Throughout it’s 100 year history, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has many of the biggest names from the world of Formula One compete at in the Indianapolis 500, with names such as Clark, Hill, Stewart, Mansell and Fittipaldi all making the venture to the Brickyard in their bid for success come Memorial Day weekend. For today’s update however we will be focusing on the 500 efforts of one of the sport’s all-time greats, an effort which while ultimately unsuccessful helped to create one of the Speedway’s most legendary what-if questions.

By 1958 there was very little that Juan Manuel Fangio had failed to achieve throughout his racing career. The 47 year old had first came to prominence competing in road races in his native Argentina in which he would claim the national championship in 1940 and 1941. After claiming victory in the 10,000km Gran Premio del Norte endurance race, which saw him compete for 14 successive days from Argentina to Peru and back, Fangio was given funding form the Argentine government to continue his career in mainland Europe, arriving in the continent in 1948 where he joined the Alfa Romeo team ahead of the inaugural Formula One season. During the early years of the sport Fangio solidified his place as one of the star faces of the sport, picking up five World Championships as well as two runner places across seven seasons, whilst his win ratio of 46.15% still remains the most successful of any Formula One driver to this day. Following his fifth World Championship however Fangio’s attentions had started to move away from Formula One, choosing to compete in just two races during the 1958 season as he began to search for other ventures within motor racing,. A series of circumstances that would lead an American businessman making a proposition that the racing legend simply couldn’t refuse.

On June 23rd 1957 the Automobile Club of Milan played host to the Race of Two Worlds, an exhibition event designed for teams and drivers from Formula One and Indycar racing to compete against each other on Monza’s banked oval course. Whilst the American line-up for the event boasted a number of high profile efforts, including 1950 Indy 500 winner Johnny Parsons as well as the veteran Eddie Sachs, turnout for the event was from the European side significantly limited, the only representatives coming in the form of a Maserati 250 driven by Jean Behra and a trio of Jaguar sports cars entered by Ecurie Ecosse. Although Fangio had been approached to compete in the event, the Argentine decided to turn down the opportunity to instead prepare for the French Grand Prix, a move which disappointed many of the American participants and led to American tycoon and racing fan Floyd Clymer to declare Fangio a false world champion due to him not competing against the American drivers.

Determined to justify his comments, as well as raise publicity for himself, Clymer made Fangio a huge financial offer to get him to compete at the 1958 500, offering him $500 for signing up for the event with increasing financial rewards depending on his success; $1,000 if he could qualify for the race, $2,500 if he could finish in the top five with an American built car and $5,000 if he could perform the achievement in a machine outside of the US. With Fangio’s prominence in America at it’s highest (a run which included an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show) and his Formula One career winding down Fangio decided to accept the offer, arriving at Indianapolis for the first time on April 28 1958.

Upon his arrival in the Hoosier state, Fangio was greeted by a sea of media attention, curious to see how the five time champion would fare with the challenge of the Brickyard. Driving a Kurtis-Offenhauser owned by George Walther Jr (father of future Indy racer David ‘Salt’ Walther) Fangio passed his rookie tests with flying colours, setting a fastest lap of 142.9mph in the Dayton Steel Foundry machine, but as the week progressed soon began to struggle extracting more performance from the machine, and upon seeing his team’s struggles in attempting to fine-tune the car’s 4 cylinder engine Fangio began to grow concerned about his team’s prospects for the event.

The chance to have a Grand Prix champion racing at Indianapolis was not going to be wasted, and shortly after Fangio’s test for Walther the Argentine was invited to test one a machine owned by Lew Welch, powered by a V8 with a mechanical turbine unique on a grid dominated by the Offenhauser V6. Fangio would drive 10 laps in the machine, setting the fastest V8 time of the afternoon, but his speed of 135mph was even slower then the time set in Walther’s machine, and upon realising that his chances of securing a competitive ride for the event were slimming Fangio made the decision to withdraw himself from the event, leaving the Brickyard in the middle of May having set a fastest time that would have left him 31st on the grid, well below the high self-expectations of a five time World Champion.

Despite the disappointment of his venture Fangio remained positive about his experience at the Brickyard, praising the Indycar community for being so welcoming to his arrival and praising the bravery and nobleness of his fellow competitors, and such was the level of respect earned that Fangio chose to waiver on his $500 fee for the event and instead donate it to an Indiana based cancer charity. Juan Manuel Fangio may have never officially competed at the Indianapolis 500, but in a few days his appearance at the Brickyard helped to stir the speedway like no other rookie before or since, conquering the affection of the American motor sports fans and showing a brief glimpse as to just why he was forever considered ‘The Maestro’ of racing.

Unfortunately no video footage exists of Fangio’s 500 exploits, so instead we have footage of the Argentine’s famous victory in the 1957 German Grand Prix: