![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/dc-alicehanks1.jpg?resize=640%2C480\")
<\/p>\n
For those of us who were around in those days, it seems like yesterday, on another planet.\u00a0\u00a0 You can watch a short film of Sam\u2019s 500 win on You Tube, narrated by another racing legend Cris Economaki .<\/p>\n
Alice recently spent almost two hours with me, in her lovely home overlooking the Palisades surf.\u00a0 It was amazing how many friends we had in common.\u00a0 I was a crew member on various Indy cars from 1981, well into the 90\u2019s with the Lazier family. \u00a0Alice and I wondered how it is that so many people at the top levels of racing know and like<\/em><\/strong> each other, from Roger Penske down to the lowest tire changer.\u00a0\u00a0 The only possible answer we came up with is….It\u2019s so darn hard to get there! \u00a0Ya start out working all day, driving all night, sleeping in the truck until the track gate opens, then you get out and do it all over again.\u00a0 If you\u2019re willing to do that for years, or even decades, you must have something in common.<\/p>\n That leads to another question I wanted to ask Alice \u201cWhat advice would you give to someone just starting in racing?\u201d\u00a0 Her answer was precious, \u201cWork hard and find someone with money.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s 500 winning race car was the Belond Exhaust Special, built for team owner George Salih by Quin Epperly in his southern California shop.\u00a0 Almost all Indy cars in those days were powered by a 4 cylinder \u201cOffy\u201d engine, but when Sam saw that Quin had laid the Offy down 72 degrees from vertical, reducing the frontal area, lowering the center of gravity, and increasing the weight bias to the left side, he knew he could win in that car.\u00a0 It was the ultimate evolution of the \u201croadsters\u201d, which were \u00a0replaced by the rear engine cars in the 60\u2019s.<\/p>\n That lead to another question, \u201cWhat was your most enjoyable moment in racing?\u201d<\/p>\n Without any hesitation, \u201cWhen Sam stepped out of the car.\u201d\u00a0 If you watch the You Tube video, you\u2019ll see race drivers in tee shirts and baseball caps, with no roll bars or seat belts.\u00a0 Some even raced while smoking cigars. \u00a0Fires, crashes and deaths were very common.<\/p>\n The next question, \u201cWhat was your most enjoyable moment in life?\u201d \u00a0With no hesitation, \u201cWhen I met Sam.\u201d\u00a0 They met in the Midwest while Sam was in the military, then married right after the War.\u00a0 They moved to booming Southern California in 1947, where Sam continued his career racing sprint cars, stock cars, anything with wheels.\u00a0 Soon he was moving up to Indy roadsters.<\/p>\n For the 1957 Indy win Sam received a check for $107,000 in the winner\u2019s circle (about 2.2 million in today\u2019s money) then immediately gave it to the team owner who paid expenses and salaries out of it. That was common practice in those days.<\/p>\n No contract, just a gentleman\u2019s agreement.\u00a0 \u201cWe bought our present house in 1958.\u201d said Alice.\u00a0 \u201cThere were no lawyers or agents in those days.\u00a0 When we travelled we stayed in hotels usually run by the family who also lived there, and when we sat down to dinner we had real food, often prepared by the wife and daughters of the owner.\u00a0 It was a very different time.\u201d<\/p>\n When I asked Alice, \u201cWhat is your favorite car?\u201d she answered \u201cUsually the one I\u2019m\u00a0 driving at the moment.\u00a0 I tend to keep my cars a long time.\u00a0 I treat them well and they treat me well.\u00a0 I\u2019m currently driving a Mercedes C 320.\u00a0 It\u2019s a lovely car.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be sad when I eventually trade it.\u00a0 Everybody I\u2019m close to is a car person.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why people love cars so much.\u00a0 I guess we just do.\u201d<\/p>\n What a great afternoon.\u00a0 Thanks to Alice for spending the time with me, and thanks to Sylvia Wilkinson for setting up the interview.\u00a0 I hope we can have both of them over to the Shelby shop in Gardena, where we are building continuation Shelby GT-350 racecars.\u00a0 Turns out Alice is a Shelby fan also!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a lovely lady Alice is. \u00a0\u00a0At almost 92, she\u2019s sharp as a tack, and full of wisdom & fun. Alice is the widow of Sam Hanks, who won the Indy 500 in 1957.\u00a0\u00a0 With tears in his eyes, and his wife\u2019s arms around him, Sam retired from racing in \u00a0Indy\u2019s Victory Circle.\u00a0 He continued … Continue reading “Alice Hanks Interview (March 10, 2018)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8gW0j-37","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/dc-alicehanks2.jpg?resize=640%2C480\")
<\/p>\n