Car Guy Magazine Car Guy Magazine Issue 1014 | Page 18

to sort the cars out until Ruby convinced the
McLaren tech crew to let him set up the car, at
which point they became dominant. Unfortunately, the Ruby luck struck again. A mechanic
started the engine on race morning as a final
check, but forgot to shut off the fuel system
afterwards. Methanol drained into the cylinders and washed down the rings and bores.
Although the problem was caught before race
time, the damage was done and Ruby was out
on lap seven.
In 1976 and 1977 Ruby ran second-string
cars with nothing to show for it. The next year
Gene White made arrangements to buy Danny Ongias’ backup car from the Vels-Parnelli
Jones team, but before they could take delivery
“OnTheGas” destroyed it in a testing accident.
Vels offered another chassis, but ran out of engines before race day. White asked Ruby what
to do next, and he replied “Why don’t we just
quit.”
Getting out of racing wasn’t easy the first
year or so, but eventually Ruby became involved in oil drilling and had plenty to keep
himself busy in Wichita Falls, with Peggy, his
wife of 52 years, his children John and Mary
Ann who live nearby, frequent golf games with
old racing friends like Parnelli Jones and, of
course, the gang at the “clubhouse.”
He has made two exceptions to his retirement. In 1993 he participated in the Fast Masters, a Jaguar PR fiasco involving the televised
destruction of a pack of Jaguar XJ-220s by retired racers over the age of 50. Ruby, then 65,
was making a run at Bob Bondurant in a heat
race when the two cars touched, then spun off
the track with terminal results. Bondurant was
furious, but an unfazed Ruby was convinced he
had added to the spectator interest!
In 2003 a similar event was put on at Texas
Motor Speedway, but this time the cars provided were small-scale replicas of Indy roadsters
powered by motorcycle engines. Ruby finished
third, showing that the touch is still there.
Meanwhile, the chicken is frying and the beer
is cold. For Lloyd Ruby, life was good.

16 CarGuyMagazine.com

Lloyd Ruby “the greatest driver never to
win the Indy 500” died at the age of 81 on
March 23, 2009 in Wichita Falls, Texas.