Driving the McLaren that won the 1972 Indy 500, a 1,000-hp time machine

I was told to turn the wheel with my wrists. I had to, because there was no elbow room to move my arms. I couldn’t even reach the pedals.

Walter Goodwin, the man responsible for maintaining Mark Donohue’s 1972 Indy 500 winning McLaren/Offy, informed me that when Parnelli Jones finishes his session on track, he’ll lend me his race suit to use as a booster seat, given that we can’t find any foam padding to do the job. The 80-year-old Hall of Famer is still pounding around in vintage race cars, but more to the point, he’s letting me borrow his clothes.

My hands are wrapped around the rubber-padded steering wheel. It’s comfortable to touch, and fits neatly within my palms. I can't see the six gauges behind it, however, which I determine is OK because I don't really know what they mean. I periodically wiggle the wooden ball on the gearshift to ensure that I’m in neutral, all the while assessing my bizarre surrounding in the staging area outside of Gasoline Alley.

After a short while, a faded blue suit with the vague outline of “Parnelli Jones” stitched across the belt arrives and is folded tidily behind my back. It makes just enough of a difference where at a calf-cramping stretch I can fully depress the pedals.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway “yellow shirts” feverishly blow their whistles at the gathering crowd, while Goodwin signals a mechanic to fire up the engine: “I’ve not started this motor in forever,” the mechanic says, but all 1,000 horses fire to life as if Jim Nabors has just finished singing “Back Home Again in Indiana,” something he did for the first time at Indy on that same Saturday in 1972.

Bobby Unser, the three-time Indy 500 winner and his blue-and-white 1981 Penske/Cosworth — a car he took to victory lane during the 65th running of the 500 — roars down Gasoline Alley, with my instructions to follow in his wheel tracks. I reach for the heavy clutch, engage first gear, blip the throttle and head out in pursuit to the beatific song of the turbocharged 2.65-liter Offenhauser straight four. I get goosebumps. And then onto the famed 2.5-mile oval I go, with one goal: Keep that Unser guy in sight.

Roger Penske’s relationship with McLaren began with a visit to the British manufacturer’s headquarters in late 1970. Penske was expecting to ink a deal with Lola, but the wedge-shaped McLaren M16, designed by Gordon Coppuck, impressed him so much that he purchased two cars, qualifying on pole for the 1971 Indy 500 before a mechanical breakdown thwarted their chance of victory.

For 1972, Coppuck had developed the M16/B. For the first time, USAC allowed bolt-on wings to be affixed to the cars, rather than mandating that they remain integral parts of the bodywork. This led to huge increases in downforce. Bobby Unser qualified on pole in his Eagle 72 with a record 195.940 mph four-lap average – almost 17 mph quicker than the 1971 pole-winning McLaren M16. In fact all 33 cars qualified faster than the previous pole speed.

Donohue, in his deep-blue #66 Sunoco racer, lined up on the outside of the front row. At the time, the cars were pushing 1,150 hp (I’ve heard figures as much as 1,400 hp) in qualifying trim, with race setups still approaching 1,000 hp. Penske, however, decided to detune Donohue’s M16/B even further, understanding that to finish first, you must first finish.

That proved to be a shrewd move by “The Captain,” as Unser retired after just 30 laps with a broken ignition rotor. Gary Bettenhausen then took over at the front. By the 400-mile mark, 18 cars had succumbed to the frantic pace, and with just 25 laps to go, Bettenhausen made it 19. Jerry Grant now led from Donohue, but after Grant pitted on lap 188 for a bad tire, Donohue inherited the lead, gifting Roger Penske his first of what is now 15 Indy 500 victories. The race was the fastest 500 in history, with Donohue completing all 200 laps at an average speed of 162.962 mph – a record that would stand until 1984.

Despite conquering the mythical Speedway, Donohue, from Haddon Township, N.J., retired from racing the following year after the death of his close friend Swede Savage. But by the end of ’74, Penske had lured him back out of retirement and into Formula One. During practice for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix, Donohue lost control of his March F1 car, crashing hard into the catch-fencing. A marshal was killed in the wreckage, and by the following day, so was Donohue. He was just 38 years old.

As I careen into turn one at 9,000 rpm – roughly 180 mph – my mind wanders to Donohue and the inherent dangers faced during this era. Having raced in four Indy 500s myself, I’m accustomed to what a modern IndyCar feels like. The cramped driving position and lack of elbow room makes for an odd sensation (I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to turn sharply into your pit box). However, the direct steering and high grip from that pterodactyl-like rear wing feels somewhat familiar. As I exit turn one, with the wall just a few feet to my right and my head feeling perilously exposed, I find that I can, in fact, relate to what I’m experiencing; I drove Mario Andretti’s pole winning 1966 car in 2006, and that felt totally foreign – how vastly things changed in just a handful of years.

What I couldn’t relate to, however, was what happens when things go wrong: with fuel tanks that empty their contents over the hot engine during a crash, the cars are like moving bombs; and the twisty aluminum chassis is a far cry from today’s carbon-fiber tubs. I spoke to Bobby Unser about this after our drive: “In those days, we didn’t know any better,” Unser tells me. “To us, we had the best, safest technology available at the time.”