Kevin Cogan (full name John Kevin Cogan), born in Culver City, California, 31 March 1956 is a former racecar driver who drove in Formula One from 1980 to 1981. Driving a RAM Williams in the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix, he failed to qualify, suffering the same result driving for Tyrrell at the 1981 US GP West. He then moved over to Indy cars in 1982 but his career was cut short by a series of accidents. Info from Wiki
This quiet hard-luck Californian started out in karts in 1972 and had become US Western Division Champion before moving on to Formula Fords in 1975. The following season he netted two wins in the same category before stepping up to F Atlantic, Kevin earning eighth place in the 1977 championship. He continued in the formula for 1978 and 1979, his final season seeing him take three wins.
His first taste of Formula 1 came in 1980 when he drove a Theodore Racing Wolf WR3 in the Aurora F1 series . He finished 10th in the championship. Later in the season, with the support of Teddy Yip, he took the step to proper GP racing when he rented a RAM Williams FW07 for the Canadian GP. He didn’t qualify.
For the 1981 US West GP at Long Beach he got his next chance thanks to local brewing company Michelob. The perennially cash-strapped Tyrrell team greeted the sponsorship. Kevin tried to qualify the year-old Tyrrell 010 and this time he was much nearer to getting onto the grid: he only lost out to Beppe Gabbiani by a few hundreds of a second. For Tyrrell this was another story: the works Tyrrell team had never seen one of its cars fail to make the grid before. But it wouldn’t be the last time…
Cogan’s second DNQ concluded his brief GP career which should have endured much longer. He had the proper credentials for Formula 1 – he was certainly not in the Londono mould – and should have had a chance to equal at least Eddie Cheever’s career in GP racing. Being a single-seater man he now headed towards the Indycars. A few months later he was ready for his first Indianapolis 500. Cogan drove a 1980 Phoenix-DFX and showed really well in his first outing: Kevin recovered from a early pitstop that dropped him to dead-last to finish a fine fourth. One week later he finished second on the Milwaukee mile and caught the attention of Roger Penske.
In the driving seat of the all-conquering Penske-DFX PC10 everything looked bright for the young racer. But it all went terribly wrong. He qualified second in his back-up car at Indy 500 only to see his race ruined by a controversial pace-lap accident that was blamed on him. This unfortunately set the tune for Cogan’s year which was marred by several more crashes, resulting in his sacking from Indy’s legendary team after only one season. A number of barren years for midfield Indy outfits followed.
Then things began to look up when he joined Pat Patrick’s team for 1986. In Patrick’s March-DFX 86C he took his first CART win at the Phoenix oval in April. One month later he qualified a fine 6th for the Indy 500 and suddenly everyone saw the talent that had gone to waste at Penske. In the race Kevin was a front-runner all day: he led laps 76-77 and was in a strong third on lap 187 when he passed Rahal and Mears to take the lead. Kevin extended his lead lap by lap. By lap 191 his lead was over three seconds as he headed for victory. Then Arie Luyendijk crashed with 5 laps to go. Poor Kevin saw his work come to nothing: he had lost all of his advantage. But would he be lucky enough to see the race finish under yellow flags? Sadly for Cogan the green-flag was waved on lap 198. Rahal got the jump on Cogan and charged into the lead. Kevin was unable to overhaul Bobby during the two laps remaining and finished second to Bobby Rahal, trailing by a mere 1.441 seconds.
His next Indy headline was of a somewhat different note, as on the second lap of the 1989 Indy 500 he crashed out his March 88C in spectacular fashion. For those who have witnessed the accident and were present at the California Speedway recently, the similarity with Greg Moore’s fatal crash at the Fontana track won’t have been lost on them. Many were certain they had just seen a tragedy happen before their eyes. Just like Moore, Cogan lost the car at 330kph coming out of Turn 4, possibly getting caught by turbulence. He got into a half-spin and veered to the left, hitting the inside wall amidst a shower of debris. The out-of-control car remains continued until they hit the edge of the pit wall, again shattering what was left into more bits and pieces, before the tub came to a stop. The onlookers were amazed to see Cogan move in the tub lying on its side. The next thing they saw was Kevin unbuckling himself and crawling away from the wreck. He was practically uninjured. The ever so unfortunate Kevin Cogan had been extremely lucky.
In the 1991 event, though, Kevin again crashed out. This time he smashed his legs. Kevin had to endure a lenghty re-hab period in which he missed out on the 1992 race. The following year Kevin was back for his final attempt to win the big one. He started from 14th position and performed consistently to finish in the same position he started in.
The versatile Cogan was also hired by Silk Cut Jaguar in 1988 to drive at Le Mans. He did a fine job backing up the winning Jaguar by finishing fourth together with fellow Indycar driver Derek Daly and Aussie touring car driver Larry Perkins, who was dubbed “The Cowangie Kid” in his youth. Kevin did over a hundred CART races and was equally at home on both oval and road circuits.
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