I love how long the tires last compared to the 2020's.

Agreed. Back then it was a battle of ideas, engineers and drivers.

I couldn't believe I was actually seeing his whole body. Legs and shoes sticking out where the front of the car should've been. One of the worst I've ever seen. Thank God he survived.

I thought he was dead he was unresponsive the entire time

I thought he was died

he hit so hard he knocked the concrete wall down and hurt some spectators!

I was young at the time and I thought he was gone. I went to bed and thats all I could remember is Ongais in the wreckage like that.

I don't know what the deal was with that guy. They didn't even have the Purdue band accompanying him. He must have thought he was good enough that he didn't want the band taking anything away from his performance. 😂

That was also my first Indy 500 that I sat through from start to finish. I watched only a small part of the 1980 race. A bit of my back story: In order to watch the ‘81 Indy 500 (I was very young at the time) I decided that I needed to pick a favorite driver from the year before, so I picked Mario Andretti; because it turned out that my AFX racing set had his 1978 John Player Lotus that he won the F-1 title in. I miss that AFX track.

​@@moonytheloony6516Me too! I had some of the G Force cars, or whatever they were called, with the strong magnets to keep them held down. I also had a couple of the grand stands that made "engine noise" but they sounded more like a chainsaw! LOL! But, all in all, those race tracks and cars were awesome! I remember I had some Porsche 917 CanAm cars, a bunch of NASCARS, the aforementioned F1 GForce cars. Life was good as a kid. Thanks for triggering some nice memories!

Miss Jim McKay

I bet Our Lord is stoked to have Bob with Him, amazing Life with skill an luck on the edge every week. Great statement Michael. Beauty Mate.

There has never been a driver more intense about his craft, than The Great Bobby Unser! 💪😎👍

Look for a video called “who was gordon smiley” a very well done tribute!

I think you'll find a lot of people who agree with you on the "controversial" part. After all was said and done, Bobby Unser was the winner, but the fight over whether or not he was subject to a penalty left such a bad taste in his mouth that he retired from racing (well, driving _in_ races; he did later go into the commentary booth). Can't say I blame him.

In fact, the foam from the fire extinguishers completely blocked the main straightaway to the point that the any drivers going on the main straightaway would have been completely blinded for a lap or two, which is one reason the caution flag should have been thrown for that pit fire (another is the number of safety personnel and equipment that were used in the fighting of that fire).

True fact Landon turner's basketball career came to an abrupt end he almost got killed

the largest sporting event in the world and its tape delay!

It was always shown that evening...never understood that, always a sellout like 300,000 people.

@@topmech71 It was actually 500,000 I have been to four of them. I have witnessed Mears fourth and Unser Sr. The best time in my life.

Posey was a terrible driver and an even worse commentator there is a reason he was in the booth and not on the track. Jim McKay was equally as bad.

@@brandond5209 Reading your comments I can see you're a connoisseur of this stuff,so I'd like you to tell me something about what issues did the ground effect bring into driving on oval raceways, especially on banked curves.Thx a lot.

@@brandond5209 why don't you drive and commentate

Posey is a Poser.

I seen stan fox live it was right in front of us in the south chute, craziest thing I ever seen in person, in no way "traumatized" though RIP Stan

I was in the small grandstand at the entrance of Three. The sound of Danny's car hitting the wall will never leave me.

I'm not understanding the comparison. G. Smileys body blew apart brains and all... Ongias is still alive & well..

@@saltybildo4415 "Saw", not "Seen" ... but your comment is right on. No racing fan goes to the track to view carnage. It's the most "real" sport, in that the prospect of death is always present. Respect to all those who put their lives on the line.

@@saltybildo4415 Just so everyone knows; Stan Fox was not killed in that crash. I saw that crash on TV, and thought "another Indycar driver with major leg trauma". But it turned out his legs were OK. He did have a concussion.

Gurney Eagle?

@@SolamenteVees yes

And who's to say anyone from Stewart's time would be able to drive a modern F1 car with their work load and 5g+ cornering

You need to watch the 1982 Indy 500. The last 20 laps will give you goosebumps. I know because I was there!

@@CaptainRon956 he’s making a move! No!

And just as amazingly, in the 33-car field in 1981, there were 11 different chassis in the field. Of course, you had Penskes, Wildcats, the Eagle and the Chaparral, but also in that field were McLarens, two Longhorns, a Schkee driven by Tom Klausler, a Lightning driven by Gary Bettenhausen, a Phoenix chassis from Jerry O'Connell's team, the Coyote of A.J. Foyt, the Parnelli driven by Tim Richmond (Foyt's other team car), Interscope Racing's self-built car, and two teams, Bignotti-Cotter and the Whittington Brothers Racing, brought a preview of the future with the Indy debut of the March, with Sneva being the fastest qualifier and Bill Whittington being the fifth-fastest qualifier in the field. In fact, among the top six finishers, there were five different chassis makes, Penske (B. Unser and Brabham), Wildcat (Andretti), McLaren (Schuppan), Phoenix (Cogan), and Longhorn (Sheldon Kinser).

Richmond technically wasn't a Foyt team car. After George Snider qualified the car as a Foyt team car, the car was sold to Richmond's team outright.

I’m sure

This was before the Tony George racing league and his 25-8 rule.

Used to not be an over sanctioned sport back then lol

The way they did it was to record the coverage of the start and end as it happened, and then do the coverage of the rest of the race as it was broadcast

Some producer was doing the Jean Luc Picard facepalm that day

My mom worked with him when he was a resident. Good guy.

Dr Trammell helped A LOT of racers post-crash.

@@SolamenteVees absolutely

He saved lives, Alex Zanardi the most famous

I sat in the southwest vista of turn one and saw the huge clouds of smoke & fire retardant

Just watching it yet again...good God was that terrifying

That's right 1992 is where Guerrero spun on the pace lap

1992 should have neen delayed. It was a wreck fest due to the cold. Car crashes, tires get cold, goes green, another crash, lather rinse repeat.

I was there. Coldest nastiest day.. my old man sent we to the concession stand for coffee. None. No hot water. We had to leave.

gr0bbelaar - Yep, that Simpson “Darth Vader” helmet sure made racing fun for awhile, didn’t it? 😎👍🏻

It's so cool it's borderline pornography!

@@ikshields It's not exactly the same design as 1981, but Simpson's "Bandit" series still has a very similar design. simpsonraceproducts.com/images/products/620.png

@@almostfm Helmets are cool but the race definitely wasnt!

@@ikshields actually Mr Shields, it's not a Darth Vader, it's a Storm Trooper helmet. I raced Go-karts thru the 70's-80's & had a Trooper helmet, then sold it to buy the new Simpson. I've been kicking myself for doing that the last 38yrs! 😭

The problem is that the commercials were "racked" to play in a certain order. With it being 1981, there may not have been time to slip that spot to a later time.

@@almostfm And of course, the first thing that played during that particular break was a promo for ABC's Monday Night Baseball, and of course, MLB went on strike shortly after the race (the original strike deadline was for five days after this race was run, but was extended two weeks to June 12, when the MLB players went out on strike). For some strange reason, the Indianapolis 500 always seemed to reflect the times, and 1981 was certainly right on cue, whether it was the post-qualifying controversy involving Jerry Sneva and Jerry Karl, Karl getting arrested at IMS on Carb Day, resulting in veteran Bob Harkey having to practice Karl's car (Karl was released and drive in the race). Then of course, before the two major controversies, there was the botched start, when seven cars passed the S/F line BEFORE the green flag came out, and then during the caution for Don Whittington's crash, both Tom Sneva and Bill Whittington passed the pace car in anticipation of a restart that never happened (neither driver was penalized because they let the pace car repass them, so no advantage was gained). And that was all before the Mears pit fire, which should have brought out the caution, but didn't, and the controversy regarding Bobby Unser and Mario Andretti both passing cars leaving the pits during the caution for Gordon Smiley's crash (Unser passed 8 and Andretti passed 3, though Andretti did appear to let the furthest forward of the 3 cars her passed repass him).

Reminds me of "The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby", when Will Farrell was rolling around yelling he was on fire!

Mario just gave Uncle Bobby the finger. Bobby won the Fast Masters series (in Jaguar XJ220s) in 1993 against the likes of David Pearson, Derek Bell, Parnelli Jones, and Bobby Allison - had alot of hubris about how good he was vs. everyone else racing in the series.....but hey, that was Bobby.

@@jimbosc So he pulled a Junior Johnson, hah

@Tyrone Taylor sorry I should have been more specific... I'm referring to the voice of the guy who starts at about 2:05.

Spot on bud! I've often wondered if "The King" was/still is abit miffed at Patrick's use of Petty-Blue on they're racecar's. However, Ol' King Richard wasn't no country bumpkin, so he probably was compensated in some manner 💪😎👍

@@Slinger43 I believe that was actually a tribute of some kind to Petty that they ran what was effectively a version of his paint scheme on an IndyCar, especially considering that both Petty and Johncock won the biggest races in their form of the sport in 1973 with the STP sponsorship and then Petty won the Daytona 500 again in 1974. And when Johncock came out of retirement in 1987, he ran that exact same paint scheme, even though he was driving for another team.

@@cjs83172 Yes, I think you're right about that 👍 I absolutely know this much for sure, it is without a doubt the most iconic paint scheme in the history of Motorsport. Gordy did it proud & I'm sure "The King" was pleased when his colors won at Indy!😎

@@cjs83172 Actually Johncock's ride in 1987 was by extension a Patrick ride since he inherited what was originally supposed to be Patrick's car for the winner of the ARS series, but when the winner Fabrizio Barbazza took a ride with Arciero, it then went to Jim Crawford's whose practice wreck then opened the door for Johncock.

(Replying to a 2 year old comment) "From East to West" by Voyage.

I like them too. Some of the older NFL games from this era have if you like.

Comparatively... Considering what happened to Gordon Smiley a year later, it WAS fairly good. But I get what you mean.

And the Ongais crash.

Even if you took the young'ns, with they're i-phones, to Indy, they still wouldn't truly experience one of those fire breathing monster's screaming past them at 240mph, because they would STILL be looking at they're i-phones! 🤬 Truly a shame they have no clue what wonders of life they're missing 😣

Indycar died in 1996 with Tony George's IRL, spec car garbage.

@Syd Floyd they had been re-living the 2008 Brazilian GP

Disco era!

You realize that's a ABC commercial. Has nothing to do with the race

Steve O'Connor Endstage disco

thought the same thing - the unfortunate timing of the driver just being taken to hospital... then... CELEBRATION TIME CMON !!

Some producer was doing the Jean Luc Picard facepalm that day

Jackie didn't know the rulebook. Also, his call was made in post-production.

Another classic Jackie was “I predict that if he holds his position and holds his lead, he’ll win the race “.

No, actually Bobby was penalized enough time to put him 2nd & Mario was declared "The Winner" the next day. Then Penske sued & the case went to court. Almost 6-months later, that decision was reversed (I don't recall by a court decision, or if Indy just threw in the towel) and Bobby was declared "Winner" once again. In the end, just follow the 💰 cause Penske had more than the other guys. The fastest car won the race, so I don't have a problem with it 🤷🏻‍♂️