Drivers

Rodger Ward

This USAC star won the 1959 Indianapolis 500 and then decided that a Kurtis Kraft sprint car would be the ideal tool for the 1959 US Grand Prix at Sebring. This turned out to be something of a tactical misjudgment as he qualified slowest, some 43 seconds away from Stirling Moss's pole position Cooper. In the aftermath of this event, Ward urged John Cooper to come to Indianapolis, laying the seed of Jack Brabham's 1961 assault on America's most famous motor race. By the time Ward had his second Formula 1 outing, with a Lotus-BRM at Watkins Glen in 1963, the day of the front-engined Indianapolis roadster was all but over.