The 1987 INDY MYSTERY

The 71st Indianapolis 500 was held Sunday May 24, 1987 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. During the month of May, an unusually high 25 crashes occurred during practice and qualifying, with one driver in particular, Jim Crawford, suffering serious leg injuries. This was dubbed 'The Indy Mystery'. Drivers interviewed include: Tom Sneva, Kevin Cogan, Geoff Brabham, Danny Sullivan, Michael Andretti and Mario Andretti.

For all our US viewers.

All credit to Channel 7 Sport, Sydney.

Motor sport is an international language.

[LetsPlayPC]

May, 1987: "It's been a bad month"

May, 1992: "Hold my beer"

[wendybarnes]

I worked on Dale Coyne's Indy cars from '84 to '96. The 87 March just got funny in the corners. Some teams machined new wishbone pick up points to slightly change the geometry, many very sharp minds attempted to rectify the problem or problems. Even March was baffled by this handling issue. It was scary that year, just hoping no one was badly hurt. That terrible sound of those beautiful cars with drivers hitting the wall that hard was unforgettable.Lola was the next car of choice after all of the problems that plagued March, that was the beginning of the Lola dominance. Only the Penske cars could beat them at that time.

[billloman]

I miss the time when the month of May was actually a month of racing instead of 2 weekends and a race.

[gosportjamie]

They're probably right in saying that it was the combination of the March chassis and the Goodyear tyres not working together. Whether that was due to the new tyres being pushed into use before the chassis manufacturers had had enough testing and development time to make everything work together or whether it was because March chose to run an evolution of the previous chassis rather than a new one is unclear, so maybe the ultimate blame should lay with the governing officials for not holding back on the introduction of the new tyres until the chassis development work was complete or for not taking steps against the March chassis when it became clear that it did not work with the new tyres. Unfortunately, as has occurred too many times in US motor racing the officials did not act due to commercial and legal concerns and it was the drivers that paid...

[NawnyaBusinaz]

@ 3:00 Goodyear blaming someone else. Continues today in NASCAR.

[furyiiiplate]

I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.

[CitizenCarry]

I was only a few rows back from that fan in the stands, Lyle Kurtenbach who was killed by the tire that rocketed into the stands. That was an awful day.

[brendanodonnell]

George Michael narration, legendary sports caster from DC

[seanmacdonald]

There is no real mystery if you understand the differences between how a bias-ply tire performs compared to a radial tire and Goodyear still has not figured it out today. Without going into deep technical detail a bias-ply tire compared to a radial tire is far more predictable than a radial tire when it comes to loss of traction (Spin-out, skid) in a corner. In other words it will let the driver know that you are on the edge of spinning out on the other had with the radial tire you drive into a corner and it feels like you have tons of grip in the corner until you don't (as a buddy once said about racing on radials "no squeal, no feel until the car snaps loose and you are into the wall. Radial are great on tire wear compared to bias-ply tires and as a rule you can push then a lot harder but they have all the feel of oven mitts.

[bobc]

That was the year the Mini Indy 500 Radio Control 1/8 Scale race was held in a oval at the exit of Turn 4 in late April. Plenty of fuel (nitromethane and oil) was put down on that end of the speedway.

[blxtothis]

“A sleek machine reduced to rubble!” You have to love inane commentators like this.

[billygalt]

Being a Mario fan, '87 was the most disappointing race of all time. He absolutely dominated that race.

[mustang]

It was probably mostly the change to radial tires.

[stevefowler]

Radial tires by their nature grip better but tend to lose traction within a smaller space of time then bias ply...I suspect that along with the March suspension geometry and down force is what they were dealing with. I am sure it was a product of all three (a Ph.D. Engineer who works for a large American defense contractor's Aero company...my first year out of undergrad Engineering College was '87)

[craigpennington]

Well said Sean MacDonald-but, out here where I live, we have an abundance of gravel and crowned blacktop roads. They just gobble up radial tires fast. And it doesn't matter what brand you buy.

[nickrichard]

Kevin Cogan crashes were no mystery. According to Foyt and Andretti...

[bugbomb]

I think those cars were bottomed out. There is always secretive clicky crap started in the garage area. Some teams will completely revamp the set up in a secretive but out in the open type situation to have other teams freak and follow suit without even trying a known start set up. but what do I know?

[mickkennedy]

They were wearing the wrong kind of socks.

[hassanmeraj]

Lucky to be born on the same month and year. Didn't know there were lots of carnage 87 indy 500

[pyalot]

I identified the problem. They drove into the wall. Dont do that and youll be fine.