Jim Rathmann, winner of the 1960 Indianapolis 500, passed away just before Thanksgiving in Palm Bay, Florida, a week after suffering a stroke. He was 83.
Rathmann was one of racing’s true Speed Demons. The faster the competition the better he seemed to like it. At Indianapolis, where he won one of history’s most memorable 500s after a stirring race-long duel with Rodger Ward, he also scored three runner-up placings and finished in the top 10 for half of his 14 starts. When USAC took the Indycars to Monza for the famous Race of Two Worlds, Rathmann emerged as the winner on the daunting high banks of the big Italian oval in 1958, where the average speed for the three heats was 166.722 mph at a time when the single-lap record at Indy (set by his brother) was just under 146. When the Indycars made their only appearance at Daytona International Speedway the following spring it was Rathmann who won both heats of the accident-marred race with an average speed of just over 170 mph.
Born Royal Richard Rathmann in Los Angeles on July 16, 1928, Rathmann borrowed his older brother Jim’s name when he wanted to begin racing track roadsters while underage, so that when his brother subsequently went racing himself he had to go by Dick to protect his sibling’s “secret.” After getting started in L.A., “Jim” moved to Chicago following WWII to race with Andy Granatelli’s Hurricane Hot Rod Association, where he won championships in 1949, ’50 and ’51. By then he was racing at Indy as well, having made his first start there in ’49, and in 1952 he finished 2nd to Troy Ruttman. He would finish 2nd there twice more, to Sam Hanks in ’57 and Ward in ’59, before finally winning it himself.
That 1960 race featured perhaps the greatest two-man lead duel Indy has ever seen as Rathmann and Ward battled back and forth all day, exchanging the lead 14 times during the last 79 laps before Rathmann prevailed when Ward backed off in the closing laps to preserve what was left of his tires. Jim led exactly half the laps that day in the Ken-Paul Special, a Watson-Offy built by Chickie Hirashima and Smokey Yunick with funding from a pair of Texas oilmen, Kenny Rich and Paul Lacey.
Rathmann raced in three more Indy 500s after winning, the last in ’63, by when he already owned a successful Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Florida that also served as GM’s back door into NASCAR. After befriending Mercury Astronauts Gus Grissom and Gordon Cooper the trio briefly formed GCR Racing to contest the USAC National Championship in 1966 and ’67, but the team never managed to make the field at Indy. Jim later drove the Pace Car at The Speedway half a dozen times between ’69 and ’82, and in 2007 was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Detroit.
Rathmann is survived by wife Kay, two sons, two stepsons, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild, to all of whom Vintage Racecar extends its sincerest condolences.
