Paul Pfanner is the President and CEO of Racer Media & Marketing, Inc. and the founder of RACER Magazine and RACER.com. “Black Noon” is available from Amazon.com by clicking here.

The 1964 Indianapolis 500 will always be remembered as the last year a front-engined roadster won at the Brickyard and for the tragic accident that stopped the race for the first time in its long history. However, the 48th running of “the greatest spectacle in racing” remains an intriguing, controversial and enigmatic subject on many levels beyond the cataclysmic gasoline-fueled fireball in Turn 4 on lap two that ended the brave lives of popular USAC veteran Eddie Sachs and young SCCA road racing phenom Dave MacDonald. May 30, 1964 was the day the Indy 500 changed forever and it provides the ideal vehicle for Black Noon, a very well researched and well-written non-fiction book debut from respected automotive PR veteran, Art Garner.

Given that the 98th running of the 500 marks the 50th anniversary of this most tragic and culturally disruptive race in Indy’s storied 105-year history, the timing of Black Noon’s release today (May 6, 2014) gives us pause to consider the long shadow of the events Garner chronicles leading up to and on that very dark day.

Few remember that the 1964 Indy 500 was the first to be televised live. But it wasn’t via a traditional terrestrial TV network broadcast. Instead it was shown live in hundreds of theaters across America via closed-circuit TV as a result of the visionary and groundbreaking efforts of famed USAC promoter and team owner J.C. Agajanian and the MCA media company.

So it came to pass that early on the morning of Saturday, May 30, 1964, I sat in a darkened theater in El Monte, Calif., with my late father, a lifelong racing fan and aerospace pro, deeply involved in the early days of the Apollo program. The weekend before, he’d surprised me with the announcement that we were going to see the Indy 500 at a theater near our home in Whittier. I wasn’t into cars and had no idea what the Indy 500 was but my father found a TV show on the Saturday before, previewing the race. Jimmy Clark and his low, sleek and futuristic Lotus-Ford captured my attention and the roadsters of A.J. Foyt and Parnelli Jones seemed to me as if they were relics from another era. Eddie Sachs was interviewed and was a funny guy who made me laugh and care about him but I had already found a favorite in Clark and felt a growing sense I was in for something special.

I was and it changed my life.

On that spring Saturday morning, my dad and I witnessed a life-and-death drama unfold in real time. I saw things I’d never seen or experienced before as my young eyes stared into the riveting low-resolution black and white video projected crudely onto a big screen. To a nine-year-old boy who knew nothing at all about racing, it was exotic, heroic, terrifying, mesmerizing and effortlessly memorable. Just two minutes into the race, it also became my first direct exposure to death and its aftermath. It was all very real and I learned that day that life had risks and extreme consequences on both ends of the human scale. So, the subject of Black Noon remains deeply personal and stands forever in my psyche as the origin of my life-defining passion for racing.

Eddie Sachs, a humorous and fine driver who made his name at the Speedway for all the wrong reasons. IMS photo

Fifty years on, Art Garner captures the essence of this epic clash of vastly different cultures and values. In 320 pages, he delivers a fascinating back-story as USAC’s old guard and their Offy-powered roadsters battle valiantly against the onslaught of progressive but aloof Europeans and SCCA road racers and their rear-engined “funny cars,” backed by the game-changing investment of the Ford Motor Company. It was a fight for the soul of American open-wheel racing that still simmers today. As we well know, the echoes of that fateful day still haunt the sport. Indy car racing’s dual personality disorder and resultant political and business turmoil now spans the six decades since that cultural flashpoint on 5/30/64.

Racing icons Foyt, Clark, Jones, Dan Gurney, Masten Gregory, Rodger Ward, Johnny Rutherford, Mario Andretti, Bobby Unser, George Bignotti, Andy Granatelli, J.C. Agajanian, Humpy Wheeler, Smokey Yunick, Carroll Shelby and Colin Chapman give meaning and gravity to Garner’s well-calibrated sub plots. Hot rodder and entrant/builder Mickey Thompson’s quixotic quest to earn respect he never found at Indy drives the story forward. But the heart and soul of Black Noon is Garner’s insightful and sensitive weaving of racing life and American life in the early ’60s.

The diversity of cars, technology, characters, political influences and cultural nuances are deeply fascinating and the stark contrast between the stature and meaning of the Indy 500 of 1964 and the Indy 500 of today is inescapable. There is a swirling undercurrent of intense technical competition. So, not surprisingly Black Noon has a “Right Stuff” vibe and a “space race” sensibility born of risking everything to prove that something very dangerous but very important can indeed be accomplished – if you have the guts and the smarts to pull it off. Today it is all too easy to forget that this once drove racing culture and our society.

Central to Black Noon’s emotional impact are the personal stories of the families and soon-to-be-widowed wives of the protagonists, Nance Sachs and Sherry MacDonald. A growing sense of the horror and heartbreak they will face relentlessly builds tension as the fateful running of the 48th Indy 500 draws nearer with each chapter. The main characters and the era become more real with every page turned and the realities, choices and the consequences they faced during that dark moment in the sport can at last be better understood because of Garner’s excellent work.

• Purchase “Black Noon – The Day They Stopped the Indy 500”

There are numerous twists and many long-standing myths and assumptions from that tragic day that are explored and very effectively challenged. Garner’s intrepid research and in-depth interviews with those who lived that day of destiny gave him the tools needed to bring a moment in time vividly alive a half century later. Some might argue that this book seeks to vindicate or absolve Mickey Thompson and Dave MacDonald from blame but I believe otherwise. Black Noon is a clear-eyed, reasoned and mature assessment of what happened with first-hand accounts and the facts rather than grief-fueled emotion driving the plotlines.

TOP Mickey Thompson Special before the cutaways were added above the front wheels. The car’s performance had been significantly improved by the time the race happened. LAT photo. ABOVE Smokey Yunick’s Hurst Floor Shifter Special, complete with “sidecar cockpit” design, was typical of the innovation seen at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the ’60s. BELOW Long after the tragic accident, ’61 winner A.J. Foyt and ’63 winner Parnelli Jones fight for the lead of the ’64 event. It was Foyt (outside line) who became the repeat winner. IMS photo

For me, reading this book was cathartic. The nine-year-old-boy who was transfixed by all that happened on that day still lives in my heart and stokes my passion. But until now I could only hold an incomplete childhood memory of those brave people that changed my life forever as faded fragments of a dream without context. Black Noon brought me full circle to the very moment I fell in love with the dark beauty of our sport and by doing so, it also now allows me to fully appreciate the spirit of the day and the mystery of racing that still attracts me and still leaves me in awe of those who risk everything to chase their dreams at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

ABOVE The closest Sachs came to winning the “500” was in ’61 when he was narrowly defeated by both a delaminating tire and Foyt. IMS photo. BELOW MacDonald and crew after qualfiying a very respectable 14th. IMS photoI devoured the first half of Black Noon on the flights to and from the 70th Anniversary SCCA National Convention in Charlotte in early March and was completely enthralled. On the final night of the convention, I had the honor of reading Dan Gurney’s moving acceptance speech at the SCCA Hall of Fame induction. Dan’s words were written in 1957 when he was 27 years old and touched on the mortal risks inherent in the era and the political tensions between USAC and the SCCA that set the stage for the age of Black Noon. Bob Bondurant was also being inducted into the SCCA Hall of Fame that night. As I looked into Bob’s eyes and as I shook his hand to congratulate him, I realized that Bob and Dan were Cobra teammates with MacDonald in 1964 and both may well have attended his burial service at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, in early June ’64. This would have been just days before they both went on to race and win their class at Le Mans in the Cobra Daytona Coupe without their fallen young colleague.

On my early morning flight home to Los Angeles the next day I again found myself lost in the turmoil and intrigue of 5/30/64, moving through the politics, technical challenges, fateful choices, tragic events and memories I’d long suppressed. I finished the last page of Black Noon as my flight touched down at LAX not far from where young MacDonald once worked at Shelby American. As we taxied to the gate, I felt a deep sadness for he and Sachs, their families, friends and fellow team members, a sadness I could not possibly have felt at the age of nine. They were all now very real to me and that tragic day could now finally be fully absorbed emotionally and intellectually.

As I was driving from LAX to my home in Laguna Beach that morning, the nine-year-old inside me took control of the journey and I soon found myself in Whittier once again and standing over the headstone of David G. MacDonald, Beloved Husband and Father, 1936 – 1964. Twin checkered flags etched between the dates gave the only hint of his life and his death in the sport he loved.  

After a moment of profound emotion I took the iPhone from my pocket and typed the street address of my childhood home into Google Maps, to discover that I grew up less than three miles from where I stood…and yet it had taken a lifetime to get there. My late father’s grave lies only 1200 feet north of MacDonald’s and in the placid silence broken only by the whispers of these ghosts from my childhood, I wondered how those affected by that horrible day had found the strength and courage to move forward. I also considered that, because of that blackest of days, a shared destiny led me to becoming the man I am today and doing what I do now.

As the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500 nears, I believe we should all pause and reflect on where the sport of Indy car racing is today after 50 years of off-track turmoil and self-inflicted political and commercial Black Noons. My hope is that everyone who is, or ever was, an Indy car fan reads Art Garner’s remarkable first book to gain insight into what was lost and learned that day and to appreciate the tremendous potential the sport still holds. I also fervently hope that 2014 year is when Indy car racing finally rediscovers what it really is and what it ultimately stands for after two decades of confused identity.  

Black Noon gives life to the pure and original spirit of the sport and reminds us what Indy car racing represents when it is truly worth risking everything for. When the sport is relentlessly real and pushing bravely into the unknown, it has true cultural gravity because it authentically represents a noble human challenge that is compelling, meaningful and important beyond racing.  

Like in 1964, the real thing still matters to young people today and I believe that there is a world full of nine-year-old boys and girls who might just find the Indy 500 as fascinating as Felix Baumgartner jumping out of the Red Bull Stratos from the edge of space. But I also believe that this can only happen if Indy car racing once again aspires to inspire rather than merely entertain.

Today, we can only imagine what Dave MacDonald might have thought if someone told him that a road race would someday open the Month of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. However, I do suspect he would take some comfort in knowing that Art Garner’s Black Noon is a thoughtful and truthful story of his and Eddie Sachs’ final race and that it could be the most important motor racing book of 2014.

“Black Noon – The Day They Stopped the Indy 500” is available from Amazon.com by clicking here.

Format:  Hardcover, 320 pages, also available for Kindle
Publisher: St. Martins Press
Publish Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN-13: 9781250017772
ISBN-10: 1250017777