Lindsey Hopkins

LINDSEY HOPKINS was the consummate sportsman car owner who continued entering cars at Indianapolis 500 races even when he could not obtain sponsorships. A regular from 1951 through 1982, fielding as many as four cars in some years, he won 13 American Automobile Association or United States Auto Club National Championship races. His first Indianapolis 500 car was a dirt track machine obtained from Lou Moore in June 1950. Henry Banks drove it to that year’s American Automobile Association National title as well as to second place in 1951. Longtime Hopkins driver Roger McCluskey won the 1972 Ontario 500 in Ontario, California, and the United States Auto Club National Championship in 1973. Hopkins’s illustrious team of drivers included Jim Rathmann (second at Indianapolis in 1957 and 1959), Bill Vukovich, A.J. Foyt, Lloyd Ruby, Bobby Marshman, Don Branson, Tony Bettenhausen, Sr., Gary Bettenhausen, Wally Dallenbach, Pat O’Connor, and George Amick, among numerous others.