Jim Hurtubise was the man who warned them all. He set a four-lap qualifying average of 149.056mph on the fourth day of time trials for the 1960 Indianapolis 500 – a new record and about 2.5mph faster than Eddie Sachs’s polewinning average from a week earlier. Then he informed anyone who’d listen that there was someone even better coming soon…
That man was Rufus Parnell Jones. And if the fans weren’t so familiar with his name – switched long ago to ‘Parnelli Jones’ – the Indy drivers who also raced in sprint cars knew him, because he was already one of the toughest nuts to crack. And he was backed by the first believer who could make a real difference in his career, and who was as ambitious as Jones himself: Los Angeles businessman Vel Miletich.
