Remembering Rufus “Parnelli” Jones: 1933 – 2024
A fast and versatile driver who learned his craft in the rough and tumble of American dirt track racing.
Angus MacKenzieWriterJun 05, 2024
Parnelli Jones, who died in Torrance, California, on June 4, 2024 at age 90, had no regrets in a motorsport career that spanned more than 40 years, and included wins as in the Indianapolis 500, the Baja 1000, and at Pikes Peak, as well as in NASCAR and Trans-Am, plus the rough and tumble USAC sprint car and midget championships. Apart from one.
After his victory in the 1963 Indy 500 at the wheel of the aging front-engine Watson roadster he nicknamed Ol’ Calhoun, where he beat the lighter and more fuel-efficient mid-engine Lotus driven by Scotsman Jim Clark, Lotus boss Colin Chapman offered Jones a Formula 1 drive in 1964. The only problem was he’d be number two to Clark, who’d won the World Driver’s Championship in 1963, and would go on to win it again in 1965.
Jones turned Chapman down. At the time he didn’t believe grand prix racing carried the prestige of top-level racing in the U.S. But there was another, more important reason: “I wasn’t going to be number two to anybody,” he said. It was a decision, he told me in 2011, he came to regret.
Rufus Parnell “Parnelli” Jones was born August 12, 1933 in Texarkana, Arkansas, but moved to California as a child. Young Rufus wanted to be a jockey and rode quarter horses. Then he went to a jalopy race with cousin who drove a ’34 Ford, and his life changed forever: “I sold my horse when I was 16 and bought a hot rod.” By 17 he was racing jalopies on the dirt ovals that dotted southern California, and by his mid-20s he was a regular on the Midwest midget and sprint car circuit, traveling across the country with Jim “Hercules” Hurtubise, the tough-as-nails driver from North Tonawanda, New York, who would become his best friend.
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1960 was Parnelli’s breakthrough year. He won the Midwest sprintcar title, finished eighth in the USAC midget standings, and nearly won a couple of big events in Indy roadsters. His performances caught the attention of flamboyant California racetrack promoter and car owner, J.C. Agajanian, who brought him to Indy for the 1961 500. Jones ran at the front of the pack early in the 1961 race, even leading at one point, before a stone hit him in the face, and his vision was blurred by flowing blood. In 1962, he became the first driver to lap the Brickyard at more than 150 mph, putting Ol’ Calhoun on pole for the race. He led for all but six of the first 125 laps until his brakes went away. “That’s the race I should have won,” he said.
In 1967, Jones came within three laps of winning the Indy 500 again, this time in a car that, compared with Ol’ Calhoun, was a spaceship, the gas-turbine-powered, all-wheel drive STP-Paxton Turbocar built by Andy Granatelli. The car slowed after a transmission bearing failed. “The bearings were too small for the tremendous torque of the turbine engine under acceleration,” Jones said. “We had encountered the problem in practice, but at that point, we couldn’t do much about it. I was told I’d have to take it easy going out of the pits, but my competitive nature kept taking over.”
Though Jones had started racing on ovals, he found he loved road courses, and was good on them. He would win the Motor Trend 500 at Riverside in 1967 and put his car on pole there in 1970, the final NASCAR race of his career. His dirt track background helped him guide the tube-frame, fiberglass-bodied Ford Bronco – nicknamed ‘Big Oly’—to back-to-back wins in the Baja 1000 in 1971 and 1972, and to victories in the Baja 500 and Mint 400 in 1973.
While still an active driver, Jones founded his own race team, Vel’s Parnelli Racing, which won the 1970 and 1971 Indy 500s with Al Unser at the wheel of the Johnny Lightning Special. The team also won the 1970, 1971, and 1972 USAC National Championships. His attempt to compete in Formula 1 as a team owner between 1974 and 1976 was less successful, however, despite having Mario Andretti behind the wheel of the Ford Cosworth DFV V8-powered Parnelli VPJ4.
A great spotter of driver talent, Colin Chapman saw in Parnelli Jones a quick and versatile driver whose car control and aggression had been honed in wheel-to-wheel racing on the rough and slippery USAC dirt tracks and at the fearsomely fast Brickyard. It is perhaps no coincidence that after Jones withdrew from F1 as a team owner in early 1976, Chapman quickly hired Mario Andretti, a driver whose racing experience mirrored that of Jones.
Andretti would of course go on to win the 1978 World Championship in Chapman’s innovative Lotus 79. And Parnelli Jones would always wonder what might have been had he said yes to the Lotus boss in 1964. “I wish I had done it,” he told me. So do we all, Parnelli. Parnelli Jones is survived by his wife, Judy, sons P.J. and Page, and grandchildren Jagger, Jace, Jimmy, Joie, Jet, and Moxie.