{"id":498537,"date":"2019-12-19T12:15:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T12:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=99828"},"modified":"2024-02-17T03:00:30","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T03:00:30","slug":"lloyd-ruby-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/lloyd-ruby-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lloyd Ruby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lloyd Ruby hailed from Wichita Falls, Texas, up in the north central part of the state, not far from the Oklahoma line. Born a year before the Depression, he was soft-spoken by nature \u2014 a wicked sense of humor notwithstanding \u2014 but not someone to be taken lightly. He began racing motorcycles at age 16, then enjoyed extensive success in midgets.<\/p>\n

He might have focused solely on oval racing, but tested himself in sports cars as well, racing a Maserati 300S for his friend Ebb Rose in the old USAC Road Racing Championship. There he battled men with names like Shelby, Gurney, Miles and Pabst, winning three feature races over the course of four seasons. The first came in September of \u201959 at Meadowdale in Rose\u2019s Maserati 450S, the second at Indianapolis Raceway Park in \u201961 with a 450S owned by J. Frank Harrison, and the last at Laguna Seca in \u201962, aboard Harrison\u2019s new Lotus 19-Climax. Even though Ruby was headed for Indycars, further success in sports car lay ahead.<\/p>\n

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Ruby in the Maserati 450S at Meadowvale, in 1959. Photo: Don Shaw<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He first raced an Indycar on the old Arizona State Fairgrounds Mile in Phoenix at the end of 1958, and landed on USAC\u2019s National Championship Trail full time midway through the following season, driving Rose\u2019s six-year-old Turner-Offy. Establishing his credentials in cars owned by Rose, John Zink, J.C. Agajanian and Lindsey Hopkins, he finally bagged his first win with Zink\u2019s Watson-Offy roadster at Milwaukee\u2019s inaugural Tony Bettenhausen Memorial 200 in 1961.<\/p>\n

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Ruby in the Agajanian Special started 12th and finished 7th in the 1960 Indy 500. Photo: IMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That October he sampled Formula 1, driving Harrison\u2019s Lotus 18-Climax in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, classified 14th<\/sup> with magneto failure after 76 of 100 laps. He qualified the same car on pole for Trenton\u2019s Indycar race the next spring, leading 30 laps before the novel Lotus \u201cqueerbox\u201d failed.<\/p>\n

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Ruby waited more than three years for his second Indycar win, however, drifting from team to team until landing with Bill Forbes\u2019 outfit in 1964. After he finished third behind A.J. Foyt and Rodger Ward at Indianapolis with Forbes\u2019 Watson-Offy roadster, the team switched to an Offy-powered Halibrand chassis, which Ruby drove to victory in the season finale at still-new Phoenix International Raceway, lifting himself into third place in the championship.<\/p>\n

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Driving for Bill Forbes, Ruby finished 3rd in the 1964 Indy 500. Photo: IMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ruby\u2019s technical skills drew the attention of Carroll Shelby, who teamed him with Ken Miles in the winning Ford GT at the 2000-kilometer Daytona Continental the following February, the GT\u2019s first major success. He and Miles repeated the feat in \u201966 with a MkII version, following it up with a fortunate win at the 12 Hours of Sebring in the topless X-1. He would, though, miss his chance to score an unprecedented \u201chat trick\u201d by winning at Le Mans that June.<\/p>\n

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Lloyd Ruby and Ken Miles, wearing his signature duffle coat, enjoy the spoils of victory at Daytona 1966. In addition the Ford GT MKllA had won on its maiden outing and Ken Miles the first stage of what could have been a triple crown. Photo: Ford<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As his career progressed, Ruby decided he needed his own airplane and bought a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza from Bobby Unser. On the Saturday after he\u2019d led his very first laps at Indianapolis (see below), he and three friends departed Indy\u2019s Speedway Airport, headed for Milwaukee where the Indycars were to race the next day. Attempting to take off downwind, Ruby\u2019s plane stalled and fell into a nearby cornfield. All survived with minor injuries, but Ruby suffered compression fractures of several vertebrae that hospitalized him for two weeks, scuttling his plans for Le Mans, His place alongside Miles was taken by Kiwi coming-man Denis Hulme.<\/p>\n

Before all that, however, the \u201966 Indy 500 had teased Ruby with his best shot yet at victory. That race began in chaos, of course, with an 11-car accident triggered by the green-flag, but Ruby\u2019s All American Racers Eagle-Ford managed to evade it, and on the 65th<\/sup> lap, courtesy of a spin by no less than Jim Clark, Ruby led at Indy for the first time. After the usual pit stop exchanges, he again found himself leading \u2014 chased by Clark, Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill \u2014 and continued handily out front for 45 laps until his next pit stop on lap 132. He regained the lead only eight laps later, but disaster loomed.<\/p>\n