Met Eddie when I was around 10 at a lake resort in my home state of Indiana, along with Jimmy Bryan and Jimmy Davies.. Eddie was a real character and I remember him in his baggy tan swim trunks talking to me as Jimmy Bryan fixed my little remote boat on the picnic table....
The Indy x London sound is unmistakable. When I moved here and heard Talk of Gasoline Alley for the first time, I was confused about a lot of things - Donald's unique accent was in the top three!
Growing up in upstate n.y the day after the 64 race my cousin bringing up the N.Y. Daily News and on the whole back page was the picture of the crash i was 14!
I've always wondered if Eddie had been in a roadster, could he have withstood the impact when he t-boned David MacDonald's Micky Thompson's "Roller Skate Car"? Instead Eddie was falling in with the "Funny Car" change to the "Rear Engine" Formula. He was driving a tiny Halibrand Shrike which was little more than a shipping box on wheels with no mass in front of the driver to withstand frontal impact. I remember that there was a full page ad in the 1964 Indy 500 program for American Red Ball Movers with Eddie sitting in the car. The copy read something like "Watch Eddie Sachs move to the front in his American Red Ball Special. The car was so little that he looked like he was sitting in an oversized Go-Cart. RIP Eddie. Maybe you never achieved your life long goal of Winning The Indy 500, but you Won the hearts of thousands of racing fans all across America!
@@KentSterling The crazy thing is that they didn't make any changes to the inside of turn 4 for another nine years, because what made that tragic incident even worse was that angled wall, because that's what caused Dave MacDonald's car to careen across the track, where it caught the cars of Sachs, as well as eventual three-time Indy winners Bobby Unser and Johnny Rutherford. Rutherford went over the top of Unser's car and was so close to Sachs' car when it t-boned MacDonald's car that the lemon-necklace Sachs wore wound up on one of the axles of Rutherford's car.
@@cjs83172 Very shortsighted to simply accept tragedy as the price of racing. I admire Tony George for several things, but his tireless work to make racing safer is at the top of the list.
@@KentSterling Absolutely. One of Tony George's greatest successes was "softer" walls. His first attempt was met with calamity when Arie Luyendyk's crash in an IROC race in the late 90s sent pieces of that first softer barrier all over the main straightaway, which in turn led to the SAFER barrier you see at all the major speedways today, which protects drivers (as that wall did for Luyendyk in that IROC race) while not sending pieces of the barrier all over the track. One of the few failings of the Hulman-era at Indy was not doing something about the inside of the main straightaway between the exit of turn four and the start of the pit area after the Sachs/MacDonald crash of 1964, as it regarded that angled wall, as well as leaving cars parked there for hours, a combination that would lead to Mike Mosley and Bobby Unser crashing into three parked cars at that spot late in the 1971 race, and then ultimately to Swede Savage's horrific crash in 1973, which happened just after Peter Revson's car had been removed from that spot. What was ultimately done for 1974 should have been done for 1965. NASCAR had the same situation at Daytona for a number of years, with cars crashing into a similarly angled wall until the happenings of SpeedWeeks in 1984, after which that entire part of the track was reconfigured.
@@cjs83172 I was in the media center watching the IROC race when Arie decorated the track with chucks of foam. Wondered at the time how that wasn’t troubleshot in the planned stages.
Met Eddie when I was around 10 at a lake resort in my home state of Indiana, along with Jimmy Bryan and Jimmy Davies.. Eddie was a real character and I remember him in his baggy tan swim trunks talking to me as Jimmy Bryan fixed my little remote boat on the picnic table....
my first car race I went to in like 59-60 he raced at Lancaster speedway outside of buffalo ny
Love donalds "born in england but lived in america most of his life" accent
The Indy x London sound is unmistakable. When I moved here and heard Talk of Gasoline Alley for the first time, I was confused about a lot of things - Donald's unique accent was in the top three!
Growing up in upstate n.y the day after the 64 race my cousin bringing up the N.Y. Daily News and on the whole back page was the picture of the crash i was 14!
I've always wondered if Eddie had been in a roadster, could he have withstood the impact when he t-boned David MacDonald's Micky Thompson's "Roller Skate Car"? Instead Eddie was falling in with the "Funny Car" change to the "Rear Engine" Formula. He was driving a tiny Halibrand Shrike which was little more than a shipping box on wheels with no mass in front of the driver to withstand frontal impact. I remember that there was a full page ad in the 1964 Indy 500 program for American Red Ball Movers with Eddie sitting in the car. The copy read something like "Watch Eddie Sachs move to the front in his American Red Ball Special. The car was so little that he looked like he was sitting in an oversized Go-Cart. RIP Eddie. Maybe you never achieved your life long goal of Winning The Indy 500, but you Won the hearts of thousands of racing fans all across America!
Donald's recollections really bring the history of the Indy 500 to life, and your comment brings great context to that horrific wreck.
@@KentSterling The crazy thing is that they didn't make any changes to the inside of turn 4 for another nine years, because what made that tragic incident even worse was that angled wall, because that's what caused Dave MacDonald's car to careen across the track, where it caught the cars of Sachs, as well as eventual three-time Indy winners Bobby Unser and Johnny Rutherford. Rutherford went over the top of Unser's car and was so close to Sachs' car when it t-boned MacDonald's car that the lemon-necklace Sachs wore wound up on one of the axles of Rutherford's car.
@@cjs83172 Very shortsighted to simply accept tragedy as the price of racing. I admire Tony George for several things, but his tireless work to make racing safer is at the top of the list.
@@KentSterling Absolutely. One of Tony George's greatest successes was "softer" walls. His first attempt was met with calamity when Arie Luyendyk's crash in an IROC race in the late 90s sent pieces of that first softer barrier all over the main straightaway, which in turn led to the SAFER barrier you see at all the major speedways today, which protects drivers (as that wall did for Luyendyk in that IROC race) while not sending pieces of the barrier all over the track.
One of the few failings of the Hulman-era at Indy was not doing something about the inside of the main straightaway between the exit of turn four and the start of the pit area after the Sachs/MacDonald crash of 1964, as it regarded that angled wall, as well as leaving cars parked there for hours, a combination that would lead to Mike Mosley and Bobby Unser crashing into three parked cars at that spot late in the 1971 race, and then ultimately to Swede Savage's horrific crash in 1973, which happened just after Peter Revson's car had been removed from that spot. What was ultimately done for 1974 should have been done for 1965. NASCAR had the same situation at Daytona for a number of years, with cars crashing into a similarly angled wall until the happenings of SpeedWeeks in 1984, after which that entire part of the track was reconfigured.
@@cjs83172 I was in the media center watching the IROC race when Arie decorated the track with chucks of foam. Wondered at the time how that wasn’t troubleshot in the planned stages.
I recall there was a "clowned prince" of bowling as well.
The great Carmen Salvino - not just a great bowler, but a great Chicagoan. He's 88 years old.
Eddie was a great driver, too bad we lost him!