Lloyd Ruby (12 January 1928 – 23 March 2009) was an American racecar driver who raced in the USAC Championship Car series for 20 years, achieving 7 victories and 88 top-ten finishes. He also had success in endurance racing, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona (twice), the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring and the 1966 World Sportscar Championship.
The Indianapolis 500 was part of the FIA World Championship from 1950 through 1960. Drivers competing at Indy during those years were credited with World Championship points and participation. Ruby participated in two World Championship races: the 1960 Indianapolis 500 and the 1961 United States Grand Prix.
He scored no championship points. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
A much respected racer, Lloyd Ruby has driven everything, including motorcycles, midgets, Ford GTs, Watson roadsters, Maseratis, NASCAR and Lotus F1 cars. He competed in ChampCar between 1958-1977, with 177 career starts (including 18 consecutive Indy 500 races between 1960 and 1977) and achieved seven victories and 88 top-ten finishes. However, his luck at Indianapolis was dismal and he was referred to as the best driver never to have won the Indy 500, despite leading it on five occasions. He was leading 1966’s race comfortably until black-flagged for leaking oil and in 1968 he retired with mechanical failure with just 25 laps remaining. In 1969 he was a lap ahead but he pulled away during a refueling stop with the hose still attached and he was leading in 1970 and 1971 but both times went out with mechanical failure. He finished twelfth or higher in 11 different Indianapolis starts, his best finish third with a front-engine car in 1964, and qualified in the first three rows seven times, with a best of fifth in 1966 and 1968. He enjoyed better luck in sports car racing though and played a key role as a works driver in Ford’s GT40 program. He and Ken Miles won the 1965 2000km Daytona and in the following year the pair took both the Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hours in a Mk11 and a GT-X1.
Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, on the 12th January 1928, by the time he was seventeen he was racing Harley-Davidsons on dirt tracks and quickly progressed to midget racing. His first racer was a homebuilt effort, powered by a flathead Ford V8, and in his first drive in an Offenhauser midget he won the race (though he said he got lucky and accidentally won it).
Although drafted to do military service in Korea he broke his leg in a racing accident and consequently worked in a field hospital. Upon completing his service he returned to racing and after driving for several teams, he raced a Kurtis Offenhauser for Bob Nowicke (who ran a body shop in Chicago). They would race almost every night and sometimes twice on Sundays and would go on to win 91 races and three championships in 1948 and 1949. To give an idea of the hectic schedule, he would race at Indianapolis on Friday night, then tow the car to Chicago after it and would sleep in a bedroom at the garage. When he woke Nowicke and his brother would have the car completely stripped down, and would put in a fresh engine every week, and after racing in Chicago of a Saturday evening Loyd would be on his travels on the Sunday. He towed and maintained the car himself on the road, racing on tracks from Dallas to New York.
After winning Oklahoma City Fairgrounds titles in 1950, 1955 and 1956 he raced in Florida, travelling and sharing accommodation with AJ Foyt. There was good camaraderie between them and they would loan each other money if one of them was doing well and the other not so well.
In 1959 moved up to racing sprint cars, finishing second in the USAC Road Racing series. His first sportscar ride would see him in a Maserati 150S in the Sebring 12 Hours although despite driving well the car retired in the race. Following this, he drove midgets for Ebb Rose (a Houston trucking company executive) and in 1958 raced his Maserati 300S in USAC road-racing and the following year he finished second in the championship in a Maserati 450S.
In 1960 he made his debut at Indianapolis, driving for JC Agajanian, and was running as high as third but finished seventh after running out of fuel with 11 laps remaining.
Lloyd took a Lotus 18 to Watkins Glen for 1961’s US GP but though qualifying at the back he worked his way to 11th before retiring in the 76th when a magneto drive failed. At Laguna Seca in 1962 he won a heat and finished second overall to Roger Penske’s Zerex Special though later took a win in a race at Kent and would also take his first Indycar victory at Milwaukee. In 1963 he put the Lotus 18 on pole for a USAC race at Trenton and battled for the lead with AJ Foyt until its gearbox failed. In 1964 he took a fine third place behind AJ.Foyt and Rodger Ward at Indianapolis and two years later, racing one of Dan Gurney’s Eagles, he was leading for the first time until a cam failed.
During this time Carroll Shelby was gathering a team for the Ford GT programme and teamed Lloyd with Ken Miles, with them forming a close friendship and a formidable driving partnership. They were totally different in characteristics and in between driving stints Ken would pace the pit wall while Loyd would fall asleep. While many drivers would be up all night during long distance races, drinking coffee and trying to stay alert, he would have a bed set up behind the pit and crew members would wake him up 15 minutes before the driver change. Although they liked the car set up the same way, Lloyd didn’t like rain and told him “if it starts raining get your helmet!” as Ken could run faster than anyone in the wet. They were triumphant in 1965 when they raced the GT40 to victory at Daytona and the following year again took Daytona in a Ford GT MkII, followed by a win at Sebring in a one-off GT40 X-1 Roadster. He was was to have partnered Miles at Le Mans in 1966 but had to withdraw, as just a few days before the event the light plane in which he was travelling crashed on takeoff from an Indianapolis airport on its way to Milwaukee.
1967 would see him and AJ Foyt finish second at Sebring though he retired at Daytona (with Denny Hulme) due to gearbox problems with their MkII. In Indycars he took another win at Phoenix driving a Mongoose-Offenhauser and followed this with a win at Langhorne, plus teamed with Denny Hulme in a Ford GT 40 Mk IV for Le Mans.
He began driving cars built by his mechanic, Dave Laycock, and entered by Gene White, and in 1968 a victory looked certain with nine laps to go until the coil failed and dropped him to fifth. Also during the year he won twice at Milwaukee.
Perhaps his most notorious bad luck at Indy came in 1969. Race leader Mario Andretti was experiencing problems so Loyd was in a strong position to win but during a pit stop he pulled away with the refuelling nozzle still attached and it ruptured a hole in the tank.
He drove a works McLaren in 1975 (with Johnny Rutherford) but the team was having teething trouble and was unable to sort the cars out. Unfortunately on race morning methanol drained into the cylinders and although noticed before the race, the damage was done and he would retire on lap seven.
1976 and 1977 would be disappointing for him though he continued to enter the 500 until 1978, but after not qualifying due to a number of engine failures in practice he decided it was time to quit.
Although retired, he did return for two events, one of which was 1993’s Fast Masters, in which retired drivers raced Jaguar XJ220s. Lloyd (now 65) and Bob Bondurant’s cars touched but though Bondurant was furious, a calm Lloyd thought he had added to the spectator interest! In 2003 he took part in a similar event in Texas where they raced small-scale replicas of Indy roadsters, powered by motorbike engines, and he finished third.
After racing he invested in some small oil wells, and did much to assist in local charitable affairs, plus enjoyed playing golf with Parnelli Jones. He was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Firestone Legends of Indy in 2003. In 2005 he received the Bruton Smith Legends Award at the Texas Motor Sports Hall of Fame and was inducted into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2015. In 2006, the Lloyd Ruby Overpass was named in his honour in Wichita Falls, with Johnny Rutherford, Parnelli Jones and Al and Bobby Unser at the ceremony.
Lloyd passed away in his hometown of Wichita Falls on the 23rd March 2009 and was buried in the town’s Riverside Cemetery. The regard, and respect in which he was held can be seen in comments about him from other drivers. A J Foyt remembered him as “a helluva race car driver who should have won a lot more races than he did. He was clean and fair and you could run next to him all day”.
Jackie Stewart described him as “a very special man, dignified, well mannered and quiet. Not shy, but quiet, and completely out of context with what one would expect a race driver to be. A modest man. Nobody who saw him, if they didn’t know, would ever imagine he was a driver until he stepped into the cockpit. And he was very versatile on the track.” Johnny Rutherford said “He was one of the most kind-spoken men I’ve ever known. Lloyd should be remembered as the greatest driver never to have won Indianapolis”. Al Unser stated that as he progressed through racing “Lloyd Ruby was his hero. He was honest and a hard racer. He didn’t pull bad things on you. You could run wheel to wheel with him and you didn’t have to worry about Lloyd. He made the race car talk”. Dan Gurney described him as a “soft-spoken Texas lead foot with enormous natural talent. He was humble and one of the old-fashioned guys who let the results speak for themselves. He was a potential winner every time he got behind the wheel. A great oval racer who was also a great road racer.” Many rivals marvelled at how fast he could go with so little practice, Bobby Unser describing how he “drove soooo hard and knew where the throttle was. You always used Rube’s times as your guideline to see how you stacked up.” Mario Andretti expressed amazement about the short time it took Loyd to get up to speed, whether it be on a road course, oval, during practice or even tire testing. He recalled how Loyd’s second time by the start/finish line was usually a real eye-opener. “Lloyd could run anything but he was an excellent road racer,” said Mario Andretti.
Despite his bad luck at Indy he has to be credited as having a great sense of humour about it. At his mechanic’s shop he had a book titled ‘How To Drive and Win the Indy 500’, with Lloyd credited as the author-but every page is blank!
