Word: bettenhausen
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Dates: during 1951-1951
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...race track, assessing its surface with an expert eye, calculating the bank of its curves. He made a mental note of every hole and soft spot, the oil slicks, the mud clods that could jar a hot rubber tire whirling along at more than 100 m.p.h. Melvin E. ("Tony") Bettenhausen, the year's hottest U.S. driver, and possibly the best since Ralph de Palma, 35 years ago, was planning how to drive a race...
...Tony Bettenhausen, who was born the year after De Palma won the Indianapolis Speedway classic in 1915, is becoming something of a classic himself. By last week, he was well on his way to winning U.S. racing's most coveted trophy: the national championship diamond ring awarded annually by the American Automobile Association for the series of races (13 this year) that begins at Indianapolis and will wind up on Armistice...
...Steered." Bettenhausen got off to a bad start this year at Indianapolis, where he finished ninth. But when Indianapolis Winner Lee Wallard was cracked up in a race-track smash, Tony took over the winning car, a big, blue-and-gold racer owned by Murrell Belanger, a Crown Point, Ind. car dealer. Tony, who has an auto agency of his own in Blue Island, ILL., gives due credit to Owner Belanger: "You've got to have a man with money, a good car the money's being spent on." Tony knows that a winning driver also needs...
...race in Springfield, ILL. last August, he gave a demonstration of how such teamwork pays off. The track was soft and spongy as the qualifying runs began, so Bettenhausen, like his rivals, had geared his car low to reduce skidding. But when he finally made his own run the surface had turned clay-hard. Tony had Mechanic Tiny Worley hike his gear ratio for the fast track. When the starting flag dropped, he roared away from his lower-geared competition, won the event going away...
...Tony Bettenhausen, driving the 330-h.p. Belanger Special that won the Memorial Day race at the Indianapolis Speedway (TIME, June11), the 100-mile A.A.A. national championship auto race; in Milwaukee...