The Rathmanns

I was planning on taking Thanksgiving off, unless something came up. Well, something did come up.

I remember hearing stories about the Rathmann brothers, Dick and Jim. Long before we had interesting tales about the Busch brothers, or the Labonte brothers, or the Wallace trio, the Rathmann duo had probably one of the most interesting stories around. You see, Dick and Jim were actually Jim and Dick. As teenagers, they liked to switch names. So when they each started racing, they used each others names. And both, no matter what name they use, found success. Dick Rathman (notice he took an "n" off his last name) found his success in NASCAR. In five years, Dick had accumulated 13 wins. Jim Rathmann, on the other hand, went to open wheel racing. In 1949, while his brother Dick was driving into Victory Lane, Jim was racing in the Indianapolis 500. And he ran for many years too. In fact, from 1949-1963, Jim only missed one Indy 500, in 1951. Dick on the other hand, ran NASCAR until 1955, and then made the jump to open wheels. And for a few years, Dick and Jim ran in the Indy 500 together. In 1960, however Jim did something Dick would never be able to do: Win the Indy 500.

The day started out with close battle between the brothers. Jim started second, Dick started fourth. Except Dick's brakes gave out shortly before a quarter of the way through the race. He would finish 31st. By this point, Jim had already led thirteen laps. For the rest of the race, while more and more cars lost a shot at the win, including Indy 500 legend AJ Foyt, and pole sitter Eddie Sachs, Jim kept going, and for the second half of the race, it would be a fight between Rathmann and defending race winner Rodger Ward. Rathmann began the second half with the lead, and lead for over twenty laps. Ward passed him, but Rathmann didn't give up, and passed back. The two exchanged the lead fourteen times. But in the end, it was Rathmann who was victorious.

Rathmann won two other races in open-wheels, but never won Indy again. In 1963, Rathmann competed in his last Indy 500, and remained competitive throughout. Jim and Dick Rathmann's careers may have ended but their place in the history books would forever stay. Dick Rathmann died in 2000, and sadly, we lost Jim Rathmann yesterday, but we can only imagine that their going it on the race track in the sky.

Jim, you will be missed. Enjoy yourself, and we'll see you soon.

Royal Richard "Jim" Rathmann
1928-2011

Relaunch of FlyingTurns.Com

After a long hiatus of almost a year and a half, I've decided to relaunch FlyingTurns.Com for this coming off season for NASCAR, mostly because I'll have a lot of free time on my hands. I've got a couple ideas of what will get posted here, but I should have an official timeline ready in a couple weeks. With a 13-week off season, I've got some time to have fun on here, and I'm hoping to get more people reading.