Eddie Sachs

EDDIE SACHS, a front-row qualifier in four out of his first five Indianapolis 500 race starts, came tantalizingly close to winning the race in 1961. Starting from the pole position for the second consecutive year, the colorful, crowd-pleasing Sachs was leading when he was forced in for a tire change with only three laps remaining, dropping him to an eventual second-place finish behind A.J. Foyt. Also the third-place finisher in the 1962 Indianapolis 500, Sachs won eight National Championship races, including the 1958 Hoosier Hundred, plus three in succession at the Trenton Speedway (New Jersey). He was a three-time runner-up in the Midwest Sprint Car Championship (1954, 1955, and 1956) before winning that title in 1958. He placed second in the Eastern Sprint Car series in 1959. Sachs also won 16 sprint car main event races from 1952 through 1959, and in 1961 won two major United States Auto Club stock car races at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds (Milwaukee). He died in an accident shortly after the start of the 1964 Indianapolis 500.