If he hadn’t been so hard-headed he might have won the Indianapolis 500 three or four times. But, if he hadn’t been so determined, so stubborn, so original, so maddening and so sure of himself, he wouldn’t have been such a treasure.

Or such a success.

As it was, Gary Bettenhausen, who died suddenly Sunday evening at the age of 72, made himself a winning race driver, a champion and a pillar of perseverance.

“I didn’t always agree with everything he did, but I never doubted he could do it,” said Merle Bettenhausen of his older brother. “Nobody ever had more determination than Gary.”

It’s not an exaggeration to say the oldest of Melvin “Tony” Bettenhausen’s three sons made himself a race driver. He didn’t have the natural talent of his pal, Bill Vukovich, or a father figure to help chart his course like the Unsers.

All he had was desire and grit, yet he parlayed those into a hell of a career that netted 82 USAC wins and four championships in five divisions.

After cutting his teeth in USAC stock cars, Gary moved up to USAC sprints and instantly became a force in Willie Davis’ car. From 1968 to ’71 he and Larry Dickson swapped the title and staged stirring duels from Eldora to Winchester to Terre Haute.

The Larry and Gary Show, plus his impressive runs for Fred Gerhardt in Indy cars with a pair of victories, got the attention of Roger Penske. He won Trenton in his second start with The Captain and had the 1972 Indy 500 in the bag before breaking down with 18 laps left.

That relationship should have blossomed into riches but it was over by the summer of 1974 after Bettenhausen’s left arm was rendered useless in a violent dirt car accident at Syracuse, N.Y.. Despite Penske’s pleas to stop racing sprints, midgets and dirt cars, Gary refused, citing his popular phrase: “If it was good enough for my old man, it’s good enough for me.” He got fired in his hospital bed.

The Son of Cementhead (that was Tony’s nickname) never got another Indy ride like that and we always kidded him about how Rick Mears would have never been heard of if Gary hadn’t been so bull-headed. But he still managed to create his own magic during the next two decades.
TOP Bettenhausen looked set to deliver Roger Penske his first ever Indy 500 win in ’72 until the engine broke. ABOVE Sprint cars were where Gary made his name. BELOW The Bettenhausen brothers – Merle, Tony Jr., and Gary. Merle got badly burned and lost an arm in his first Champ car start, Tony Jr and his wife died in a plane crash in 2000, now Gary has gone, unexpectedly.

 
TOP Amazingly, Bettenhausen passed his Indy rookie test driving a dirt car in 1968. ABOVE Kidding around with AJ Foyt and Larry Dickson, with whom Gary dominated USAC sprint cars from ’68 through ’71.It was after that injury that “The Schmuck” (he kinda liked that nickname) really became a hero to a lot of us.
In his comeback in a midget race at Fort Wayne’s Coliseum in the winter of 1975, Gary used Velcro to tape his left arm to the steering wheel and he won the 100-lapper with one arm.

In 1980, he started last at Indy and finished third in an old toilet.

In 1980 and 1983 he captured the USAC Silver Crown championship.

In 1991 he posted the fastest qualifying speed but it came on Day 2 so he didn’t win the pole.

Towing his sprinter to Toledo, the truck broke down and by the time he got to the track, qualifying was almost over. So he fired up the car in the pits, got a couple 2-by-4s and used them to heat the tires. Then he went out with no practice and set quick time.

He got badly burned in a dirt car at Sacramento, then almost drowned when he jumped into the infield pond to put out the fire and, a few days later, announced he might have to cut back on dirt racing and just run Indy cars. We all laughed, “Twenty years too late, Schmuck.”

But it was that indomitable spirit and that damn-the-torpedoes’ attitude that made him special to most of us. When he ran his own USAC team in the 1970s, he built his own cars and employed several drivers like Steve Chassey and Mark Alderson. He gave Tim Coffeen a job and a place to sleep (in the attic with the race tires) and their penance was eating lunch with him every day at the Pair of Jacks lounge on the westside of Indy.
Gary sat the head of the table, giving orders and theories but it was the most entertaining 60 minutes you could imagine.

When I bought Merle’s old midget in 1974, I became an unofficial Bettenhausen brother as Tony Jr. and I were subjected to verbal abuse on a race-to-race basis from the Schmuck.

But it was just part of his tough-love exterior: gruff on the outside but a softie at heart. He cried when Tony qualified for his first Indy 500 in 1981 and still got emotional when thinking about his youngest brother dying in a plane crash in 2000 or his dad perishing at Indy in 1961.

Gary came to our last team lunch just before Christmas and had some laughs with Pancho Carter, Lee Kunzman and Bubby Jones but we hadn’t seen him since because he just wasn’t feeling very good.

Not sure what caused his death, but he went to sleep in the basement on Sunday afternoon and never woke up when his wife of 50 years, Wavelyn, called him for dinner.

We’ll all have our favorite memories of this old school original but I’ll choose this image: It’s 1983 and he’s just won the dirt race at Springfield, Ill. – the Tony Bettenhausen Classic. It’s 94 degrees and, after 100 laps, Gary is exhausted. Somebody takes off his open-face helmet, his left arm dangles at his side and he immediately stuffs a cigarette in his mouth using his good hand. Then he finally breaks into a smile.

He’s done it his way. Again.

Gary Bettenhausen Services

Saturday
3 – 6 p.m. Viewing
7 p.m. Memorial

Flowers should be sent to –

Jones Crossing
4161 East Allison Rd.
Camby, IN 46113

ABOVE RIGHT After scoring his first of six Indy car wins, driving his Fred Gerhardt entry to victory at Michigan in 1970. BELOW As late as 1991, GB was still a quality runner. He was fastest of all in Indy qualifying that year, but came too late for Pole Day.