seen!! Bobby Unser What a Race Car Driver I Didn't Know He Got His Start at Pikes Peak.!That Is A Strong Finish For 3rd! 👍

Dan Gurney Creations! That Chevy short Block sounding so Sweet that year

there was more talent, authority, and personality in jim mckay’s PINKY FINGER than in the entire bodies of the announcers we have today!! 😂

Awesome footage =) Thank you!

I can't help but wonder where Jim Clark would've finished in this 500. Thank you indycar for the awesome content on KZfaq!

Remembering the 1960s Indy 500 after the 2020.

Esses caras eram extremamente corajosos!

Crazy the track is unrecognizable to how it looks today but turn 1 hasn’t changed a bit!!

This is the taped (and edited) version seen a week or so later on "Wide World Of Sports". I suspect a segment showing clips from the time trials was also part of the original telecast, but not seen here.

Voiceover says "this race will still be commented on in 50 years time". Its 2018, 50 years later. "yep, it was a good race, eventful for sure.....

Look at the trees next to turn one and two! The track looks in disrepair too! Crazy how far IMS has come since then.

Some of this footage was used in the movie “Winning”, released the same year.

やっぱり昔のインディはすごい迫力だなぁ。

1968 was such a turbulent year in our history, but this was such a cool race.

another one for the venerable, wonderful Offy, the great survivor.

Indycar ! please get this footage to a hipster that can do a real transfer of this film. This footage is amazing!! If this is film it can look much better!!! Please keep posting!

Those guys were true daredevils!

3:18 Joe Leonard and Graham Hill nearly US 500ed the field. What on earth were they thinking banging wheels there?

Fantastic race

Great stuff

Geez, I was 6 years old in '68,a lot kids had teddy bears,I had a big, plastic Indy Car.

I didn't know Jochen Rindt had an Indy 500 start.

Rest in Peace, Bobby Unser.

Rodger Ward was a great color commentator

Put the 1965 race on. I was there.

Thanks for this! Any chance of posting the 1972 race?

Beautiful

Jim Clark was to drive one of these Turbines but lost his life the month before in Formula 1

I think I finally figured it out. Mario didn't have a curse or bad luck. He was just unbelievably hard on cars! He drove them too hard. He trashed TWO of them in this race! He had some of the best equipment ever, yet they always broke down on him. Had Al Unser Sr. or Rick Mears or Rutherford or Johncock been in them, they'd have made it to the finish line. I finally figured it out after his teammate was bumped out of his car so Mario could ruin yet one more car in this race!! 😆

This race of Indy 500 was on the air of the greek television in Thessaloniki (1968). The newspaper "MACEDONIA" (03/07/1968) has an advertsment of this race in p. 04. Unfortunately the film of this greek broadcast is destroyed.

Before this video was uploaded, the ABC telecast of this race had never been uploaded onto KZfaq before!

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, amirite? PS - Pistons drool, turbines rool! lol

Granatelli was basically assuring himself at least one Indy win by going on and on about lack of grunt in the turbine. Truth be told Leonard yanked a massive holeshot at the green flag and was tearing people up in the short chute. Seemed as though all three of those cars were sandbagging. Funny how indy people lamented the death of the roadster when it became obsolete but their disdain for the turbine was even worse.

I wonder if kids today are as fascinated by this as I was when I was 8 years old...

Wonderful...

from what I can tell.the turbines had only an advantage in the corners with four wheel drive and probably more downforce with wedge shape. Banning them looked to be purely political. Something like this now would have a BOP adjustment

OMG the turbine car.

this is awesome!

Row 1: 60-Joe Leonard, 70-Graham Hill (W), 3-Bobby Unser Row 2: 2-Mario Andretti, 25-Lloyd Ruby, 24-Al Unser Row 3: 8-Roger McCluskey, 1-A.J. Foyt (W), 4-Gordon Johncock Row 4: 48-Dan Gurney, 20-Art Pollard, 54-Wally Dallenbach Row 5: 82-Jim McElreath, 27-Jim Malloy (R), 78-Jerry Grant Row 6: 35-Jochen Rindt, 15-Mel Kenyon, 10-Bud Tingelstad Row 7: 45-Ronnie Bucknum (R), 42-Denny Hulme, 18-Johnny Rutherford Row 8: 11-Gary Bettenhausen (R), 98-Bill Vukovich Jr. (R), 16-Bob Veith Row 9: 6-Bobby Grim, 59-Ronnie Duman, 90-Mike Mosley (R) Row 10: 84-Carl WIlliams, 29-George Snider, 56-Jim Hurtubise Row 11: 94-Sam Sessions (R), 21-Arnie Knepper, 64-Larry Dickson. Failed to Qualify: Sonny Ates, Rollie Beale, Chuck Booth, Jack Brabham, Bill Cheesbourg, Jim Clark (WD), Ronnie Duman, George Follmer, Masten Gregory, Bob Harkey, Bob Herst, Chuck Hulse, Bob Hurt, Bobby Johns, Dee Jones, Ralph Liguori, Al Miller, Bruce McLaren, Rick Muther, Danny Ongais, Henry Pens, Bill Puterbaugh, Les Scott, Mike Spence, Chuck Stevenson, Jackie Stewart, Jerry Titus, Bruce Walkup, Greg Weld, Dempsey Wilson, & Lee Roy Yarbrough.

If only turbines were allowed to race again...

I love that there’s a flagger on the inside wall. I love seeing the 🏁 to the winner.

Great history,f1 world champ ,can am champ and must be one of the first kiwis to race Indy 500 Denny Hulme paving the the way ..