The 48th International 500-Mile Sweepstakes was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Saturday, May 30, 1964. The race was won by A. J. Foyt, but is primarily remembered for a fiery seven-car accident which resulted in the deaths of racers Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. It is also the last race won by a front-engined "roadster", as all subsequent races have been won by rear-engined, formula-style cars. It was Foyt's second of four Indy 500 victories.
Jim Clark, who finished second the previous year, won the pole position[3] in the Lotus 34 quad-cam Ford V-8. He took the lead at the start, and led for a total of 14 laps. However, a tire failure caused a broken suspension, and he dropped out on lap 47.[4] Team manager Colin Chapman had chosen special soft-compound Dunlop tires for qualifying, and the rules dictated that the same type of tires be used for the race, where they suffered from a high wear rate. Clark's Lotus teammate Dan Gurney was later pulled from the race after experiencing similar tire wear.
Bobby Marshman led during the early stages of the race, at one point stretching his lead to as much as 90 seconds.[5] During his aggressive charge in front, he became uncharacteristically obsessed with putting A. J. Foyt a lap down.[6] On lap 39, he went too low in turn one, bottoming out the car, and dropped out with a broken transmission oil plug. Defending race champion Parnelli Jones later dropped out after a his car caught fire after he exited his pit box, crashing it into the outside pit wall. With Marshman, Clark, and Jones all out of the race, A. J. Foyt cruised to victory, leading the final 146 laps.
Race winner Foyt drove the whole 500 miles without changing tires.[7] Goodyear supplied tires for some entries, but participated only in practice. No cars used Goodyear tires during the race itself. Foyt's 1964 winning car remains the only car in the collection of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame and Museum, regularly on display, that has never been restored to pre race condition.
^ abFox, Jack C. (1994). The Illustrated History of the Indianapolis 500 1911-1994 (4th ed.). Carl Hungness Publishing. p. 22. ISBN 0-915088-05-3.
^Collins, Bob (May 31, 1964). "Sachs, MacDonald Die In Race Car Inferno". The Indianapolis Star. p. 1. Retrieved June 2, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^Setright, L.J.K. "Lotus: The Golden Mean", in Northey, Tom, ed. The World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Volume 11, p.1232.
^Setright, p.1232.
^2002 Indianapolis 500 Record Book
^"Heroes of the 500 - The 1964 Indianapolis 500" WFNI, May 2014
^The Talk of Gasoline Alley - 1070-AM WIBC, May 28, 2004
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