Chances are, unless you were embedded in the USAC community in the 1970s, the name Frank Weiss doesn’t resonate with you or other Indy car fans. He never qualified for the Indianapolis 500 and didn’t even get to make a qualifying attempt in the two years he had rides.

But the good-natured Canadian, who died last week from cancer at the age of 69, embodied the old Gasoline Alley mentality that’s long since passed. In an era where anything seemed possible with determination and hard work, Weiss never let the realities of racing slow down his enthusiasm. He was the driver, chief mechanic, fabricator and sometimes truck driver of teams that had a six-figure budget only if you counted dollars and cents.

Part of the Canadian wave of CAMRA super modified drivers that invaded USAC in the ’70s, the native of Calgary worked for fellow countryman Eldon Rasmussen’s Indy car team before trying one on himself.

“Frank was a pretty good sprint-car driver but he was raising a family and didn’t have any money behind him so I brought him to Indy to be my shop foreman in 1977,” says Rasmussen, a three-time starter at Indy who always made the most out of his shoestring operation. “He could run pavement or dirt but he always wanted to be in the Indy 500. That was his goal.”

It was 1979 and the USAC/CART war had erupted so Frank tried to make the most of the situation. He scored a ride in a Manta chassis, which was the bastard son of the dreaded Antares – a car so evil it sent Johnny Rutherford, Roger McCluskey and Wally Dallenbach right to the bar the first time they saw it.

But Weiss didn’t care about his car’s less-than-stellar history: he only knew that it allowed him a chance to compete. He wasn’t fast enough to make a qualifying attempt in May but did a damn fine job at Milwaukee, finishing eighth and seventh in the two races following Indianapolis.

In 1980, fellow Canuck Buddy Boys bought a McLaren and Frank and Brian Kassler spent the winter taking it apart and trying to upgrade it a tad since it was four years old. That was the dawn of the ground-effects cars at Indy and Weiss had a relic and a skeleton crew but it was another shot at fulfilling his dream.

“The day before the first weekend of qualifying we were practicing and it was getting late and we were low on fuel and Frank said the car was getting light and feeling nervous,” recalls Kassler, who began his Indy baptism working for Goodyear before hooking up with Weiss. “The owner wanted him to run a few more laps so he went out and that’s when he stuffed it in Turn 4 and then slid into the inside wall, head-on. I ran down and was the first guy there and it was gruesome.”

The impact had broken both of Weiss’ legs, shattering the tibia on one, and pulverizing both ankles. He was in Methodist Hospital for six weeks and spent the rest of the summer trying to walk again.

Weiss tried to make a comeback at the Hut Hundred midget race in September but missed the show in an old shitbox and that was the end of his racing career. But he was active in the Indy car community for the next 30 years, building headers, hubs and suspension pieces for Indy cars in his shop just a mile from IMS.

“Frank was a great fabricator and I learned a lot from him,” states Kassler, who works fulltime for Pratt & Whitney in London, Ohio, but still finds time to work on Indy crews each May.

Adds Rasmussen: “Frank became an exceptional machinist and taught his son, Wade, the trade and they’ve had a good business for a long time.”

The past few years, however, hadn’t been kind to Frank. He suffered a stroke, which triggered dementia and Rasmussen was one of the few people he recognized the past four years.

“I took Frank to lunch every Monday and he couldn’t remember anything about the last 15 years but we’d start talking about the old days of CAMRA and he’d remember Tom and Jerry Sneva and the guys he raced against,” smiles Rasmussen. “Frank was a racer to the core and a good guy. We’re gonna miss him.”