'82 crash turned promising young driver into 500 pariah

The Indianapolis 500 is not all checkered flags and milk, the victory signs of Sunday's 99th event. Sometimes the golden boy with the feathered blonde hair gets lost on the road to glory.

Meet Kevin Cogan. Or, meet the Kevin Cogan history doesn't know.

First, go back to 1981 when the 25-year-old Culver City, Calif., driver made his debut at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Driving the Sugaripe Prunes-sponsored car of O'Connell Racing wasn't the stuff of history books, but he finished fourth, three laps behind winner Bobby Unser. Then he finished second the next week at Milwaukee, and his march toward stardom was on.

Roger Penske signed Cogan as Rick Mears' teammate for the '82 season. He was primed to become the sport's next star.

Life is funny how it turns. One moment, a Penske-entered car is rolling toward the start of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. The next, noise erupts. For Cogan, the sound wasn't cheers for a green flag; it was the horror of a start gone wrong followed by racing legends chastising him for it.

Whatever Cogan said that 1982 day about broken equipment, his voice wasn't heard as the press flocked to A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti. Think those two are the giants of the sport now? Imagine their stature in the prime of their careers. Foyt was just five years removed from becoming the race's only four-time 500 winner, and he was a front-row starter. Andretti, the '69 champ, had a Wildcat capable of winning from the second row.

In literally a snap, Cogan's life changed. Creeping toward the green flag in the middle of Row 1, his car suddenly veered right, hitting Foyt's car before ricocheting across the front straightaway into Andretti's path. For a crash injuring no one, emotions were raw, the hurtful words etched forever in the television broadcast.

"How in the world could this have happened?" legendary announcer Jim McKay said. "There is no explanation."

From color commentator Sam Posey came this: "Poor Andretti."

Posey even suggested Cogan turned the wheel "intentionally."

Andretti and Foyt fueled the fire with actions as well as words. Andretti shoved Cogan, a response so well received by the crowd cheers can be heard on the broadcast.

"This is what happens when you have children doing a man's job up front," Andretti said on TV. "Cogan, I guess, messed up."

Crawling over the pit wall, Foyt dropped the big unprintable word and walked away from reporter Chris Economaki.

Later, while walking through Gasoline Alley, Foyt called it "a stupid deal."

"(He) had his head up his ass, that's all," Foyt said.

Coincidence or not, Cogan was out of a job at season's end.

***

Cogan, now 59, fumbles to light a half-burned cigarette as he tries to connect his life then with his life now. Words don't come easily, and it's painful to watch.

Cogan has been through hell and back through racing. He'll talk about some of it, but not all of it. The '82 accident dug emotionally but two others cut physically.

The first crash, in 1984 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, broke his feet. The left one, repaired at a spot where three bones meet, continues to be a source of discomfort, and it upsets his balance. He said he comes close to falling a lot.

Recovery spanned three months, but the next injury was worse. Early in the '91 500, Cogan and Roberto Guerrero came together in Turn 1, and the impact was mighty. Among Cogan's right-side injuries were his shoulder and forearm, which still often roar with pain. Medication helps, but there are side effects.

"It doesn't look bad, but it hurts like (expletive)," he said. "Every shift is like being hit with a mallet in the bone."

In a recent two-hour meeting at his oceanside home in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., south of Los Angeles, Cogan drifts in and out of conversation. He talks about his children, experiences building houses, trading stocks.

Sometimes he'll talk racing, but it's not a subject he enjoys. He points to a box containing metal removed from his body after surgeries. He needed nearly two years to recover from the '91 crash.

Cogan said he hasn't watched any IndyCar on television since leaving the sport in '93. He remains so angry at Guerrero he won't speak his name. Any final interest he had in racing died with Scott Brayton in '96, he said.

Cogan won one IndyCar race, the '86 season-opening event at Phoenix International Raceway. A month later he was comfortably leading the 500 when a late caution created a two-lap shootout which he lost to Bobby Rahal, partly because his engine wasn't responding well to restarts. Imagine how history would have changed: Rahal wouldn't have been an Indy winner; Cogan's likeness would be on the Borg-Warner Trophy between Danny Sullivan ('85) and Al Unser ('87).

***

Cogan drove in 10 more 500s after the '82 debacle, and he kept a routine. In driver introductions, he'd wave with one hand and hide his other hand behind his back with middle finger extended.

"They always booed me," he said of the IMS crowd.

For all the damage caused by Andretti and Posey, Cogan considers them among his few remaining IndyCar friends. Andretti began treating him like a son in the years after their accident, especially during the '85 season when Cogan and Michael Andretti were teammates.

"Naturally I was upset (in '82), but after that, it's over," Mario said. "When you realize it took him out, too, well, it's not something he wanted to do.

"That accident pretty much determined his career."

Cogan has no love lost for Penske, and he wishes Derrick Walker, the former Penske team manager who now is IndyCar's president, had spoken up for him amid the heat-of-the-moment venom spewed by Andretti and Foyt.

Walker, Cogan says, could have shown the power-generating CV joint Cogan believes broke.

"He's the guy who put all the pieces in a cup, stuck a rag in it, put it under his jacket and took off as fast as he could run," Cogan said of Walker. "He was told to make it disappear ... because Penske couldn't admit to a failure. Ask him."

Walker said there's no disputing a broken driveshaft, but it was never clear whether it broke on acceleration or on impact.

"I've never blamed him," Walker said of Cogan. "If you broke a driveshaft cage, the car would do exactly what it did."

After the race, Walker said, the team was focused on the disappointment of Mears losing the late duel with Gordon Johncock. Of all years, Walker said, that was the year Team Penske should have won the 500.

"We had them all snowed, dominated them with both cars," Walker said. "We failed not once but twice, and then we didn't come to Kevin's defense like we should have."

It's road under the tires now, but Cogan still lives with the debris. His body aches, and, as Walker says, he's one of the sport's forgotten souls.

It's not all checkered flags and milk, and Cogan said the pursuit wasn't worth it.

"No, it wasn't," he said.

Follow Star reporter Curt Cavin on Twitter: @curtcavin.