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 — a wicked sense of humor notwithstanding — but not someone to be taken lightly. He began racing motorcycles at age 16, then enjoyed extensive success in midgets.
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 ’59 at Meadowdale in Rose’s Maserati 450S, the second at Indianapolis Raceway Park in ’61 with a 450S owned by J. Frank Harrison, and the last at Laguna Seca in ’62, aboard Harrison’s new Lotus 19-Climax. Even though Ruby was headed for Indycars, further success in sports car lay ahead.
He first raced an Indycar on the old Arizona State Fairgrounds Mile in Phoenix at the end of 1958, and landed on USAC’s National Championship Trail full time midway through the following season, driving Rose’s 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’s Watson-Offy roadster at Milwaukee’s inaugural Tony Bettenhausen Memorial 200 in 1961.
That October he sampled Formula 1, driving Harrison’s Lotus 18-Climax in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, classified 14th with magneto failure after 76 of 100 laps. He qualified the same car on pole for Trenton’s Indycar race the next spring, leading 30 laps before the novel Lotus “queerbox” failed.
Ruby waited more than three years for his second Indycar win, however, drifting from team to team until landing with Bill Forbes’ outfit in 1964. After he finished third behind A.J. Foyt and Rodger Ward at Indianapolis with Forbes’ 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.
Ruby’s 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’s first major success. He and Miles repeated the feat in ’66 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 “hat trick” by winning at Le Mans that June.
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’d led his very first laps at Indianapolis (see below), he and three friends departed Indy’s Speedway Airport, headed for Milwaukee where the Indycars were to race the next day. Attempting to take off downwind, Ruby’s 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.
Before all that, however, the ’66 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’s All American Racers Eagle-Ford managed to evade it, and on the 65th 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 — chased by Clark, Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill — 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.
A stud securing one of the cam covers failed and oil began to spray from the engine. USAC officials black-flagged Ruby and he rolled in to see if the problem could be fixed. It couldn’t, and any dreams of glory vanished in a cloud of oil smoke. It would not be the Texan’s last heartbreak at the Brickyard.
His injuries kept Ruby out of the cockpit until late July when he returned to qualify AAR’s Lotus 38-Ford on pole at Indianapolis Raceway Park, but then spun out just past half distance. A couple of top-10s brightened the rest of his year, but when the ’67 season opened at Phoenix the next April he was driving Firestone dealer Gene White’s brand-new Dave Laycock-built Brabham copy Mongoose-Offy. The undecorated white car reset the track record in qualifying, then led all 150 laps! Ruby won again at Langhorne in June with White’s Lotus 38-Ford, and rode a string of 10 top-five finishes into sixth place in the final standings.
In ’67 Ruby and his trademark white cowboy hat finally made it to Le Mans. Having finished second at Sebring teamed with Foyt in a MkII, he went to France paired with Hulme in a new MkIV, but both drivers endured off-course excursions and the car was retired. Ruby didn’t enjoy the experience and never went back.
Continuing with White’s Mongoose in 1968 he battled the Lotus turbines and Bobby Unser’s Eagle-Offy at Indy, until stricken by late-lap electrical woes. He persevered to finish fifth, then triumphed a week later in Milwaukee. He won again in August’s return to the Wisconsin Mile, and closed the season taking second at Phoenix and third at Riverside to land fourth in USAC’s final points. Further, on Independence Day at Daytona he’d won NASCAR’s Paul Revere 250 Grand Touring race, leading every lap from pole with Bud Moore’s Mercury Cougar.
Driving a new Mongoose for his third season with Gene White, Ruby began 1969 finishing third and second at Phoenix and Trenton, respectively, heading to Indianapolis for the month of May in high spirits. On race day he was trading the lead with polesitter Foyt and Mario Andretti when, just past half distance, fate’s fickle finger flicked him once more out of the race.
After pitting from the lead, Ruby somehow tried to pull away before the refueling hose was disconnected. The nozzle ripped open the fuel tank, flooding the pit stall with escaping methanol. Ruby could do nothing but pound his steering wheel in frustration. The rest of ’69 passed unremarkably, although he did take second behind Al Unser in the Phoenix finale.
Back at Phoenix for the 1970 opener, Ruby took White’s Mongoose to third behind the Unser brothers, winner Al and runner-up Bobby. He then won the season’s second round at Trenton, prevailing from a triangular tussle with Al and Andretti. His seventh Indycar win would turn out to be his last.
He continued with White’s outfit as turbocharged Ford power replaced the Offy turbos, running mainly in the midfield save for a string of top-10s midway through ’71. For ’72 he joined the Commander Motor Homes team, earning four top-six finishes from 11 starts with the team’s Eagle-Offy. He drove Mike Devin’s Unlimited Racing Eagle in ’74, notching eight top-10s — fifth at Indy — to earn seventh in the final points.
The end of the road was in sight, however, and after contesting a handful of races in both ’75 — when a promising Team McLaren ride for Indy fell apart on race morning — and ’76, he hung up his helmet in ’77. Racing and winning in open-wheelers, sports cars and stock cars had earned Ruby induction into the Motorsports Hall of Fame, as well as recognition as an all-rounder, just like contemporaries Foyt, Andretti, Gurney and Jones. Not bad company.
