INDIANAPOLIS -- Roger Rager is remembered as the junkyard scavenger who lifted a Chevy engine from an old school bus and drove his hybrid car to the front of the Indianapolis 500.
The veteran sprint car driver made his only appearance in the race in 1980.
"My theory was if I got a block out of a truck or a heavy unit that had been hot and cold and pulled a lot of weight, that block would have already done everything it was ever going to do," he recalled in a 1996 interview. "So we were at the junkyard, and there sat a bus and it was a Chevrolet and it had what we wanted.
"We pulled two or three motors out of different vehicles, but that one looked to be in the best shape, so we used that block."
Rager qualified his car at 186.374 mph, faster than veterans A.J. Foyt, Tom Sneva and Gordon Johncock, and started 10th. By the 16th lap, he was leading the race, but his fling at history ended 40 laps later when Jim McElreath spun in front of him in turn one. Rager hit the inside wall and finished 23rd.
He left racing for a number of years, got back into sprints in the early '90s and tried a comeback at Indianapolis in 1996 when a boycott by CART -- now Champ Car -- left Speedway boss Tony George's new Indy Racing League with a dearth of teams and drivers.
He failed to get into the race again, but his stock block saga remains one of Indy's most enduring memories.
From ESPN Auto
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1996/Roger ... 99b27fb9f3
