By Dick Mittman
indy500.com
Saturday, May 24, 2003
In today's world, John Barnes is an anachronism.
Barnes is a modern-day team owner who is a throwback to the days of the roadster and drivers like Hurtubise, Parnelli and Ruby. He's been hanging around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and attending the race since 1955.
Yet when the 87th annual Indianapolis 500 takes the green flag Sunday, Barnes will field three 225-mph cars and compete with the high-profile owners like Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi and Michael Andretti.
The Panther Racing team, which Barnes co-owns, has a high-powered sponsor in Pennzoil and its primary driver, Sam Hornish Jr., has won the last two IRL IndyCar™ Series championships. For the "500," Panther has added 1998 Indy MBNA Pole Award winner Billy Boat and 1999 Bank One Indy Rookie of the Year Robby McGehee to the stable.
Barnes has come a long way since he began sweeping floors for low-budget car owner Bill Finley 35 years ago.
"I'm still doing it," he joked about the broom duties.
Of course, the sweeping takes place in a state-of-the-art shop located just a few miles southwest of the Speedway. It's only a block from his high school, and he can look out a window and see his family homestead.
"It's nice to move back to where your roots came from," he said. "The community is so behind us. If you read the Mooresville Times any day, there's a big article about Panther Racing. You'd think we were buying space in the thing."
Barnes' father, Harley, first brought him to the Indianapolis 500 in 1955. The whole family loved racing, and they parked a pickup truck with a platform on the back straightaway near the third turn.
After the 1962 race, Barnes' father took him into the garage area for the first time.
"We came in, and Paul Russo was sitting on the bench behind his car," Barnes said. "He didn't make the race that year.
"I walked around the front of his car to get an autograph. I walked in the garage without asking, like most brash kids. And I hit the starter shaft out in the front of his roadster with my shin. It almost broke it.
"I hand him my program to him to get an autograph. He said: 'You've got to leave and get out of here. You didn't ask permission to come in here. You go over there and say, 'Mr. Russo, may I have your autograph?' and I'll give it to you.'"
About 10 years later Russo was selling piston rings and would come by Barnes' shop.
"I would make him say, 'Mr. Barnes, can I come in your shop?'" Barnes said with a laugh. "We had a lot of fun with it."
Barnes idolized 1960 legendary Indy drivers like Jim Clark, Dan Gurney and others. He said it was an incredible experience to grow up looking with awe upon drivers like them and then becoming their friends.
The first driver that was associated with Barnes was Wally Dallenbach Sr. when he became Finley's protégé. As he moved through his career, he eventually was involved with most of the greats.
"The Unser brothers, Mario," he said. "I had the pleasure really of working with both fathers and sons of a couple of families, Mario and Jeff Andretti and Wally Dallenbach Sr. and Jr.
"I think other than Sam, the greatest talent I ever worked with was Tim Richmond. He just had the most incredible natural talent as a race driver of anybody I met."
Oddly, Richmond hailed from the same northern Ohio area as Hornish.
Barnes assembled his current team after Pennzoil came to him and proposed such a venture. He pointed out that he knew his strengths and weaknesses and thus had to get other people involved in various areas of the team.
Barnes brought in Indianapolis car dealer Gary Pedigo to handle the business end. Pedigo recruited Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jim Harbaugh to help with media relations. Doug Boles was wooed from city mayor's office, and longtime friend Mike Griffin joined the ownership group.
They started with driver Scott Goodyear, now the analyst for the IndyCar Series' telecasts on ABC Sports, and have been going like gangbusters ever since.
This year may be tough since Hornish, making his fourth Indianapolis 500 start, is back in 18th place in the No. 4 Pennzoil Panther Dallara/Chevrolet/Firestone, and Boat and McGehee will lineup in 29th and 31st, respectively, in Dallara/Chevrolet/Firestone entries sponsored by Pedigo's Chevy dealership in Indianapolis. Still, Barnes has faith that Hornish can pull off a victory.
"I think this really will be his year here, because he knows he is at a deficit," Barnes said. "He's really got the attitude that, 'I'm going to take what I've got, and I'm going to run with it, let the race come to me instead of trying to take command of it.' He's matured so much in the last three years. He's such a great race driver, such a great person. Really, it's been a tremendous thing to have him here with us."
But what if the checkered flag doesn't wave his way?
"To win this thing would be a tremendous thing," Barnes said. "But just to be in it at all and be a participant in it gives such gratification. And to see all the things and be part of all the changes that have happened through the years, if I don't ever win it, I'll look back and say, 'I just had a great life here and been associated with a lot of great people."
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