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For those unfortunate folks who were unable to attend the Parnelli Jones Banquet at Long Beach, here's the next best thing: The highlights of the evening - a chance to relive the career of one of America's greatest racing drivers.
Cocktails on the veranda
Dinner in the ballroom
SAM POSEY’S TRIBUTE TO PARNELLI JONES
“His senses knew where the edge was and his personality told him to be on it, all the time and everywhere. His car perfectly balanced, his rivals pushed not quite off the road but almost.
He was always where the action was. He was the first over 150 mph at Indy, the first big name driver to challenge the Baja, the Champion of the Trans-Am in its iconic year, 1970.
A driver is measured by the company he keeps, and Parnelli battled with the very best. Dan Gurney. Mark Donohue. AJ Foyt. George Follmer, Jim Clark… Mario Andretti. His opponents a who’s who of racing greats from all branches of the sport.
He was incredibly versatile. He drove everything from midgets to sprint cars, Indy cars and stock cars. He has raced up Pikes eak and down the Baja Peninsula. He has raced on dirt, on the high banks, on road courses from Riverside to Road America to Lime Rock. He had so much talent he needed to test it in every way possible.
Much of his career is the history of racing itself. He won Indy in the twilight of the roadster era and lost it in a machine that was years ahead of its time. He became a car owner and Al Unser drove his cars to victory at Indy – twice.
But it wasn’t only his record that has made Parnelli stand out, it is Parnelli the man. He looks tough, ready for a fight, but his real weapon is his intelligence – on the track, where he made so few mistakes, and off it, where his business sense, along with a little help from his partner Vel Miletich and a few dozen Firestone tire stores, has made him rich.
He is the proud father of PJ and Page, themselves drivers of distinction.
The kid from Texarkana, Arkansas, may have left us in his dust, but he cannot escape our respect – or our affection.”
Firestone's Al Speyer, Parnelli, and 'Old Calhoun'.
Al Speyer: “Parnelli is synonymous with Firestone and many of you in the room probably know, but maybe some don't know, that back some years ago in the heyday of Parnelli's career we had Parnelli Jones Firestone stores primarily in this area of the West Cost. Long before we had our current Indy 500 street tire, we have here on the stage the Parnelli Jones Firestone tires and we had a great slogan that went along with that, that ‘I got my 'stones at Parnelli Jones’.
“I have a little story here to tell. I don't know if it's true or not, but it doesn't really matter. Up at Watkins Glen, as it was related to me, back in the late '60s and early '70s when tire contracts and all that business stuff was happening, Parnelli was very dedicated to Firestone. And of course, because he was dedicated to Firestone, he was being courted by the Goodyear guys. They came over and had a set of tires they wanted him to run, and he said, "Well, I don't know, let me think about it." He thought about it for a day or two, he said, "Yeah, I'll give it a try."
So, he put the Goodyears on and Firestone guys were shaking not knowing what was going on, he had a contract, he said don't worry, don't worry, it's fine. He went on the track, he blasted around there, throwing the car around like it was a sprint car, sliding it sideways, hammering the tires all the way. About three laps they'd given up so much that nobody not even Parnelli could drive the car. He pulled it into the pits, the tires are still smoking, blistered so bad you couldn't even recognize whose tires (they were.)
Climbed out of the car he said to the Goodyear guys, "I think you've got some work to do."
Bobby Rahal introduces Honorary Long Beach Chairman Dario Franchitti
BOBBY: “Forget the fact that he's a great driver and married to Ashley Judd – which goes a long way - Dario’s a real student of the sport. And you don't always see a lot of young guys today who really care about what came before them. But I think Dario really does care. So much so that he goes to Goodwood – and much to the chagrin of Chip Ganassi - he goes out in Jaguar E types and throws discretion to the wind......But Dario is a great young man, a great champion of Indycar racing and is a quality guy. And so Dario, thanks for being our Honorary Chairman.
DARIO: “It's my honor to be an RRDC member. To be here tonight to honor Parnelli is really incredible. Not only is he a man who can drive anything quickly, I went to the museum last night, and checked out some of the stuff he's driven – Wow. - But he's also the first person to let me sit in one of his Lotus race cars - Jim Clark's Milwaukee winner - and he had to drag me out of it. It was quite something.
Possibly, I think the toughest guy every to sit in a race car. I'm glad we didn't have to race against each other, because he would have definitely kicked my butt”
A trio of Indy-500 Winners - Dario, Parnelli, and Bobby
Bobby Rahal (behind the Letterman desk) grills Parnelli as Dario looks on
BOBBY: I think everybody is having a lot of fun. Last year we had someone else doing the questions. I hope I'll do at least as good a job as they do.
You hear all these stories and you always want to know the real story. In trying to determine what question I should ask you for everybody, maybe there's some part of your life that nobody really knows much about, I had to mine these questions. Who knows what about Parnelli, what should we ask him.
It's amazing, in the end everybody has a great deal of respect and love for you and you really are truly an icon in motorsports. We're glad you're here.
You have this reputation as a tough guy, but I understand you really love animals. Is that true?
PARNELLI: Obviously, when I was young I loved horses and I hung around a stable and couldn't afford a horse, and they used to let me ride these quarter horses and (ride) some of the amateur races that they had. Because I couldn't afford a horse I bought a donkey.
This burro that I had, there was a guy who had a beautiful stallion, a horse there, and he was training him to do all these different kinds of tricks. At the same time I was training my donkey and I was able to teach him to lay down, roll over and sit up and do all those things.
I had a lot of fun with that. I used to break horses to ride for people and you have to ride them for every day for 30 days. That’s how I earned enough money to buy my first horse. And when I turned 16 I sold my horse and bought a hot rod.
I've been able to train dogs, and stuff like that, I have a feel for that.
BOBBY: Is it true you wanted to be a jockey at one time?
PARNELLI: Yeah, that was true, when I was riding the quarter horses, but when you reach that 12-13-year age, you grow about four or five inches in one year and you're suddenly too big to ride horses.
BOBBY: There's a story that you actually rode your donkey to Torrance High School.
PARNELLI: Yes, I did ride it to the school, but what happened it was graduation and seniors wanted me to come up and bring my donkey to the school so they could ride it down the hall..........everybody remembers that.
BOBBY: Now we're rounding out the legend here. I have the biggest question I have here is the name Parnelli. How did that come about?
PARNELLI: Well most people know my first name is Rufus. You guys probably know that. My middle name is Parnell. And when I fist started racing I was only 17 years old. You had to be 21 at that time, so my buddy Billy Calder - he was very artistic and he lettered my jalopy and he also made me a phony identification that made me 21 years old. I was raised in Gardena, and the kids in school would have known that I wasn't 21 years old and they would have snitched on me.
But, anyway, he used to call me Parnellie. He used to tease me. There was this little girl in school that had freckles and everything and her name was Nellie. He would tease me and would call me Parnellie all the time....When he lettered my car he put Parnellie and we spell it Parnelli now, but originally he made it Parnellie.
Billy Calder, my buddy who named me Parnelli, is here tonight.
BOBBY: And it stuck. Thanks for coming, Billy. I also heard a story, you and your friends would get in cars and just go out and roll them for fun.
PARNELLI: Yeah, I had an older friend, about three years older than I and he and I were buddies. We used to go out and buy old junk cars and people would have these cars sitting in their driveway that they had around for a long time. We paid $10, $15, $20 for them - stuff like that - we'd bring them out and we'd cut them up with a torch and haul them to the junkyard and collect the money. We made 100 bucks or so.
Anyway, I was having fun getting them running before we cut them up and when I'd get one running I would take it out there and made a ramp to start with and get it on two wheels, do my thing, and run down and hit a berm and go sideswipe a tree or something like that.
And then one time I had this one running pretty good. So, I flipped it a couple of times, maybe on its side in a field. My buddies came over there and one of them said he'd like try to flip it, and lay it over... He got it down there, got it up on two wheels, almost flipped it, and couldn't quite do it, and I said, Give me that thing, I'll show you how to do it.
I went down there, dumped that thing, and it rolls about three or four times. That cured me right there.
Then there was a tree in there we used to sideswipe. There was a berm right before the tree. My little brother Paul, he was a little younger than I, he somehow got in my car one day and he was going to go out there and sideswipe this tree. He went down and he hit the berm and came up and hit the tree dead center. He didn't do that anymore.
BOBBY: You have this reputation of being a tough guy, you weren't afraid to stand up for yourself, and yet I've been told, and I don't know if this is correct, when you first started racing and I guess fights were pretty much a common thing in those days, before or even after the race. And you had a posse that protected you to make sure..... Is that true?
PARNELLI: Well, it helped. I did have a couple of guys who worked on my cars and stuff and came along with me and we had a couple of incidents.
BOBBY: Was that a common occurrence, getting into fights before the races? Money involved? Bets?
PARNELLI: Not really. Even today you see racers get out, duke it out, unless they're penalized and stuff. We had a couple of fights. It's a matter of protecting yourself in a sense. A lot of times guys were mad at you and you had to defend yourself.
BOBBY: That had to be an amazing... in 1967 you go to the Speedway and you unload this Turbine car. I can't imagine being a driver driving anything else that time. Two laps from home and the car broke?
JONES: Well, it was about three and a half laps. And I criticized myself for all that time because the car ... if I had not accelerated coming out of the pits, because it had a lot of torque, it was real hard on the bearings, and finally let go. And if I had just taken it a little bit easier we obviously would have won the race hands down.
It was a crying shame. Of course, one of the things that helped me with that particular car was leading the race toward the end. I was thinking winning again wasn't going to be as great as it was the first time. And that helped me make the decision...what are you doing it for? So shortly thought they were a little bit on the dangerous side, so I made a decision at that time to quit running open cockpit cars and that's when I went to Trans-Am and the off-road, Baja racing.
Bobby hoists a toast to Judy and Parnelli Jones
Parnelli with his Lola T-70 Spyder Can-Am car
Speed TV's Robin Miller, Parnelli, and Indy Car's Steve Shunck
Alex and Dan Gurney with Bosch's racing rep Wolfgang Hustedt
Racing legends: Don "the Snake" Prudhomme, wife Lynn, and Rick Mears compare notes
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