05/04/2026
This was a sad moment at Indy.
Jim Hurtubise was a much beloved figure, but this really tarnished his legacy. It could have been handled much better on both ends. Herk was right in saying that there was no written rule about being able to run a certain speed in order to make an attempt. Of course, he knew he didn't have a prayer of making the actual field. He'd run 175 and Jerry Sneva ended up being the slowest qualifier at 187. HOWEVER - it would have been much smarter, and more time efficient, to let Herk make his run, do his 175, be in the show for a minute or two, and then let him get bumped out. THEN, later, make a rule in writing that said that officials had the right to disallow qualifying attempts based on practice speeds. That would have taken a lot less time and created a lot less bad will on each side. Herk just wanted to make a run to get his sponsors a little TV time. He would have likely waved off after 2-3 laps, and it wouldn't have hurt anything to give him the track time.
Herk had been brewing some bad blood with USAC for years, though. In '72, Herk entered a '71 Coyote (conventional rear engine car) and the Mallard. He qualified the Coyote handily on the first weekend, starting 13th. He also kept practicing the Mallard, and had it into the high 170s during the second week, and gossip was that he was going to withdraw the Coyote and attempt to qualify the Mallard. He put the Mallard into line on bump day and kept waving people around. This was the year that he opened the hood on the Mallard when the gun went off at the end of the day and there was no engine in it - only a beer cooler, which was emptied by the people on Pit Road. USAC was not amused at this stunt.
On Race Day 1972, by midrace, Herk had the Coyote into 5th and then ran out of fuel on the backstretch. He got a tow, but the IMS safety crew towed him to the pits through the infield, rather than around the track, and USAC DQ'd him. There was always talk that IMS officials directed the crew to tow him through the infield instead of around the track so that he could be DQ'd. Both Herk and USAC held grudges over the events of that day. It's a shame - had he not run out of fuel, given the craziness of the later laps of that race (Gary Bettenhausen dropping out and Jerry Grant getting DQ'd for fueling from Unser's fuel rig), Herk was looking at a very good finish, and that might have changed the course of his career. He ran the '73 500 in a Lola and the '74 500 in a McLaren, but after that was just locked in on the Mallard.
One more thought here. The "conventional wisdom" was that Hurtubise couldn't drive the rear engine cars, and that's hogwash. The year after his near-fatal crash at Milwaukee, he had some very competitive runs in RE cars, including a 2nd at Trenton. He won several USAC Stock Car races and the '66 Atlanta 500, and there was every indication that by the end of 1966, he was all the way back. Then, in 1967, he built the Mallard, and it became something of an obsession. The good rides dried up - not just in Indy cars, but in stock cars as well. Were it not for that obsession with the Mallard, I think Herk might have had 10 more good years - either in USAC, in NASCAR, or both.
14 likes, 3 comments. "Jim Hurtubise Runs Onto Track After Dispute With Officials (1978 Indianapolis 500 Bump Day)"
