Rodger M. Ward (January 10, 1921 – July 5, 2004) was a World War II P-38 aviator in the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

, and an American

race driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

with 26 victories in top echelon open-wheel racing in North America, two

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

victories, and two USAC National Championships, who conceived the classic tri-oval design and layout of

Pocono International Raceway Pocono Raceway (formerly Pocono International Raceway), also known as ''The Tricky Triangle'', is a superspeedway located in the Pocono Mountains in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. It is the site of three NASCAR national series races and an ARCA M ...

, modeled after his three favorite signature turns, at Trenton,

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

and

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...

Early history

Ward was born in

Beloit, Kansas Beloit is a city in and the county seat of Mitchell County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 3,404. History On permanent organization of the county in 1870, Beloit was selected as the county seat ...

, the son of Ralph and Geneva (née Banta) Ward. By 1930, the family had moved to California. He died in

Anaheim, California Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most ...

. Ward's father owned an auto wrecking business in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

. Rodger was 14 years old when he built a Ford hot rod. He was a

P-38 Lightning The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin piston-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive ...

fighter pilot in World War II. He enjoyed flying so much he thought of making it his career. He began to fly

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

and was so good he was retained as an instructor. After the war he was stationed in

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accord ...

when a quarter mile dirt track was built.Biography
at the

West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame The West Coast Stock Car Hall Of Fame is a Hall of Fame for people associated with late-model stock car racing on the West Coast of the United States. Many NASCAR Grand National Division, West Series champions are inducted in the Hall of Fame. The ...

, written in 2003, Retrieved November 13, 2007

Midget car racing

He began racing

midget cars Midget (from '' midge'', a tiny biting insect) is a term for a person of unusually short stature that is considered by some to be pejorative due to its etymology. While not a medical term like " dwarfism", a medical condition with a number of ...

in 1946 after he was discharged from the Army. He finished poorly. His skills improved in 1947 and by 1948 he won the San Diego Grand Prix. He raced in an

Offenhauser The Offenhauser Racing Engine, or Offy, is a racing engine design that dominated American open wheel racing for more than 50 years and is still popular among vintage sprint and midget car racers. History The Offenhauser engine, familiarly ...

in 1949 and won several races. Ward shocked the

midget car racing Midget cars, also speedcars in Australia, is a class of racing cars. The cars are very small with a very high power-to-weight ratio and typically use four cylinder engines. They originated in the United States in the 1930s and are raced on mos ...

world when he broke Offenhauser motor's long winning streak by using

Vic Edelbrock Otis Victor Edelbrock, Sr. (August 16, 1913 – November 11, 1962) was an American automotive aftermarket performance parts engineer, racer and is considered one of the founders of the American hot rod movement Victor, known as "Vic", establis ...

's Ford 60 "shaker" motor at Gilmore Stadium on August 10, 1950.Vic Edelbrock's Biography
at the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame, Retrieved January 11, 2007 The motor was one of the first to feature

nitromethane Nitromethane, sometimes shortened to simply "nitro", is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest organic nitro compound. It is a polar liquid commonly used as a solvent in a variety of industrial applications such as in ...

for fuel. Ward and Edelbrock went to the Orange Show Stadium the following night and won again. Ward drove Ken Brenn's Offy midget July 25,1959 to beat the top expensive and exotic sports cars in a Formula Libre race at Lime Rock Park.Biography
at the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame (name is spelled incorrectly), Retrieved January 11, 2007 Midget cars were normally considered competitive for

oval track Oval track racing is a form of closed-circuit motorsport that is contested on an oval-shaped race track. An oval track differs from a road course in that the layout resembles an oval with turns in only one direction, and the direction of traff ...

s only before that time. Later that year, Ward entered the United States Grand Prix for Formula One cars with the midget car, under the false belief that it was much quicker through the turns, a fact he found not true at the beginning of practice. He eventually retired from the race after twenty laps with a mechanical failure.

Championship cars

He won the 1951 AAA Stock Car (later USAC Stock Car) championship. The championship gave him an opportunity for a rookie test at the 1951 Indianapolis 500. He passed the test and qualified for the race. He finished 34 laps before his car suffered a broken oil line. He finished 130 laps in the

1952 Indianapolis 500 The 36th International 500-Mile Sweepstakes was a motor race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday, May 30, 1952. It was the opening race of the 1952 AAA National Championship Trail and was also race 2 of 8 in the 1952 World Championsh ...

before the oil pressure failed. His 1953 Indianapolis 500 ended after 170 laps, and his

1954 Indianapolis 500 The 38th International 500-Mile Sweepstakes was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Monday, May 31, 1954. The event was part of the 1954 AAA National Championship Trail, and was also race 2 of 9 in the 1954 World Championship of Drivers. T ...

ended after his car stalled on the backstretch. He completed all of the laps for the first time in

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are kille ...

, finishing eighth. In

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

he joined the Leader Card Racers team with owner Bob Wilke and mechanic

A. J. Watson A. J. Watson (May 8, 1924 – May 12, 2014) was a car builder and chief mechanic from 1949 through 1984 in the Indianapolis 500, winning the race six times as a car builder. Rodger Ward won 18 races driving Watson cars. A native of southern Ca ...

; forming what was known as the "3 W's". Ward won his first Indianapolis 500. He won the USAC National Championship with victories at

, DuQuoin and the Indy Fairgrounds. His 1959 season ended by competing in the only

United States Grand Prix The United States Grand Prix is a motor racing event that has been held on and off since 1908, when it was known as the American Grand Prize. The Grand Prix later became part of the Formula One World Championship. , the Grand Prix has been held ...

held at

Sebring Raceway Sebring International Raceway is a road course auto racing facility in the southeastern United States, located near Sebring, Florida. Sebring Raceway is one of the oldest continuously operating race tracks in the U.S., its first race being run ...

Ward battled Jim Rathmann for the lead in the 1960 Indianapolis 500. In one of the epic duels in Indy 500 history, Ward and Rathmann exchanged the lead 14 times before Ward slowed on lap 197 to nurse his frayed right front tire to the finish. Rathmann, also struggling with worn-out tires after such a furious pace, took the lead on lap 197 and the two drivers limped home in what is still regarded as one of the greatest duels for the win in Indianapolis 500 history. Ward took the lead at the 1962 Indianapolis 500 at lap 126 and led the rest of the race. He also won the season championship that year. In the midst of the Lotus-Ford rear-engine invasion in 1964, car owner/chief mechanic A.J. Watson built the first rear-engined Watson, mated to the four-cam Ford. But the night before the 1964 Indianapolis 500, Ward and Watson made a highly uncharacteristic strategic error. Going against the strong recommendation (read: orders) from Ford to use gasoline fuel instead of the cooler-burning but more powerful methanol/gasoline. The car was fast, but the jetting mistake left Ward having to pit every 20 laps for fuel. Later Ward calculated that he had spent two minutes less on the track than winner A.J. Foyt, yet only lost the race by approximately 1 minute. In addition, the horrific second-lap accident, in which his friends Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs both perished in a fiery, gasoline-fueled wreck, left an indelible impression on Ward. After a difficult month of May, 1965, Ward suffered the embarrassment of failing to qualify. Ward left the Leader Card team mid-season and joined Mecom Racing team owned by John W. Mecom Jr. In 1966 Ward won the second race of the season at Trenton driving a supercharged Offy powered Lola. For his Indianapolis 500 effort Ward drove the same car but retired while running 15th with handling problems listed as the cause. The fact that late race attrition reduced the race to only five cars would have provided him a good finish as long as he was running and in fact he had been faster than the winner. Ward had parked a running car 74 laps into the race and was considering his future. At the banquet, Ward stood at the podium and made a painful announcement to the crowd: "I always said I'd quit racing when it stopped being fun," he said. He paused as he wiped away tears. "Today it wasn't fun anymore." He had 26 victories in his 150 starts between 1950 and 1966, and he finished in the top ten in more than half of his starts.

After retirement

Ward retired to be a commentator for ABC's ''Wide World of Sports'' for NASCAR and Indycars from 1965 to 1970. From 1980-1985, he served as a driver expert for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network, before retiring in Tustin, California. With the help of the Mattioli Family, Ward helped design the

Pocono Raceway Pocono Raceway (formerly Pocono International Raceway), also known as ''The Tricky Triangle'', is a superspeedway located in the Pocono Mountains in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. It is the site of three NASCAR national series races and an AR ...

in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. A unique course that resulted in a triangle shape, he designed the track after three corners of tracks he liked to race at, Trenton, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee. The track is still popular today. In later years, he served as public relations director for the new Ontario Motor Speedway, and later managed the Circus Circus unlimited hydroplane team. He died on July 5, 2004, aged 83.

Awards

*In 1992, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. *He was inducted in the

Motorsports Hall of Fame of America The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (MSHFA) is hall of fame that honors motorsports competitors and contributors from the United States from all disciplines, with categories for Open Wheel, Stock Cars, Powerboats, Drag Racing, Motorcycle ...

Rodger Ward
at the

in 1995. *Ward was inducted in the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1995. *Ward is a member of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame. *He was inducted in the

in 2003.

Complete AAA/USAC Championship Car results

Indianapolis 500 results

*Ward's finishes from 1959 to 1963 and 1960 to 1964 rank as the best and second best five-race finishing streaks in Indianapolis 500 history.

World Championship career summary

The Indianapolis 500 was part of the FIA World Championship from 1950 through 1960. Drivers competing at Indy during those years were credited with World Championship points and participation. Rodger Ward participated in 12 World Championship races, including 10 starts at Indy along with the 1959 United States Grand Prix and the 1963 United States Grand Prix. He won 1 race and finished on the podium twice. He accumulated a total of 14 championship points.

Complete Formula One World Championship results

( key)

References

External links

The Greatest 33
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Rodger 1921 births 2004 deaths American Formula One drivers American World War II fighter pilots Reg Parnell Racing Formula One drivers Champ Car champions Champ Car drivers Indianapolis 500 drivers Indianapolis 500 winners International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees Motorsport announcers People from Beloit, Kansas Racing drivers from Kansas AAA Championship Car drivers World Sportscar Championship drivers United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II United States Army Air Forces officers Formula One race winners USAC Stock Car drivers Carrera Panamericana drivers