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Leo Mehl

Anybody who knew Leo Mehl when he was attending engineering school at West Virginia University and washing dishes in the dining hall to pay for his meals would have told you “now, there’s a kid who’s going places.” They had no idea how far. Example: Few people, if any, have achieved the level of success in motorsports as Leo Mehl. Granted it may be a bold statement, but let’s look at the facts:

Mehl was instrumental in helping change the image of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company from one of a highly-conservative corporation into one considered a top-flight technical firm. In the years between 1974 and 1996, which, by the way, was exactly Mehl’s tenure as director of racing, Goodyear was active in every form of motorsports imaginable, winning more than 80 percent of the races in which they were involved. Worldwide. Mehl was fortunate to have been there during that era. Goodyear was even more fortunate.

“If it raced, Goodyear wanted to participate,” he says. “We were in everything from NASCAR to Indianapolis to dirt to drag racing to Bonneville to sports cars.”

But his first job with Goodyear was not all that glamorous. “It was in the old, and I mean old, factory, ‘so we can evaluate you,’ they told me. It was like a scene from an old James Stewart movie,” Mehl muses.

“After a month in production and then a month in research I wondered if I really had a job after all.”

Mehl worked with the big Banbury mixers, which must have seemed like the windmills of Don Quixote. “The air was filled with carbon black. Every day I went home I was black,” he recalls. The dark and drab surroundings surely felt more like a coal mine than a major tire factory.

Early in May of 1963, something happened that was to change his life forever. Not to mention all of motorsports. A. J. Foyt called Goodyear and asked them to bring some of their stock car tires to Indianapolis, the hallowed grounds of arch-rival Firestone. Goodyear, by the way, had not been there since 1920.

They assigned Mehl to the task of finding some specially formulated bags of rubber that had eluded all of them. “They’re over there somewhere,” they told him. He found what they were looking for in the stacks of special compounds. Within a week, Mehl was in charge of the rubber for race tires. After all, he was the only one who knew where it was.

“About six months later one of the engineers came to me and asked if I was interested in going to a race,” Mehl recalls. “I said I would be interested in doing anything that would just get me the hell out of here.”

He went to the Atlanta 500 with one of the racing tire guys. Even though he was a youthful engineer, he felt very special as he roamed the pits with a trusty tire pressure and tread depth gauges. Two weeks later he went to Riverside, but this time as a full-fledged racing tire engineer. He was out of the labyrinth of Goodyear’s aging Plant One forever. The rest is history -– an anthology of racing victories in the Indianapolis 500 and Formula 1 and Daytona 500. In fact, one could look in just about every major winner’s circle around the world and find Leo Mehl. In 1967 he became manager of international racing and in 1974 he took over the entire show as director of racing for the world’s largest rubber company.

Winning became an obsession with everybody in the Goodyear Racing Division, particularly in the director’s office. “If we lost a race I’d go back to the office like a crazy man, even if it was only Thursday Night Thunder, he says.

“When we quit midgets, we had 46 types of tires in stock –- different tread compounds, widths, various tread designs. Every week we’d come out with a new tread pattern and the P.R. guy would do a news release that said ‘Goodyear has developed the best tread design ever.’ When it didn’t work, we’d design another one and the guys downstairs would write ‘no kidding, folks, this is the best ever.’

“It took both Goodyear and Firestone several years to determine that the compound was the main event,” Mehl says. “The grip from the rubber itself is the major factor when you lose traction.”

Shortly after Mehl retired from Goodyear, following the Daytona 500 in 1996, Indianapolis Speedway President Tony George asked him to come to Indianapolis and run the newly-formed Indianapolis Racing League. It took George a few months to convince Mehl, but he finally gave in and agreed to run the IRL, which he did until 2000. Now he goes to the speedway in May because they want him in Race Control.

“I go just to stay in touch. It’s kind of nice going to a race and not being in charge of anything,” Mehl says.

Speaking of his election to the Motorsports Hall of Fame, Mehl had this to say: “Drivers always give credit to their teams. Over a period of 30 years, my ‘teams” had several thousand dedicated and skilled production, development, sales, public relations and service personnel. My Indy 500 experience was the same. I accept this honor on behalf of each one of them.”

As a postscript to an amazing career, West Virginia University gave him a doctorate degree and placed him on a special committee in the engineering department. “You know, that doctorate is important to those guys in academia, and I really appreciate it. But I said “please don’t call me Dr. Mehl.”

Barney Oldfield

Born Bernard Eli Oldfield on June 3, 1878 in Wauseon, Ohio, this Motorsports Hall of Fame inaugural inductee began his racing career on bicycles, becoming a works racer with the Stearns factory in 1896. His first exposure to motorsports came in 1902, when an acquaintance loaned him a motorcycle for a race in Salt Lake City.

That same year he went to Detroit, where he participated in the development of Henry Ford's famous 999 racer, eventually driving it to victory against, among others, Alexander Winton, the American champion of the day.

Oldfield went on to attack the mile-a-minute barrier, eventually whittling it down to 0:55.8 seconds, which was good enough to land a job with Winton, and his career as a barnstorming race driver was established.

Oldfield attracted national attention with his national match racing against all comers in the fabled Peerless Green Dragon. In the course of an 18-week tour that hit 20 tracks nationwide, Oldfield, clad in a green leather driving suit, went 16-for 16 against local opposition and perfected his skill as a showman.

Though his flair for showmanship kept him in almost constant hot water with the AAA, America's major race sanctioning body in those days, Oldfield did manage to make occasional record runs, and in 1910 broke all existing marks for the mile, two miles and the flying kilometer, hitting 131.724 mph in the famed 200-horsepower Blitzen Benz.

Oldfield had little luck with America's premier race, the Indianapolis 500. His best finishes were fifth places in 1914 and 1916, the former in a Stutz, the latter in a Delage. However, he did run the first 100 mph lap at Indy, driving a front-drive Christie, and also came home first in the backbreaking Cactus Derby of 1914, a 670-mile run between Phoenix and L.A.

In all, Oldfield drove for Mercer, Stutz, Maxwell, Delage, Peugeot and ended his career almost as colorfully as he had begun, in the Golden Submarine, another barnstorming campaign that helped put a national tire and rubber company on the American corporate map.

Thanks to the Motorsports Hall Of Fame of America

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Andretti, Baker, Force, Ginther, Rainey, Goldsmith and Skelton Elected To The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America

Novi, MI – Open wheel racing champion Michael Andretti, NASCAR legend Buddy Baker and perennial drag racing king John Force will lead a class of seven racing greats into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America when the organization stages its annual induction ceremony on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at the Fillmore Detroit.

These three, along with sports car ace Richie Ginther, motorcycle hero Wayne Rainey, versatile competitor Paul Goldsmith and pioneering aerobatic pilot Betty Skelton will join 167 racers already enshrined in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.

“On land and in the sky, the Class of 2008 represents race wins and championships in every series in America and beyond,” says Ron Watson, President of the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.

Michael Andretti, the oldest son of Hall of Famer Mario Andretti, is one of the first second-generation open wheel race drivers. He was the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year in 1984 and won the CART championship in 1991. During his driving career, he won more races, more poles and led more laps than any other active Champ Car driver. He is third on the all-time Champ Car win list with 42, behind only A.J. Foyt and his father. As a car owner, he has won three IRL titles and two Indy 500s.

Buddy Baker another second-generation driver, won 19 races on the NASCAR circuit including the 1980 Daytona 500 and back-to-back Coca-Cola 600s in 1972 and 1973. On March 24, 1970, he was the first NASCAR driver to break the 200 mph barrier at the Talladega Speedway. He is the son of Hall of Famer Buck Baker.

John Force is one of the most dominant drag racers in the history of the sport with 14 Funny Car championships, and his 125 career victories and 200 career final rounds are the most by any driver in the history of the National Hot Rod Association. As an owner, between 1990 and 2006, John Force Racing won 15 of 17 Funny Car championships. In 1996, Force was named Driver of the Year for all of American Motorsports, and in 2001, he was listed as No. 2 on the list of top 50 drivers of NHRA's first 50 years.

Richie Ginther started his driving career in 1951 and competed in Mexican Road Races, LeMans and in Formula 1. He was a factory driver for Ferrari and BRM. In 1965, he took Honda to the winner’s circle for the first time in F1 at the Mexican Grand Prix. He retired from driving in1967 and passed away in 1989.

Wayne Rainey won the 1983 and 1987 AMA Superbike Championship (including the 1987 Daytona 200), and the 1990, 1991 and 1992 500cc FIM World Road Racing Championship before his riding career was prematurely ended by spinal injuries suffered in a racing accident. Rainey remained in the sport as a team manager.  Today he stays active racing hand-controlled karts.

Paul Goldsmith was one of American motor racing’s most versatile competitors. Between 1952 and 1966, he won four major motorcycle races, nine NASCAR national events, two USAC stock car season titles and ran with distinction in six Indy 500s.

Betty Skelton learned to fly an airplane before she could drive and ultimately won the Feminine International Aerobatic Championships from 1948-1950. Her Pitts biplane, “Little Stinker” is in the National Air and Space Museum. She went on to become the first woman to drive more than 300 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, to establish transcontinental auto records across the U.S. and South America and to break records driving a Corvette on Daytona Beach. She also was among the first women to take astronaut testing in 1959.

Tickets for the Induction Ceremony can be purchased by calling 1-800-250-RACE (7223).

The Motorsports Museum and Hall of Fame (www.mshf.com) is operated by the nonprofit Motorsports Museum and Hall of Fame of America Foundation Inc. The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America is a museum housing more than 40 racing and high-performance vehicles. The constantly changing collection features racers from the world of Indy cars, stock cars, Can Am, TransAm, sprint cars, powerboats, truck racing, drag racing, motorcycles, air racing and even snowmobiles. Among the highlights are Art Arfons’ Green Monster jet car and championship NASCAR stock cars driven by Darrell Waltrip and Dale Jarrett.

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