For every driver lucky enough to win the Indianapolis 500 the path to success has differed significantly from man to man, with some drivers having the fortune of finding success at the Speedway in some of their earliest 500 appearances. In today’s update however we will be focusing on a man whose pursuit of success at Indianapolis became a career long struggle, and one that led to some of the most emotional scenes in the speedway’s history when his moment in the spotlight finally came around.

The son of a carpenter, Sam Hanks was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1914 and moved with his family to Alhambra when at the age of six. Whilst attending Alhambra High school, Hanks played football and was in the art club, orchestra and school bank, whilst also expressing his first interests in the motor industry driving his hot rod on streets around the family home on Hellman Avenue, whilst also learning to fly at the nearby Alhambra Airport. Upon graduating in 1933, Hanks began working in a local tyre shop where developed an interest in racing midget cars before beginning his racing career in a car powered by an outboard boat motor at the Gilmore dirt track course in downtown Los Angeles. Soon after breaking onto the midget car scene, car owner Danny Hogan spotted Hanks and hired the lanky young driver to drive for his team for the 1937 season. Hogan’s assessment paid off with almost immediate success, as Hanks won the midget championship in 1937, his first full year of racing.

After continuing to find success in the Midget car scene over the next three years, Hanks received an offer to race in the Indianapolis 500 in 1940, where he finishing an encouraging 13th on his debut after starting 14th on the grid. After being forced to pull out of the 1941 running of the race after sustaining a heavy crash in practice in which he was thrown out of his car, Hanks saw his Indy 500 dreams come to a premature halt as World War II brought a halt to racing activities at the Brickyard. During the War, Hanks was drafted and served in the Army Air Corps at Wright Field in Ohio, working on aircraft engines. It was while stationed there that the First Lieutenant met Alice Hedrick, whom he would go on to marry in 1947.

When racing returned after the war, Hanks resumed his winning ways in midgets. Staying close to home in 1946 he won the United Racing Association championship and many other races, including the 250-lap Gold Cup race held at the Los Angeles Coliseum in front of a crowd of 65,128 people. By 1952 however Hanks’ focused had switched firmly to the 500, and in 1952 the 38 year old made the decision to retire from midget car racing to focus his commitments on the Indianapolis 500, that season he would go on to finish third at both Indy and in the AAA Championship points standings, a feat he would go on to repeat the following season in 1953.

Despite Hanks’ accomplishments, the big prize at Indianapolis continued to elude him, and by 1957 the now 42 year old had begun to question whether or not he would ever be able to claim the Borg Warner trophy himself. Following a runner up finish to Pat Flaherty in 1956 Hanks teased the idea of retiring from the sport, but at the last minute was approached by car owner George Salih about driving a revolutionary new machine that could finally end his Brickyard hoodoo. Based around an Offenhauser powered Epperly, Salih’s machine featured a “Lay-down” engine setup with the power unit turned almost completely horizontal, the result meant that the machine would not only be more aerodynamically viable, but also with a better centre of gravity and weight distribution compared to his rivals in the field.

After qualifying 13th on the grid, Hanks moved his way through the field, by the 12th lap he had moved up to fourth place, and on lap 36 passed pole-sitter Paul Russo on his way to dominating the race, taking the lead for the final time on lap 135 on his way to leading 136 of the 200 laps in the race, claiming the checkered flag by over 20 seconds to second placed Jim Rathmann. Making his way to victory lane, Hanks was overcome with emotion, television cameras showing the Californian wiping away tears as other crews from up and down the pit lane came to salute him upon his return to pit road. After 12 previous attempts (the most of any successful driver in the history of the 500) Hanks had finally managed to achieve the one racing success that had long eluded him, and upon receiving the Borg Warner trophy in victory announced his retirement from motor sport, he only time in the 100 year history of the Indy 500 that a winning driver announced in victory lane that he would not return to the Brickyard.

Hanks victory at the Indianapolis 500 remains one of the great fairy-tale storylines of the Indy 500, 12 previous attempts of disappointment and hard-luck finally coming to fruition at the final opportunity. And with this year’s 500 boasting a number of veteran drivers looking to break their Brickyard duck Hanks’ victory should acts as inspiration to never give up in the pursuit of your dreams.

For today’s video we have archive footage from the 1957 500, including Hanks’ tear-some celebrations in victory lane: