With one a former superstar world champion and the other a junior formula journeyman, it’s hard on paper to find much that connects the racing careers of Nigel Mansell and Dennis Vitolo, but in the spring men the two men came together to bring about one of the most bizarre incidents in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

Three races into the 1994 Indycar season, Nigel Mansell arrived at Indianapolis on something of a back-foot. The former Formula One World Champion had taken Indycar racing by storm in 1993, having picked up five wins (including four on ovals) on his way to claiming that season’s championship in only his rookie season. But a slow start to the defence of his crown had left Mansell mired in the middle of the points standings coming into the 500, and this, added with a need to make amends for his restarting error in 1993, had left the Briton more determined then ever to claim victory at the Brickyard.

In contrast, 38 year old Dennis Vitolo’s main aim coming into Indianapolis was simply to qualify for the race itself. The Massapequa native had endured a sporadic and nondescript Indycar career up until that point, making 9 Indycar appearances over the previous 5 years, with an 11th placed finish at the 1988 round in Miami acting as his best result up to date. Throughout his career, Vittolo often struggled with raising the money to fund his racing exploits, and such was the desperation to make the field in 1994 he and wife Corinne mortgaged everything that they owned to give Vitolo the funding to drive for Dale Coyne Racing in the 1994 500. Despite the huge financial that would come with failure to qualify for the event Vittolo managed to safely get his #79 machine in the field, starting in the 5th row ahead of established names including Robbie Gordon, Bobby Rahal and Team Penske hotshot Paul Tracy.

Early in the race however it appeared that Vitolo’s hard work and investment would all come to nought. Entering the sixth lap of the race the New Yorker lost control of his car going into turn four, bringing out the first yellow flag of the day and dropping the Coyne machine to the back of the field. Although Vitolo was able to rejoin the race, a lengthy pit-stop to replace his flat-spotted tyres left him three laps down on the rest of the field and out of contention almost immediately. Comparatively, Nigel Mansell’s day at Indy had started on something of a positive note. The Briton had quickly moved up from his seventh starting position to move into third place, and coming into the race’s middle stages looked set to be the only man able to challenge the dominant Penske-Mercedes for overall victory.

On lap 92 John Paul Jr suffered a flat tyre going into turn three, bringing out the second yellow flag of the day and causing the field to bunch up behind the pace car. Such was the position of Paul’s car on the track drivers were forced down onto the warm-up lane of the track to avoid picking up any kind of debris from the wrecked #45 machine. As the majority of the field entered the warm-up lane, Dennis Vitolo was still traveling at full speed down the back-straight attempting to catch up to the rest of the field. The New Yorker misjudged his speed, colliding with the back of John Andretti before landing on top of an unprepared Nigel Mansell, putting both cars out of the race in the process. The incident bemused many within the Indycar paddock, especially as TV replays proved inconclusive to explain what had caused such a left-field incident under a yellow flag period.

As Vittolo remained stricken atop of the #1 Newman-Haas Lola, hot coolant from the #79 began to drip into Mansell’s cockpit, causing the reigning champion to leap from his car as a result, being tackled to the ground from health and safety issues believing Mansell’s behaviour was due to a methanol fire. Agitated by the end of his race, Mansell stormed out of the infield care centre refusing treatment from the doctors, before condemning the ridiculousness of the incident in a heated interview with ABC television. The accident would prove to be the beginning of the end for Mansell’s honeymoon period in Indycar racing, as glimpses of his notoriously temperamental behaviour had begun to sour his relationship with Indycar fans. A planned signing event with his primary sponsor K-Mart had to be cancelled due to a lack of fan interest and this, added with the increasingly poor unreliability of his Newman Haas machine throughout the 1994, helped to hasten the Briton’s return to Formula One racing at the end of the season

For Vittolo meanwhile the accident would prove to be the defining moment of his career, the increased coverage generated from his accident helped to attract new sponsorship, helping the journeyman driver to fund a drive for the season opening round in Miami for the 1995 campaign. Vitolo would return to Indianapolis once more, finishing 15th for Beck Motorsports in the 1997 race, but his accident with a former Formula One Champion would go to show that even the most anonymous of drivers can still go down in Indy folklore.

In today’s video we look at the ABC broadcast of the incident itself, including Mansell channeling his inner Ricky Bobby once out of the car:

In tomorrow’s update we look at how a car called Pork Chop became an unlikely Indy hero.