From 1955 to 1963, the name “A.J. Watson” signified a mastery of Indy Car design and development that set a new bar for the finest and fastest Indy Cars of the “roadster” era. The superior performance of Watson front-engine oval track racecars superseded the previous late-1940s-to-early-1950s dominance of Kurtis-Kraft roadsters, and remained supreme until the full impact of European-style rear-engine cars took effect in the 1963-65 time period. Watson’s storied achievements were most visible at the legendary Indianapolis 500, where his cars won six times, loaded the grid and finished up front in countless instances.
1955-1964 time period, due A.J. Watson’s split from car owner John Zink and adjoinment with Bob Wilke of Leadercard Racers, creating what became the “WWW” [Watson/Wilke/Ward] juggernaut. Initial driver of the Watson-built McNamara Special, Dick Rathmann, sped the new McNamara Indy Car to pole position for the ‘58 Indy 500.
One A.J. Watson Indy Roadster, the 1958 McNamara Chiropractic Special, changed the course of Indianapolis racing history, even though prevented from completing the first lap of its inaugural Indy 500.
After joining forces with ambitious race team owner John Zink in early 1955, Watson and Zink won the 1955 Indy 500 and also the USAC Indy Car Championship that same year. After winning Indy again in 1956 with a new A.J. Watson car, the Zink team was also successful the following year but missed a win in ’57. Determined to win the Indianapolis 500 again for 1958, John Zink had Watson design and build two top-flight cars for two of the best drivers in the game, Ed Elysian and Jimmy Reece.
Simultaneously, A.J. Watson struck a special arrangement with John Zink to build his own Indy Car with his own resources, on his own private time. As history records it, Zink was okay with this scenario as long as it didn’t interrupt the race preparation schedule and winning objectives of the John Zink Indy Car team objectives.
In late April 1958, after the build of A.J.’s new independent Indy roadster was completed, the car was transported to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, on the off-chance that it might find a buyer for the 1958 Indy 500. Sure enough, A.J. found an interested party in one Lee Elkins, shortly before the beginning of qualifying for the 1958 Indy 500 in mid-May. Elkins, owner of the McNamara Freight Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, purchased the new Watson Indy car with no engine. But after quickly acquiring a competitive Offenhauser power-plant and adding the special skills of his McNamara crew chief Floyd Trevis, the new Watson roadster was rapidly assembled and race prepped. It was then handed over to veteran driver Dick Rathmann, who shocked competitors by qualifying the car on the pole at 145.974 mph for the 1958 Indianapolis 500!
According to mechanic Bob DeBishop who witnessed subsequent events, Rathmann’s qualifying success with the new McNamara car was met with goading and needling from Zink’s fastest driver, Ed Elisian. Owing to Elisian’s taunts, practice sessions preceding 1958 Indy qualifying reportedly became duels between Elisian and Rathmann, with Elisian setting fastest single-lap time but Rathmann producing the best 4-lap time, capturing the pole position.
John Zink was angered because for A.J. Watson’s independent project car to qualify on the Indy 500 pole was an embarrassment to Zink and his team, who had intended to dominate. Worse, Ed Elisian continued to needle driver Dick Rathmann all the way to race day, insisting that he would lead the first lap.
Ed Elisian collision with Dick Rathmann in Turn 3 of the first lap caused a 16-car accident, eliminating the McNamara and both front row John Zink cars of Elisian and Reece. Tragically, driver Pat O’Connor was killed.
The start of the 1958 Indy 500 saw Rathmann in the McNamara lead into Turn 1 and through Turn 2, but with the field charging down the long backstretch Elisian pulled alongside Rathmann on the inside and gained a slight lead. Determined to be top-dog on the first lap, Elisian overpowered into Turn 3, losing control and spinning into Rathmann which slammed the McNamara into the wall and knocked out both front-running Zink team cars. This tragically triggered a 16-car chain reaction of collisions behind Elisian, causing Jerry Unser to go over the wall, several smash-ups and driver Pat O’Connor’s car to rollover and explode into flames, killing him instantly.
Miraculously, all fifteen other drivers survived, some with injuries, including Rathmann, but the McNamara car was virtually torn in half. Its illustrious Indy pole-setting accomplishment was forever star-crossed by a reckless act on the first lap of the 1958 Indianapolis 500. The pile-up ruined the chances of John Zink’s 2nd and 3rd place qualifying cars (Ed Elisian and Jimmy Reece), both top-flight drivers in state-of-the-art Watson roadsters.
Blaming the mishap on the competitiveness of A.J. Watson’s part-time Indy Car project [the McNamara] Zink was enraged and severed his relationship with Watson. Soon after, A.J. Watson teamed-up with veteran Bob Wilke who formed Leader Card Racers in early 1959. Ironically, the Watson-Wilke relationship produced a 1959 Indy 500 win, three more Indianapolis victories, a USAC Indy Car Championship and countless racing successes over the next ten years. Looking back, it was the A.J. Watson McNamara Chiropractic Special that inadvertently forged what became the juggernaut of Watson/Wilkie and thus launched the dominance of A.J. Watson Indy roadsters for the next half-decade.
Epilogue
Aftermath of the multi-car crash shows two cars basically split in halves. One of those cars, the McNamara, can be seen in the upper middle of the photo; #97.
Incredibly, the multi-car first lap accident at Indy ‘58 was only the beginning for the McNamara Special. The car was revived for the 1959 Indy 500, carrying driver Dick Rathmann to 4th in qualifying, but a pit fire during the race dropped the car to 20th in that year’s final results. For 1960, new owner Jim Robbins entered the car as the #97, painted in silver livery. Driver Rathmann achieved a 4th-place qualifying position again for the 1960 Indy 500, only to drop out of the race with a brake line failure.
In 1961 came a 6th-place qualifying spot and 13th-place finishing position, once again with driver Dick Rathmann. Robbins campaigned the car one more time in 1962, this time as #91 with maroon and white-trim livery. Veteran driver Jim Hurtubise qualified the car 29th and finished a highly respectable 13th in the Indy 500 at a time when newer rear-engine cars were becoming dominant.
In ’62 Jim Robbins sold the #91 to Jack Conley, a super-modified and USAC Champ Car driver, who converted the car into a Modified class racecar. In this configuration the car was soldiered on for nearly ten more years, until it was retired in 1971.
In 1981, Jack Layton from Torch Lakes and Howell, Michigan, purchased this venerable racecar and restored it to its original 1958 silver livery. Later, in 1990 Jack repainted the car to the specification of its 1959 Indy 500 color scheme, the maroon and gold McNamara Chiropractic livery. In the 1992-1993 period Layton sold the car to Lowell Blossom of Charlevoix, Michigan.
In January 2005, Tom Malloy purchased the Watson McNamara Special, chassis #4 roadster from Lowell Blossom and undertook its complete restoration, retaining its 1959 Indy 500 colors of maroon and gold, as the #73 McNamara Chiropractic Special.
