Doyel: An Indy 500 tradition dating to 1933 died this year
This started in 1933. Back then they were racing around Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Duesenbergs, and Louis Meyer won the Indy 500 with an average speed of 104 mph. Bob Clidinst Sr. was a mechanic that year for Shorty Cantlon.
This continued in 1934, and 1935, and … well, let's save ourselves some time here, OK? This continued every year. It continued in 1946, when they were racing around IMS in Maseratis and George Robson won with an average speed of 114 mph. Bob Clidinst Sr. was in the garage and his son, Bobby Jr., was in an aunt's house in the 2200 block of Georgetown Road, across the street from the Speedway – literally, across the street – hearing the RPM's and screeching to his aunt that he should be there.
This continued in 1961. Back then they were racing around IMS in Watson and Epperly roadsters, and A.J. Foyt won with an average speed of 139 mph. Bob Sr. was in the garage, wrenching for Bobby Marshman. So was Bobby Jr. He was a mechanic, same as his old man.
For years it went, the cars getting faster. Bob Clidinst Sr. was in the garage from 1933-61 until he retired with diabetes and heart trouble. Bobby Jr. was in the garage for five years in the '60s, then moved onto the track where he was a spotter, then helping relay statistics to the press box, then filling whatever small hole he could spackle, leaving behind his day job as a draftsman and reporting every May to IMS.
This continued in 2014. Last year they raced around IMS in Dallara bodywork, and Ryan Hunter-Reay won with an average speed of 186 mph. Bobby Clidinst Jr. was in the press room, until they made him go home. For years he'd been fighting a losing battle with his lungs – but still he came to the track, to the press room. Every day. With COPD.
"We had to send him home last year," says IMS media relations manager Suzi Elliott. "He just couldn't breathe."
Soon Bobby Clidinst Jr. was lugging around an oxygen tank and the suspicion he wouldn't live long enough to attend the 2015 Indy 500 on May 24.
And so it ended at 5:18 p.m. on March 10 – 82 years after a Clidinst first worked the Indy 500 – when Bobby Clidinst Jr., struggling for months to breathe, breathed his last.
***
Before it ended, Bob Clidinst Sr. and Bobby Jr. had a front-row seat to Indy 500 history. Matter of fact, Bob Sr. was the first to put a belt on that seat. He cut a harness-style seat belt from a fighter jet and attached it to Joie Chitwood's car. That really happened. That was 1941.
Chitwood, Tony Bettenhausen, George Barringer, Duke Dinsmore, Leroy Warriner, Don Edmunds – Clidinst worked for all of them, and then some. One of his 1950s drivers was Elmer George, who married IMS heiress Mari Hulman. Well, one of their first cars was a Cadillac, and that new Caddy had an engine issue. They took it to the Cadillac specialist at 1725 N. Pierson, an alley between Meridian and Illinois. They took it to Clidinst Auto Shop, Bob Sr.'s garage.
"Somehow the damn thing caught on fire in the shop," says James Clidinst, Bobby Jr.'s brother. "And it burned up."
Stories? The Clidinst family has stories.
"My dad told me this one story I don't know how many times," James says. "I don't believe it, but he swore up and down he had a one-legged driver."
Stop it, I tell him.
"Cal Niday was a midget racer from California," James Clidinst says. "He was a barber and had a shop in the garage area. Well, my dad got him a ride in the '50s, and the first week in qualifying he didn't come close. Time was running out on the last day. This is where it's about to get far-fetched."
It's about to?
"My dad told Cal to get in the car: 'You're going for the ride of your life,'" James says. "He nailed that wooden leg to the floor, and Cal qualified."
Come on.
"It's kind of far-fetched," James says.
It is, but you know what? There really was a driver named Cal Niday. Who lost his leg in high school. And raced the Indy 500 from 1953-55.
Stories? Always another Clidinst story. The NHRA U.S. Nationals were in Indianapolis and Don Garlits won that race in 1963, but only after arriving in town and immediately towing his dragster to 1725 N. Pierson for a tuneup. It was Bob Sr.'s way to drive the cars he worked on – midgets, sprint cars, Cadillacs, whatever – around the block to make sure they were running right. Down Illinois, left on 19th Street, up Meridian, back into the shop. Well, not this time.
"Dad said it was dark out," James Clidinst was saying. "So they fired it up and did a burn-off there on Pierson Street."
Six years later a new, green 1969 Ford pulled alongside Bob Sr. in the IMS garage. The men were laughing, carrying on, and James Clidinst was thinking, "Hell, that's Tony Hulman. He owns this damn place. He knows my dad?"
Everyone knew the Clidinst boys. Bobby Jr. was in that Paul Newman movie about the Indy 500, "Winning," because why not? Bob Sr. and Bobby Jr. were like Forrest Gump – speaking of movies – when it came to the Indy 500. Life was like a box of chocolates; you never knew what a Clidinst was gonna get.
In 1969 "Winning" director James Gladstone needed Indy 500 experts for advice. He talked to Bobby Jr. about crashes, then cast him as a driver named Bobby Fake who walked with Johnny Rutherford through the pit area in a helmet with "Bob" on the side. Even gave him a speaking line.
"He congratulated Paul Newman's character (Frank Capua)," says James Clidinst. "Bobby lived a few miles from the Speedway. He had Paul over to the house for dinner."
Of course he did.
***
This didn't have to end now. Bob Sr. died in 1970, and Bobby Jr. in March, but there are surviving members of the Clidinst family – you've met James, Bobby Jr.'s brother – and Bobby had two boys. They're twins, David and Bobby III, but they never went with their dad to the racetrack. Just wasn't the direction their lives went.
And James Clidinst? Bobby's kid brother? He's 63 now, retired with a bum knee. He can't get around much, and IMS is no place to try. But back in the day James Clidinst rode the bus with his mom downtown to Union Station, then took a train to the Speedway. He attended Cathedral's grade school when it was at 14th and Pennsylvania. The nuns opened the windows in the spring, and James Clidinst would hear that squeal of the front-drive Novi engine and yell, "Novi!"
"The nuns had a ruler," James says. "They'd smack my hand."
He spent his 16th birthday in jail. He was in the IMS Snake Pit back when that rowdy infield section was in Turn 1, and he was fighting, when the cops came. James Clidinst stayed a fighter, bouncing in a bar. Come to think of it, that's probably when his knee started to go bad.
"I was kind of a (screw)up my whole life," James says.
Well, he was a Clidinst too. The Indy 500 was in his blood, same as his brother. But Bobby Jr., the bug bit him so much harder. He graduated in 1951 from Tech and attended the John Herron Art Institute – an artist, this guy – but his love was race cars. When he wasn't working at IMS in May, he was building cars by hand, painting them just so. Miniature cars to scale, full-sized midget cars, sprint cars. After Bobby Jr. died in March, the IMS museum found in its basement a portrait he painted of A.J. Foyt and the cars Super Tex drove to Indy 500 titles in 1961, '64, '67 and '77.
Bobby Jr. eventually built a slot-car track in his basement. Made and painted the cars, called friends, turned Tuesdays and Thursdays into racing nights.
"He was a genius when it came to racing," James Clidinst says. "And he didn't miss a day there were cars at the Speedway. Not for 50 years."
The genius died March 10. Later this month, for the first time in 83 years, a Clidinst won't work the Indy 500. All things come to an end. Even the things that should last forever.
Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel