Indy 500 and USAC racing 1975

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AJ Foyt in the Coyote at Milwaukee in 1975. Copyright Glenn Snyder 2009. Used with permission.

Indy 500 and USAC racing 1975

AJ Foyt took further advantage of USAC's boost rules in 1975 and his Coyote, the sole car powered by the Ford-designed quad cam engine, dominated the season.

McLaren built a further evolution of their M16 series, the M16E being driven by Johnny Rutherford to second place in the title race - again - but no new Eagles were built for 1975 and this started a rethink in many team owners' minds about building their own cars. Lindsey Hopkins had already built his own car in 1974, another Bob Riley design on similar lines to the Coyote, but the Silver Floss Sauerkraut Special did not prove competitive. Despite this, George Bignotti at Patrick Racing asked Riley to build a third Indy design, to be known as the Wildcat Mk I, for regular drivers Gordon Johncock and Wally Dallenbach. It was equipped with the new Bignotti-inspired DGS engine, an evolution of the ancient Offy turbo. Parnelli had moved up to Formula 1 but were running a 1974 Eagle for Al Unser and also exploring their own new engine, a turbo-charged version of the Formula 1 Cosworth DFV. Unser gave this engine its debut in the back of a new Parnelli VPJ6 before the end of the season.

Also running competitive cars in 1975 were Penske (Norton Spirit McLarens), AAR (Jorgensen Steel Eagles), Jerry O'Connell (Sugaripe Prune Eagles) and Bob Fletcher (Cobre Tire Eagles); all using 1974 cars.

The races

02 Mar 1975 > California 500 Qualification Heat 1 at Ontario Motor Speedway

02 Mar 1975 > California 500 Qualification Heat 2 at Ontario Motor Speedway

09 Mar 1975 > California 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway

16 Mar 1975 > Phoenix 150 at Phoenix International Raceway

06 Apr 1975 > Trentonian 200 at Trenton International Speedway

25 May 1975 > Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

08 Jun 1975 > Rex Mays Classic at Milwaukee Mile

29 Jun 1975 > Pocono 500 at Pocono International Raceway

20 Jul 1975 > Michigan 200 at Michigan International Speedway

17 Aug 1975 > Tony Bettenhausen 200 at Milwaukee Mile

13 Sep 1975 > Michigan 150 at Michigan International Speedway

21 Sep 1975 > Trenton Times 200 at Trenton International Speedway

09 Nov 1975 > Phoenix 150 at Phoenix International Raceway

1975 USAC National Championship table

1	AJ Foyt	Coyote 74 - Foyt turbo Coyote 75 - Foyt turbo	4920 pts	7 wins
2	Johnny Rutherford	McLaren M16E - Offy 159 ci turbo	2900 pts	1 win
3	Bobby Unser	Eagle 74 - Offy 159 ci turbo	2480 pts	1 win
4	Wally Dallenbach	Eagle 74 - Offy 159 ci turbo Wildcat Mk 1 - DGS 158ci turbo	2305 pts	1 win
5	Billy Vukovich	Eagle 74 - Offy 159 ci turbo	2080 pts	0 wins

Points table by Phil Harms.

Indy seasons

The Cars of 1975

The main Indy designs for 1975 were:

Coyote IV (1973-78)
Eagle 74
McLaren M16E
Parnelli VPJ-6/VPJ6B
Wildcat Mk 1 (1975)

Indy sections

The research

The results in this section are based on the ground-breaking research performed by the late, and much-missed, Phil Harms. This data was kindly made available by Michael Ferner who has added much new information. Since then, a group of researchers has worked on identifying the exact racing history of each car that took part, a mammoth task only made possibly by collecting photographs of every car at every race, an ongoing project. Simmo Iskül, Michael Ferner, 'gbl', Gerry Measures and Luis Mateus have played a major part in this research, and we have been helped by a large number of car owners, restorers and other researchers.

There was an aggregate total of 2,663 race starts at the Indy races held between 1971 and 1978. Histories of the cars responsible for 1,840 (69%) of those starts have been published so far, leaving 823 (31%) still to complete. The main models still to be published are Cicada 72 (11 race starts between 1971 and 1978), Colt 71 (12), Coyote 66-70 (15), Eagle 74 (307), Eagle 78 (12), Lola T150 (12), Lola T500 (16), McLaren M16/A (67), McLaren M16B (85), Mongoose 70 and 71 (37), Parnelli VPJ-1 (26), Parnelli VPJ2 (49), Parnelli VPJ6/VPJ6B/VPJ6C (61), Penske PC6 (37), Scorpion 70/71 (17) and Vollstedt 77 (17).

All comments, clarifications, corrections, additions (and photographs!) are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you have any additions, corrections or comments.