And, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500 which is being raced this weekend on Sunday, May 29th, I'm profiling the man who is probably our most famous American “Ritterhouse”: Troy Ruttman. In 1952, at the age of 22, he became the youngest winner ever in the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” – the Indy 500 – a record that stands to this day. He won it the year I was born (in fact a week after I was born) on May 31, 1952.Troy was born March 11, 1930 in Mooreland, Oklahoma, the son of Ralph "Butch" Ruttman and Mary Ellen Ritterhouse. Mary was the daughter of George and Cora (Tyner Shipman) Ritterhouse. George was one of William and Rosena's sons who went to Oklahoma in the early 1890s. He settled in the Mutual, Oklahoma area in Woodward County (in the panhandle). Ralph grew up in Mooreland, Oklahoma, not far from where Mary's older brother, Lloyd George, was living in 1920. According to one online site (The Autosport Bulletin Board), Ralph "was an unsuccessful racer in Oklahoma in the twenties and the thirties, and with his family moved to California in the forties to find his luck". He apparently was a fine mechanic, though, and served as chief mechanic for several successful open wheel racers.
Troy began his driving “career” at the age of 9 when he received his first traffic ticket, having volunteered to drive his mother to visit a friend. At 15, he raced "jalopies" in Los Angeles backyards. According to his Wikipedia article, he entered his family car in a roadster race at San Bernardino, California in 1945 (when he was 15) and won the race. He reportedly went on to win 19 of the 21 events staged there that season. At 16 he was racing track roadsters at Carrell Speedway in Gardena, California and at 17 he graduated to WRA (Western Racing Association) "Class B" Sprint Cars. By 1947, he was the California Roadster Association roadster champion. He also won his first five midget car races that season. The next year he again won the CRA championship, along with the United Racing Association Blue Circuit championship and 23 midget car events. In 1949, Troy left California for the AAA Sprint and Championship car circuits of the Midwest. His New York Times obituary (published May 21, 1997) reported that Troy "first raced at the so-called Brickyard in 1949 at 19, two years younger than Indianapolis Motor Speedway rules allowed. 'I had to fudge to get in,' Ruttman recalled years later. 'I had to produce a birth certificate. Ralph Wayne Ruttman was my cousin, and I used his. They asked me why I went by Troy and I told them it was a nickname. I corrected it when I turned 21.'"
In the 1952 Indy race, after qualifying seventh, Ruttman led 40 laps in mid race and was steadily closing on leader Bill Vukovich. He took the lead 20 miles from the finish when Vukovich's car had a broken steering pin. His victory came while driving one of the famous red and cream No. 98 cars entered by J.C. Agajanian, a Southern California race promoter. He also set a new record at 128.922 miles per hour in that race. “A towering figure at 6 foot, 3 inches and 250 pounds, he undoubtedly was the biggest winner, too,” writes Shav Glick in Ruttman's Motorsports Hall of Fame profile. He won five times in the AAA and USAC Indy Champ Car competition in 58 official starts. He won only one more Indy car race, a month after the 500, before breaking his arm severely in a sprint car accident in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which kept him away from racing for nearly two years.
Troy Ruttman competed in numerous Indianapolis 500 races from 1949 to 1964. In 1958, he became the first Indy 500 winner to drive in a Formula One race when he drove at Reims, France.
According to racing historian Terry Reed, Troy is “arguably America’s greatest automobile racing talent.” But, Troy admitted that his winning the 500 at 22 was “a classic case of too much, too soon.” One online source argues that Ruttman could have been a contender on the Formula 1 race circuit if it hadn't been for the "petty pace lap crash" at Cedar Rapids on August 17 in 1952. Before the accident, he qualified fastest for 40 events, against only two after 1952. From 1949 to 1952, in just four years, he won 49 "AAA Big Car races" and finished second in most other races in which he finished. After his accident, he never won again. Instead of undergoing strenuous rehabilitation following his arm injury, he spent his time, in his own words, "Drinking, playing cards and chasing women."
After driving in his 12th 500, in 1964, he abruptly retired. He was only 34. In hia words, "I want to walk out of it alive with my head up." He said he felt racing had been good to him but "every time I sit down in a race car death is sitting right beside me." He had been injured seriously several times and narrowly escaped death in that year's Indianapolis 500 in which one of his closest friends, Detroiter Eddie Sachs was killed. Troy had been running alongside Sachs when the fatal crash occurred. Sadly, it was Troy's son, Troy Ruttman, Jr., who lost his life racing. Young Ruttman's race car went through a guard rail and chain link fence at Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, in May of 1969. He was only 19 years old.
Handsome, personable and gregarious, Troy Ruttman was a natural salesman and built a thriving motorcycle and snowmobile business in Detroit. Later, Troy learned to fly, moved to Venice, Florida, and ran an aircraft brokerage business. More significantly, he quit the fast life that he'd known since he was a teenager. "I'm more proud of giving up drinking and gambling and all that other stuff than I am of winning the 500," he said a few years before he died of lung cancer on May 19, 1997. He was living in Lake Havasu City, Arizona at the time.
Troy’s younger brother Joe (born October 28, 1944) followed his big brother’s car tracks into the world of automobile racing, but that's another blog post!
