Cars We Remember/Collector Car Corner; Mickey Thompson and Danny Ongais remembered

Q: Greg I see Danny Ongais just passed away and remember him driving for Mickey Thompson in those wild Ford Mustang funny cars, and seeing him nearby at Pocono Raceway in Indy cars. Any comments or memories on the duo? Bob R., Mt. Pocono, Pa.  

Bob, I sure do have memories, so I’m dedicating this week’s column to your question and the two principals.  

I was lucky to interact with Danny Ongais in person numerous times, especially at Pocono’s IndyCar races. However, if Ongais knew you were a member of the media, he wouldn’t give you the time of day. This did happen to me once as I was wearing my Circle Track Magazine jacket with my pit pass situated to try and hide the logo. My pit pass moved, Danny saw the logo and with no ill words he stopped talking in the middle of his sentence and calmly just walked away.

How’s that for a memory?  

However, whatever someone from the media did to the Kahalui, Hawaiian-born Ongais, I’ll never know. If a media member did him wrong in the past, I will still always remember him as a gentleman and ferocious racer, regardless of what car he drove or his reputation when it came to the press. 

His successes and participation included nitro dragsters and funny cars, all types of open wheel and door car road racing, four Formula 1 starts, and then top class Indy cars where he won six career races. He also won the Daytona Rolex 24 in a Porsche 935 Prototype with Interscope Racing in 1979 with owner / partner Ted Field and third driver Hurley Haywood. Field founded Interscope Records, thus the Interscope Racing name and where he spent millions in IndyCar, F1, and sports car racing (thanks Ted).  

Ongais came to drag racing prominence when he drove Mickey Thompson’s Mustang nitro funny cars and the Field owned Interscope Racing “Batmobile” Indy cars, where he won big races and was also critically hurt in one of the most horrific crashes ever in the 1981 Indy 500. His last Indy 500 came in 1996 at age 54, and where he started last and finished 7th as a replacement driver for John Menard. Menard’s regular driver, Scott Brayton, sadly lost his life in a post qualifying practice crash that year after winning the pole position. Ongais hadn’t raced since the 1986 Indy 500.    

RIP Danny Ongais, who passed away on Feb. 26, 2022 in California of congestive heart failure, at age 79. In his career he won six IndyCar races and finished a best of 4th in the Indy 500 in 1979. Of his 11 Indy 500 starts, he earned four top 10s. 

As for Mickey Thompson, he was one of the all-time greats in auto racing and partook in numerous disciplines, from land speed records to nitro funny cars to owning / promoting off-road truck racing series. Throw in his Indy 500 efforts, and there weren’t many things this guy didn’t do in motor racing as a competitor, car owner and promoter.  

Thompson was, and always will be one of my all-time heroes. He is perhaps best remembered for his 406.60-mph land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1960 behind the wheel of his famed Challenger I, powered by four Pontiac engines. Even today his business acumen is alive and well as Thompson’s line of racing and street performance tires (M/T brand) are popular aftermarket tire offerings. 

However, Mickey Thompson unfortunately was murdered along with his wife Trudy in 1988. Those close to Mickey and Trudy, including the couple’s immediate family, pointed quickly to Mickey’s hotheaded former business partner, Michael Goodwin, as the mastermind behind the tragedy. 

Nearly 20 years later, and in 2006, a jury in the Pasadena Superior Court found Goodwin guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. The actual gunmen were never identified.

Thompson was an innovator at everything he built for racing, especially at Indianapolis. I hold him in the same high esteem as Smokey Yunick, particularly when it came to pioneering designs that appeared at the brickyard. Sadly, it was one of Thompson’s cars that started Indy’s double fatal crash in 1964 that took the life of Thompson’s driver, road race legend Dave MacDonald, and the jovial and popular fan favorite, Eddie Sachs. It was indeed a grim day in racing and covered well in a book called “Black Noon: The Year They Stopped The Indy 500,” by Art Garner.

Always a noted drag racer, Californian Thompson fielded numerous top drag cars, including a twin-engine rail dragster for legendary driver Jack Chrisman. On a personal note, my friend and mentor, the late, great Jack Kulp, owner and mechanic of the famous Jack Kulp’s Garage in the Bristol-Pendel and later the Mandata / Rebuck area of Pennsylvania, is top-of-mind. Kulp’s single engine Chrysler Hemi powered dragster, driven by George “Atlas” Van, defeated Thompson’s twin-engine rail, with Chrisman driving, at Pennsylvania’s York U.S. 30 Dragway in 1962 to win a gigantic ”Big Go East” (east versus west final round) NHRA divisional championship. 

Thompson’s funny cars, meanwhile, soon made the scene. Fielding many ultra fast funny cars, his top two were the dominating 1969 Ford Mustangs driven by the late Pat Foster and the aforementioned Danny Ongais. These 200-MPH Mustangs were usually the fastest of the class wherever they participated, and both won big events. 

Sadly, Foster was involved in one of the early fatal funny car crashes when in 1969 his car skidded into the lane of the “Ratty Cat” Cougar of Gerry Schwartz. Schwartz was forced into the guardrail, killing the likeable young driver when his fiberglass Cougar disintegrated. Foster, luckily, survived the crash. Other notable funny car drivers along the way who appear on the Mickey Thompson funny car driver list include Dale Pulde and Bob Pickett, both capable if not outstanding funny car shoes.     

Following Thompson’s winning drag racing history, he turned his sights to “Off Road” racing. Here, he built a huge off road truck racing business, and in the midst of this success the hideous execution style killing took place. 

At this point and for the sake of newspaper space, I recommend two best-selling books on Thompson, the late Dave Madigan and Alex Xydias memoir “Mickey Thompson: The Lost Story Of The Original Speed King In His Own Words,” and current author Erik Arneson’s “Mickey Thompson: The Fast Life and Tragic Death of a Racing Legend.” Both are skillfully written and available immediately in Kindle format. 

Thanks for your letter Bob. This column sure brought back both happy and sad memories. 

(Greg Zyla is a syndicated auto columnist who welcomes reader questions on collector cars, auto nostalgia and motorsports at greg@gregzyla.com.)