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Bobby Unser won the Indiana State Century for USAC late model stock cars at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. - Doug Dempsey Collection
Indianapolis, Ind. (August 29, 1971) – Sports fans of the Indiana capital, where pro wrestling regularly fills a big coliseum, also demand heroes and villains in their auto racing, especially the fender-banging State Fair Century.
They had both Sunday when popular Bobby Unser, Albuquerque, N.M., won $7,300 of a record $24,737 purse rather easily.
They lost their favorite villain, Don white, with a blown engine in practice for the 100-mile United States Auto Club stock car event Sunday. He once tangled with Bobby’s bother Al on the same track and local speed buffs never forgave him.
They picked up a new unwilling target for their hoots, Les Snow of Bloomington, Ill., in a chain reaction wreck that involved most of the 36 starters and bashed four cars beyond repair.
Snow made the mistake of tangling with Texan A.J. Foyt, a prime Indianapolis favorite and three-time winner of the 500-mile race across town at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
On the 71st lap, with Bobby Unser and Roger McCluskey running one-two, Foyt challenged Snow for third place in the first turn. Following cars looped all over the track and a dozen or so were battered to various degrees.
Foyt said Snow, “shut the door on me,” that is, cut him off.
The two drivers argued angrily at the start/finish line for the third restart of the race while the crowd booed snow and cheered Foyt.
Snow said Foyt yelled at him for not yielding him any room. “He said I didn’t show him enough courtesy, so he ran over me,” Snow said. “I’m not going to mover for him or anyone else. He was behind me when we entered the turn.”
Tiny Lund, a product of NASCAR’s southern tracks, might have earned the Hoosier crowd’s displeasure if they had heard him talking after the race.
Foyt won the pole position and led the first 26 miles. Lund wheeled his Dodge ahead of Foyt’s Torino on the 27th mile – and led the next 10 laps. Then Snow went ahead and led 10 laps until Unser took over on the 58th mile in a flurry of pit stops and led comfortably the rest of the way.
Lund’s engine went sour, and he pulled into the pits to have it fixed. USAC officials told him that constituted leaving the race and he was done for the afternoon.
“That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve heard of,” Lund fumed. “What do they want us to do, repair the car on the track and get ourselves killed? In the south, if you try and work on your car on the track, you’re done.”
The race was interrupted twice for repairs on the training wall before the Foyt-Snow argument. Leonard Blanchard, Louisville, Ky., wiped out part of the inner wall on the eighth mile after bending one of Snow’s fenders.
Results -
1. Bobby Unser
2. Roger McCluskey
3. A.J. Foyt
4. Bobby Allison
5. Butch Hartman
6. Bay Darnell
7. Dave Whitcomb
8. Sal Tovella
9. Les Snow
10.Dick Trickle
11.Bill Moyer
12.Larry Berwanger
13.Ted Dolhun
14.Ron North
15.Lefty Robinson
16.Darwin Sandstrom
17.Joe Booher
18.Dick Beinlich
19.Paul Sizemore
20.Rich Oertel
21.George Giesen
22.Harold Fair
23.Paul Feldner
24.Mark Dinsmore
25.Denny Wilson
26.Woody Walcher
27.Verlin Eaker
28.Bobby Wawak
29.Larry Cannon
30.George Rondelli
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