“You locked the back wheels as you turned the car,”said Harkey, a six-time Indianapolis 500 qualifier. “While it was turning you went from high gear, to second gear to low gear and the clutch was in. As soon as you did the 180 (degree turn) you popped the clutch. If it was at night you put the bright headlights on so you blinded them so it took them a little bit of time to get squared away what was happening.”
It wasn’t a Bootlegger’s Turn that fooled Indy 500 officials in 1973. Heck, Harkey’s No. 28 Bryant Heating & Cooling Kenyon-Eagle/Foyt ride wouldn’t even start. The team knew the engine wouldn’t fire but gridded the car anyway to prevent an alternate driver from taking their spot.
The team’s race was salvaged after Salt Walther’s devastating crash postponed the Indy 500 to the next day. Harkey finished 29th after completing 12 laps.
The Charlotte, N.C., native and USAC veteran returns to one of his favorite tracks this weekend for the Winchester Speedway Old Timer’s event on Saturday. Harkey serves as the grand marshal for the two-day event that also includes the King of the Wings and Top Speed Modifieds on Saturday and the ARCA Herr’s Chase the Taste 200 stock car race on Sunday.
“Winchester and Salem were so fast,” Harkey said. “Winchester was so rough. It was hard to focus your eyes as rough as it was. I didn’t mind the banks. I don’t think there were (any tracks) I really didn’t like.”
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway gave him a good scare, which was difficult to do considering the colorful life Harkey led. Among them, Harkey boxed future world champion Floyd Patterson, performed as an aerial circus pilot and wing walker, worked as Robert Mitchum’s stunt driver in the movie “Thunder Road” and helped choreograph the racing scenes in Paul Newman’s “Winning.”
“It was in 1963 when I took my rookie test and I’d never been on a race track that large or that narrow,” said Harkey, who finished a career-best eighth in his first Indianapolis 500 driving the No. 4 Wally Weir Mobilgas Offenhauser. “I had run a couple mile tracks. But when I got to Indy and would come off the fourth turn it would look like a sidewalk all the way down there, then it would wrap around the grandstand.
“It was a real optical illusion. It really looked scary. It doesn’t look that bad when you get into the first turn. It’s kind of hard to keep your foot down when you’re going 180 mph and it looks like you’re going to make a 90-degree turn.”
Even for a master of the Bootlegger’s Turn.
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