On May 9th, 1992, Roberto Guerrero earned the pole position for the 76th running of the Indianapolis 500-mile race. Piloting a Buick-powered Lola T92/00 for King Motorsports, the 33-year-old Colombian became the first man in Speedway history to officially break the 230-mph barrier as he set new track records for single-lap average (232.618 mph) and four lap average (232.482 mph) for the four-lap, ten-mile run into the record books.
Guerrero would be the only driver in the 33-car starting field to record all four qualification laps over the 230 mph barrier as the 1984 Indianapolis “500” Co-Rookie of the Year award winner would log what would prove to be the sixth and final pole position of his Indy-car career.
The polesitter would be part of a front row that would include fellow Formula One veterans Eddie Cheever in a LolaT92/00 Ford for the Chip Ganassi Racing Team (229.639 mph average) and 1978 Formula One champion, and 1969 Indianapolis “500” winner Mario Andretti in a Lola T92/00 Ford for Newman/Haas Racing (229.503 mph).
Pole position honors in 1992 would also be the first for a six-cylinder Buick engine at the Brickyard since Duane “Pancho” Carter accomplished the feat in a March 85C for Galles Racing in 1985.
“I think the coolest thing about getting the pole at Indy, the way that the schedule was (in the 1990s), you earned the pole on the first weekend and then you got to enjoy it for a whole two weeks,” said Guerrero, who made 144 open-wheel starts between 1984 and 2000.
“Because you had the second weekend of qualifying, and the week before the race, Carburetion Day and so on. So, it was pretty cool that you got to enjoy it for that length of time. For us (at King Motorsports) being on the pole with a new track record, we got a lot of attention for those two weeks. So, it was pretty fun.”
Heartbreak and Tragedy
Five years earlier on May 24th, 1987, Guerrero, then driving for Vince Granatelli Racing, seemed destined for victory at Indianapolis with less than 50 miles to the checker flag. Holding a commanding full lap-advantage over second place Al Unser Sr., Guerrero brought his March87-C Cosworth in for his final pit stop of the contest, only to be victimized by clutch failure which would knock the driver from the lead and shatter all hopes that day of having his likeness carved on the Borg-Warner Trophy.
Guerrero explained that his late-race clutch issue had its roots in an incident on Lap 130 when the March86-C Cosworth of Tony Bettenhausen Jr. lost its right front wheel in Turn 3 and Guerrero’s car struck the 18.5-pound tire in the north chute at race speed. The wheel, launched skyward, cleared the 15-foot-high safety fence, then tragically struck and killed 41-year-old spectator Lyle Kurtenbach of Rothschild, Wisconsin. Kurtenbach’s death would be the first spectator fatality at Indianapolis since 1960.
“I was going at speed,” remembered Guerrero, who was running in 2nd position at the time of incident. “Bettenhausen was ahead of me. And all of a sudden, going into Turn 3, his right front wheel came off his car as I was going at speed. I stood on the brakes as hard as I could, and I basically punted his wheel with the nose of my car. The chances of being able to continue in the race were really, really slim—hitting a wheel at 210 mph. And basically, I created my own yellow flag period.”
The contact with the errant tire damaged the nosecone section of Guerrero’s machine and the driver retreated to the pits under the four-circuit caution period from Laps 131-134. The Granatelli crew replaced the nose section of the chassis and make a front wing adjustment in 52.5 seconds.
“I went into the pits and at the time we did change a little piece of the nose (section) and we thought there wasn’t any other problem.
“Unfortunately, we found out later, with the power of the tire hitting the nose of the car, that was right where the master cylinder starts—the master cylinder actually got bent, and it started leaking fluid.”
18 laps from victory, the leaking cylinder soured the driver’s fate.
“At the time the last pit stop of the race came, it was only for a splash of fuel. The race was ours,” said Guerrero who came in for his final service stop on Lap 182.
As the race-leader prepared to return to the track, disaster struck.
“(The clutch problem) caught us all by surprise,” Guerrero explained. “I was in first gear and I tried to get the car out of gear, and wasn’t able to. There was very little fluid remaining with the clutch, and the engine just died. I put the car in neutral, but the crew wasn’t pushing me. In the big panic there were a lot of mistakes made. I managed to put the car in gear, and as soon as I did, the car moved a few feet and died again, because I had no clutch. There wasn’t enough fluid left for the clutch to work properly.”
When Guerrero’s March finally did rejoin the action, nearly 69 seconds had elapsed and the driver’s opportunity to win the Indianapolis “500” had all but evaporated.
As a result of Guerrero’s misfortune, Unser Sr. and his March86-C Cosworth inherited the lead and the driver from Albuquerque, New Mexico paced the final circuits to become only the second driver in Speedway history to win the Memorial Day weekend classic a record four times—equaling the mark established by A. J. Foyt a decade earlier in 1977.
Guerrero, who led a total of eight laps during the day, would finish in 2nd position, 4.496 seconds behind the victor as both men would be the only drivers in the field to complete the 500-mile distance.
“Normally being second you would have been happy,” Guerrero said. “But that time we were obviously crying because we had the race in our pocket. “
Life Threatening
On September 10th, 1987, less than four months after the disappointment at Indianapolis, Guerrero suffered an accident during tire testing at the Speedway that threatened not only the driver’s racing career, but his life as well.
Guerrero’s machine reportedly suffered a suspension failure, sending the March into the outer retaining wall in Turn 2. The right front tire struck the driver’s helmet resulting in swelling of the brain and what was medically diagnosed as a diffuse axonal injury or DAI.
In his book Rapid Response, Championship Auto Racing Teams Medical Director, Dr. Stephen Olvey, described Guerrero’s medical situation. “Basically, the brain had suffered an extensive shearing injury to the nerve fibers causing the entire nervous system to short circuit. It could not be surgically repaired.”
“I didn’t have any broken bones,” Guerrero said. “It was a relatively minor accident. What the doctor said, the tire coming in the cockpit and hitting the head, it compressed the helmet and I believe they say that is what did the most damage.”
The unconscious and critically injured driver, who had won the Escort Radar Warning 200 Indy car event at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, four days prior to the accident, was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis where he would be in a coma for 17 days.
To reduce the pressure on the driver’s brain, Olvey wrote that he intravenously administered extremely high dosages of barbiturates that would ultimately help save Guerrero’s life.
“I was either going to die, or they were going to give me the (high dose barbiturates therapy),” said Guerrero. “(The medical team) went for it and apparently that (treatment) dropped my blood pressure so low that it almost killed me. But as it happened that (therapy) really was what saved me. I really owe my life to Dr. Steve Olvey.”
Recovery
The driver would recover and face both rigorous cognitive and physical rehabilitation to once again drive a race car.
“When Guerrero first spoke, he spoke in Spanish his native language,” wrote Olvey. “He was one of the first patients to receive what we call cognitive rehabilitation. This form of rehab used computer-assisted exercises designed to bring a person’s memory and motor skills back to baseline via biofeedback. It was very much like playing a series of complicated video games. Guerrero was scheduled to spend five hours a day doing these exercises. He would spend nine. During this period, he would also re-learn to walk and to speak the English language.”
“I would work on the computer from the time that I woke up until the time I went to bed,” Guerrero remembered. “If those (computer) programs are going to help, I want to do whatever it takes for me to get better. From the time I woke up, (from the coma) I couldn’t wait to get back behind the wheel of a racecar. That’s why I made a big effort and four months after the accident, I was back behind the wheel of an Indy car. So, it was pretty remarkable. I was very lucky to come out alive and I was very lucky to be able to continue racing.”
Guerrero would successfully return to CART competition the following season in 1988, making 12 starts in the 15-race PPG IndyCar World Series—-including podium finishes at the 200-mile event at Phoenix International Raceway in April and the 500-mile event at Pocono International Raceway that August.
Record Speeds
Starting from the pole position for the 1992 Indianapolis “500”, Guerrero would have the opportunity to lead the then-fastest starting field in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to the green flag. The 33-car starting field averaged a record 223.479 mph—4.889 mph faster than the previous mark of 218.590 set in 1991. The 1992 Classic also established a record with no less than 10 former winners in the field including Foyt, Andretti, Unser Sr., Gordon Johncock, Rick Mears, Tom Sneva, Danny Sullivan, Bobby Rahal, Emerson Fittipaldi and Arie Luyendyk.
Guerrero and his Lola Buick, prepared by chief mechanic John Anderson, had shown considerable muscle during the week of practice leading up to the start of qualifications. Each day the driver placed in the Top-3 on the daily speed charts—-topping out at a best of 232.624 mph on May 7th.
“At Indianapolis, ideally you have to stay completely wide open on the throttle,” said Guerrero who logged 315 practice laps during the month of May. “But if you put a lot of downforce in the car, then it’s very easy to go wide open. But then you’re very slow because you have a lot of drag on the car. So, the key is having enough downforce, enough wing on the car that you can stay wide open, but you are not carrying too much drag on the straightaways. That is why you have to have your car working really, really well so you can still stay wide open with the least amount of wing possible.”
However, the driver noted that while the Buick V-6 offered plentiful virility, the power-plant did provide challenges.
“The engine was very good when you could stay completely wide open in the throttle,” Guerrero remembered. “If you had to come off the throttle, the response of the engine was very, very slow. It was difficult for me to pass cars. And when you are going into a corner, you have to come off the throttle because you have the car in front of you. By the time you come out of the corner, you put your foot down on the throttle and the engine takes so long to respond, that it takes the whole straightaway to get going again.”
Perfect Conditions
On Pole Day, rainy weather delayed the start of time trials until 4:00pm in the afternoon. Luyendyk, driving a Lola 92T/00-Ford for the Ganassi effort, was the first car to make a qualification attempt.
The record book of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was re-written quickly as the one and four-lap marks set by Fittipaldi in 1990 of 225.575 mph and 225.301 mph respectively, were erased by the 1990 winner. The “Flying Dutchman” clocked a new single-lap mark of 229.305 mph and a new four-lap standard of 229.127 mph to christen the battle for the pole position.
At 4:48pm, then-23-time Indianapolis “500” starter Gary Bettenhausen topped Luyendyk’s single-lap mark by posting a circuit of 229.317 mph in his T92/00 Lola-Buick for John Menard, Incorporated. The veteran recorded an average of 228.932 mph which would earn a starting position in the center of Row 2 on race day.
At 5:34pm, Guerrero, the 20th driver to make a qualification attempt that afternoon, took the green flag. 2 minutes and 34.851 seconds later, the Colombian completed the record run that would earn him the pole position.
“As it happened that weekend (of Pole Day) the weather really worked in our favor,” said Guerrero whose speed marks would stand for four years. “It had been raining (that Saturday) and when it was my turn to qualify it was 5:45 pm. There wasn’t a single breath of wind, the temperature was 65 degrees, so the conditions couldn’t have been any more perfect.
“We (at the team) had been working on that car very hard since March, and we had an incredible setup, an incredible car. We had that car working so well. After qualifying, when people would ask me, I said, ‘That car was so good my Grandmother would have been able to put it on the pole.’”
Guerrero, a 15-time starter at the Brickyard between 1984-1999, acknowledged that weather can be problematic during qualifications.
“Unfortunately, the weather does play a huge factor and many times it’s totally out of your control. When the conditions are cool, with the heavier air, you get a lot of downforce on the car and you go out and you say, ‘Oh my God, the car is so good and there is so much downforce!’ And it’s like the car is on rails. Then in qualifying, you go out at 1:00pm or 2:00pm in the afternoon and it’s 20 degrees warmer and all of a sudden, ‘What the heck happened to my car?’ (In the warmer conditions) you lose all the downforce with the temperature increase. So, you and the team try to compensate for it. But it’s very, very difficult.”
Like Ice
The 1992 Indianapolis “500” is infamous for its cold weather, blustery winds, and multiple incidents. With a high temperature of only 58 degrees, the cold conditions wreaked havoc with tire temperatures as 13 cars were eliminated in accidents. 13 yellow flags resulted in 85 of the 200 laps run under caution periods which held the victor’s average speed to 134.477 mph—-the slowest winning average since 1958. Al Unser Jr. edged Scott Goodyear at the checker flag by 0.43 seconds to become the first second-generation driver to win the “500” in the closest finish in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
For Guerrero, race day, May 24th, 1992 would start with high promise and end with incredible disappointment.
As the field reached the top of the backstretch on the second of the traditional parade laps prior to the start, the polesitter’s machine suddenly veered sharply, left the track, crossed the inland grass and clouted the inner retaining wall.
The resulting damage suffered would eliminate the then-fastest car to ever qualify at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before the green flag flew.
“Normally during May at Indianapolis, there is an average temperature of 70 degrees,” said Guerrero. “That particular day the temperature didn’t even reach 40 degrees, so it was very, very cold. All of a sudden, I realized I was going to start the race on the next lap. And the tires were so cold, it was like being on ice. So, I was trying to warm up the tires as fast as possible. The way you warm up the front tires is you put a lot of steering, you go left and right (in a zig-zag pattern). And you warm up the rear tires by giving a little throttle and basically spinning the wheel. And one of those times when I was warming up the rear tires, the car just made a 90-degree turn and it just went straight into the wall. It’s hard to say (what happened.) It’s possible (with the tire stagger) that the outside tire got a little bit more heat than the inside tire and made the car turn 90 degrees.
“As happy as I was in qualifying, that’s one of the most depressing moments of my career,” said Guerrero who was credited with finishing the event in 33rd and last position.
“Whenever something (negative) happens I can always put it to the side and look forward to the future,” said the driver. “I don’t dwell on the past and I’m very quick to move on.”
Satisfaction
Looking back on his efforts at Indianapolis, Guerrero holds satisfaction over a career that has seen him log five top-five finishes at the Speedway, including runner-up honors in 1984 and 1987.
“It’s obviously one of the best-known races in the world,” Guerrero said. “If you manage to win that race you’re in the record book forever. Unfortunately, I got very close a couple of times and I never won it. But I did set the lap record (in 1992) and I was 2nd a couple of times and 3rd and 4th and so on. So, I have really good memories of that place and it was always an honor to race there.”
Roberto Guerrero at Indianapolis:
- Races: 15 1984-1999
- Poles: 1 1992
- Top-3: 3 1984, 1985, 1987
- Top-10: 5
- Laps led: 56
- Laps completed: 1,735
