Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

_ Bcm~~~=d=~~ e Former motorcycle racer Swede Savage died as a result of injuries suffered in the 1973 Indianapolis 500. ByJoeSc~o harisma kills. Nobody can know for certain, but it seems likely that having the captivating and swashbuckling name Swede Savage was one reason for the motorcyclist dying in the Indianapolis 500 of 1973. And, similarly, the demise of Ralph Hepburn at the same fvrmictable race irack a quarter of a century earlier may have had something to do with all the amazing and magical appeal that old Hepburn belatedly, devastatingly, achieved. With another Indianapolis 500 approaching, a cautionary report on the pair of them seems worthwhile, especially to people dreaming of sometime becoming charismatic. "Be careful" was the poignant, and last, message that Swede Savage ever relayed to his close racing associate Eddie Wirth. It was a highly unusual piece of advice which Wirth certainly never followed, nor had Savage himself. His story started in the middle sixties: taking his rite-of-passage at that hall of valor known as Ascot Park, Savage was a long way from the car-racing rocket he was to become. As a diehard who successfully flew around the half-mile aboard a Harley-Davidson in a hard era when it was no simple thing for Milwaukee to overcome a Gold Star BSA, Savage was one of the phenomenons of Ascot's Junior division. Roxy Rockwood screamed his name into the Los Angeles Friday nights. Dan Gurney heard the name and responded - first in admiration, later friendship. One of the most fanatic and knowledgable of the Ascot faithful, Gurney was at the time recognized as just about the hottest thing automobile racing had going; winner of international Grand Prix races, the 24-hours of C 26 car· u .. LeMans, and the proprietor of his very own Indianapolis team and race-car building factory. Savage's own career was souring. He went to Daytona and earned a comefrom-behind third. Team Hansen later gave him custody of an llnrnacuiate G5U Matchless, but just for road racing. He and Wirth, under assumed names, unsuccessfully participated in the revival of speedway racing in southern California. And then Savage suffered a serious head injury. While he was in the Midwest, on the street outside a bike shop in Decatur, illinois, he crashed into a car head on. His recovery was prolonged. Next he got the opportunity that made his fame and radically shortened his life. He was on a desert ride with Gurney and a group of other motorcyclists that included a public relations man from Ford. Ford was a company then fully committed to racing; new drivers and exciting headline-makers were in demand. And so, not unnaturally, this P.R. man, after observing Swede pop a truly impressive wheelie, determined that a name as irresistible as Swede Savage might become the biggest headline-grabber of them all. Swede, still in his early twenties, was in wholehearted agreement. Motorcycle combat was becoming a grim ordeal because of his physical size, which was greater than six feet, and as he aged he was putting on pounds. Wirth had the same disadvantage. And one summer day in Los Angeles he and Savage were preparing to travel to a regional flat track meet at Tulare. The telephone rang and a ,voice instructed Savage to forget about !ulare ~nd get on an airline and fly Immediately to Charlotte in the Carolinas. Holman-Moody, Ford's stock car-racing ann in the Deep South, had Freddy Lorenzen's old Fairlane awaiting him. So began the meteoric car-racing career of Swede Savage. By 1973, following brief, furious, flings with stockers and singleseaters, he was qualified fourth fastest at the Indianapolis 500, lined up on the second row with an average speed of nearly 197 mph. An influential magazine wrote that within a couple more seasons he'd be not only America's greatest race driver, but the world's. Yet how good was Swede, truly? There were three differing insider opinions: 1) he really was great; 2) one de.y -he lu~gh[ [;~come great; 3) he was somebody who'd learned how to go fast before he'd learned how to race, so was in over his head. His ferocious, compelling name turned out to be somewhat spurious. Mild-mannered and settled, he was married with a young daughter. And his father'was a veterinarian, among the most gentle of professions. He'd named his son David, then nicknamed him Swede, only becuase of his incredibly blond hair. Swede's rapid swath through the four-wheel wars wasn't free of potholes. Racing for Gurney's own All American Racers group, he ~on ouright one of his earliest Indy car competitions, at Phoenix. But it had been a fluke, marked by faster cars falling out. Not long afterward, at the Questar Grand Prix of Ontario, a race All American Racers was skipping, Savage had over-ruled Gurney's own objections and raced another team's car. He got into an accident which irritated his old head wounds and brought on a case of amnesia. After the clouds lifted, Gurney raised the p0ssibility of his taking a year's sabbatical, a suggestion Swede rejected. This helped lead to his leaving All American Racers. His employer during 1972 was a middling team with a two-year-old Brabham which Savage somehow managed to qualify among the top 10 in every race. This team also put him inside an Ateras Manta, a huge folly which enjoyed the distinction of being possibly the ugliest Indy car ever built. But relief arrived when the brilliant Indianapolis mind George Bignotti began running the team in 1973. It was in a Bignotti-prepared car that Savage qualified fourth fastest at Indianapolis, led the 500 for a dozen laps, and then had the cataclysmic wreck whose injuries caused his death one month and two days afterward. Accounts of what happened varied. The track surface was oil-slick and Savage had fallen behind following a pit stop. He'd also been glaring in his mirrors at Bobby Unser, who'd been derogatory toward him in print, and who now was coming up fast. Or, possibly the old head wounds had returned, and Swede suffered a black-out. On the day of the accident, Eddie· Wn:th ~as ~ a motorcycle shop in Elyria, Ohio, hstenmg to the 500 on the radio. He was in Indianapolis within hours. He found Savage's wife in the intensive care ward of Methodist Hospital, and for the f~l~ow~ng four days and nights stood Vigil With her. Savage, who had inhaled fire, was UTlable to speak when he saw his friend. But when Wirth at last had to depart for a motorcycle race in illinois, Savage wrote "BE CAREFUL" on a blackboard at his bedside, and then pointed to himself for emphasis, in far~well. Wirth never got to see him agam. Certain Indianapolis veterans still muse bitterly about charisma, and what came to be called the Swede Savage Syndrome. And then there was Ralph Hepburn. Unlike Savage, who was gone before even reaching 30, Hepburn found charisma when he was - by then-Indianapolis standards - a very old man in his fifties. It happened because of a diabolical race car known as the Novi For as long ~ it raced, it was the most overpowered Juggernaut ever to compete at Indianapolis. Its stupendous V-8 engine weighed three-quarters of a ton, and was possessing of such muscle that it gave all Offenhausers a case of the heebie-jeebies. The roaring, tearing, unrelenting banshee wail of the Novi became a siren song for Hepburn. , He was, however, fortunate to have made it into ""~"~Obl'l- --,:_- d[ dJ.",. _ __ ......... , iC .lCU..:1.l1!S _L_" From approximately 1916 through 1925, Hepburn, off the Texas prarie, wore the cloth skull cap and colors marking him one of Harley-Davidson's select board race track warriors. Risky time! The speeds were ungodly: by 1921 members of the squad were lapping Beverly Hi11s at 107 mph, faster than the four wheelers at Indianapolis. Their adventures were intense. Fred Ludlow, racing at top speed at Playa del Rey on the Pacific sea coast, surv;ived the experience of being struck full m the face by a migrating sea gull. And Shrimp Burns, yet another Harley-Davidson man, crashed so hard at Beverly Hills he became a ragged mass of splinters. Afterwards he had the derring-do to commandeer the machine of a ~eammate, and, all bandaged up, average In excess of 102 mph - the fastest a Harley-Davidson sidevalve had ever gone on timber - and win by overtaking the leader on the final comer. The soaring boards taught Hepburn racing, but all the wipe-outs and narrow escapes apparently alt{!Ted his constitution. He tired easily. He ended up racing in a career 15 Indianapolis SOOs, from 1925 to 1946, and in five of them hajl to be lifted, exhausted, out of race cars so that stronger drivers could replace him. The 1937500 was an example. Hepburn's car was really fast, but once again he got tired and sought relief. But when he observed that the leader, Wilbur Shaw, was beginning to slow down as his own car weakened,

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