Tom Sneva

He was the first man to break the 200 mph barrier at Indianapolis and the first back-to-back national champion to be fired. He was adored by the fans and media but managed to get sideways with A.J. Foyt, Johnny Rutherford and both Unser brothers during his career. Mechanics loved his savvy behind the wheel, yet wanted to strangle him because he was never satisfied with the chassis. He was well-spoken and outspoken -- but never at a loss for words. 

Gordon Johncock once said: "If nine people pushed the up button in the elevator, Sneva would press down."

And that combination of talent, bravado, personality and unpredictability is what made Tom Sneva one of Indy-car racing's most entertaining performers for the better part of two decades.

He quit driving a school bus for Indy cars in 1973, packing up his wife and two young daughters and moving from Spokane, Wash. to Indianapolis where he immediately received instant respect and victories in the tough USAC sprint series.

Sneva qualified for his initial Indy 500 in '74 with a low-buck team and ran so quick all season that Roger Penske signed him up for '75. That was the start of a tumultuous four years where arguments ran a close second to success.

After surviving one of the most spectacular crashes in IMS history in May of 1975, Tom came back to score his first win at Michigan a few weeks later. By 1977, nobody in the USAC paddock was quicker. The day after crashing and drawing the ire of his team for trying to run through Turn 4 flat out, Sneva stormed back to run the first 200 mph lap and win the pole position.

And, even though he captured the USAC title in '77 and '78, Penske didn't like drivers who thought outside the box or freely gave their opinion so he fired the national champion. Sneva soldiered on and by 1981 he'd hooked up with George Bignotti. They fought like the Honeymooners but got along well enough to win six races together -- including Indy in 1983.

A bridesmaid three times at the Speedway, "The Gas Man" (as he was nicknamed by fellow driver Johnny Parsons) drove the Texaco Star around Big Al Unser and into Victory Lane in a win that was as popular as it was overdue.

Sneva set another track record for his third Indy pole in 1984 and was fixin' to have a shootout with Rick Mears for the win when he lost a CV joint. He did triumph three times and lost the CART title to Mario Andretti by 13 points.

As road racing became more and more prominent, The Gas Man became an Indy-only specialist and competed for the final time in 1992. His career stats read 14 poles, 13 wins, two titles and 1,695 laps led. He was a master in traffic, especially at Phoenix and Milwaukee.

And whether he made you laugh, cuss or shake your head in awe, whenever he strapped on his helmet, Tom Sneva was always worth the price of admission.

Mel Kenyon

They call him Miraculous Mel, and with good reason.

Born in Illinois and raised in Davenport, IA, but long since a resident of Lebanon, IN, Kenyon is unquestionably the most successful driver in the nearly 50-year history of United States Auto Club midget car competition and many consider him to be midget car racing's greatest driver ever.

In addition to a record seven USAC National midget titles, Kenyon also was runner-up eight times. In the 27 seasons between 1963 and 1988, he placed in the top five of the final standings an amazing 21 times. His 111 features wins -- also a record -- have been backed up by 131 seconds, 107 thirds, 81 fourths and 69 fifths for a total of 419 finishes among the top five, not to mention a grand total of 688 among the top 10. And this is in USAC National competition alone. It does not include numerous successes in a variety of regional and sectional events and with other sanctioning bodies, including NAMARS, where he was the National champion in 1995, '96 and '97.

By his own calculations, his feature victories in all of midget racing, including in Australia and New Zealand, have topped 380, and friends will point out that many of his second-place finishes have come as the result of being beaten by cars he and his brother, Don, prepared for other people.

Although Kenyon very rarely ventured into sprint car racing, he did compete in 65 USAC National Championship events and participated in the Indianapolis 500 eight times, placing third in 1968 -- behind Bobby Unser and Dan Gurney -- plus fourth in 1969 and 1973, and fifth in 1966.

The truly remarkable thing about him is that the majority of his success was accomplished after overcoming an adversity that would have stopped most people. A series of operations at the San Antonio Burn Center, following a fiery accident in a Championship car at Langhorne in June of 1965, left him missing virtually all of the fingers on his left hand. But he wasn't through yet. Together with his brother and his father, he designed a special glove in which a rubber grommet was sewn into the palm. This was to fit over a stud on the steering wheel so that he could grab the wheel with his right hand and steer with the palm of his left hand.

He made his return in the spring of 1966 and it was as if he had never been away, scoring a dozen finishes of either first or second and placing second in the final point standings.

Perhaps even more remarkable than all of this was the fact that he continued to do his own engine work, his third place finish at Indianapolis in 1968 coming with a normally aspirated Offenhauser engine he routinely tore down and put back together strictly by himself.

A man of strong religious conviction, much of his time in the 1990s was spent caring for his virtually comatose wife, now deceased, who had suffered a major head injury in a bicycle riding accident. But his conviction and his inspirational easy-going manner never wavered and rivals were confounded when, even as he was celebrating his 70th birthday on April 15, 2003, Mel Kenyon was getting ready to go racing again.