Tragedies don't spoil family's love for sport

The Bettenhausen clan perseveres, despite losing a father and a son.

By BRUCE LOWITT

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 25, 2000

INDIANAPOLIS -- Like the Unsers and Andrettis, their family name is synonymous with auto racing.

Unlike the Unsers and Andrettis, to whom Victory Lane has been a second home for generations, the legacy of the Bettenhausens is a litany of tragedy, not so much of lost races as lost lives.

Still, a Bettenhausen pursues a checkered flag, albeit not in a cockpit. "You choose a line in life and you go down it," said Merle Bettenhausen, 56, one of the family's scarred survivors, "and if you care enough about it, there's no turning back."

He is custodian of his late brother's racing team, Bettenhausen Motorsports, and if the past has been awash in bloodshed and tears shed, it has no bearing on today and tomorrow. There are races to be won. "The memories don't get in the way," Merle said. "There are no memories when it's time to go to work.

"I go back to the days when it was not unheard of to have four or five drivers killed every year, so when the yellow (caution) light comes on in a race I have some bitter feelings, terrible feelings. I have these memories. . ." His voice trails off. This is what his memory cannot escape:

In 1961, his father, Melvin "Tony" Bettenhausen, was killed practicing for the Indianapolis 500. He is one of 66 fatalities, 39 drivers, killed at the track. (The late Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times began one race-day column: "Gentlemen, start your coffins," and called the race "the run for the lilies.")

In 1972, Merle, the middle of the three sons, made his Indy-car debut at Michigan International Speedway. He crashed on the first lap and tried to climb out of his burning cockpit while the car was still skidding. His right arm was torn off by the guardrail.

In 1974, Gary Bettenhausen, Merle's older brother, crashed in a dirt car at Syracuse, N.Y., suffering extensive nerve damage to his left arm. Some motor function returned, and Gary resumed racing with his left glove literally Velcroed to the steering wheel. He ran in 21 Indy 500s from 1968-93.

Tony Lee Bettenhausen, the youngest of the three, began racing stock cars in 1969, joined the Winston Cup circuit in 1974, moved to Indy-car racing in 1979 and, like Gary, ran Indy 500s until 1993. At the 1987 Indy 500, a tire that came loose from his car flew into the grandstand, killing a spectator.

From grief to love

In September 1977, James McElreath, the son of 15-time Indy 500 veteran Jim McElreath, was killed in a USAC sprint race. "I think a big part of my dad died that day," said James' older sister, Shirley, years later.

Shirley McElreath and Tony Lee Bettenhausen, friends since childhood, grieved together. The relationship blossomed into love; they married in 1978.

Fate wasn't finished with the Bettenhausens.

Shirley and Tony Lee and two business associates, flying home from Homestead-Miami Speedway where he was meeting with the racing team he owned, were killed Feb. 14 when the twin-engine plane he was piloting crashed near Leesburg, Ky.

"We've had bad luck," said Ryan Bettenhausen, 22, Merle's son. "I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, "Gosh, it sounds like you guys are the Kennedys.'

"You look at the Unsers and the Andrettis ... they've had all the luck in the world," Ryan said. "The Bettenhausens raced at Indianapolis for something like 50 years and came close so many times, but we never won it. Once in a while I'd think, "Why not us?' And then you think about all the accidents and you wonder, "Why us?' "

At the funeral for Shirley and Tony Lee Bettenhausen at Indianapolis' Crown Hill Cemetery, Valerie Bettenhausen, flanked by her two surviving sons, Gary and Merle, and daughter Sue, said through her tears: "You should not have to lose two Tony Bettenhausens in one lifetime." There will be no Bettenhausen presence Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Not for the lack of caring. Not because of the memories. "I'd love to be there, but we're CART," Merle Bettenhausen said, "and they're IRL." Championship Auto Racing Teams and Indy Racing are fighting for control of open-wheel racing. Few teams cross over.

"If there's a reconciliation and I have a team, of course I'd be back," Merle said. "That would be the most exciting thing I could do. Indy is where you belong if you care at all about racing. It's where you want to be."

'Do you like my kids?'

Several years ago, Merle recalled, Tony asked him, "Do you like my kids?" It was his brother's way of bringing up a touchy subject: the welfare of the girls should anything happen to him.

"Tony wanted it set up so that we would be custodians of each other's kids," Merle told USA Today. "It was one of those things that you think 40 years from now we'll look at, have a good laugh and tear it up."

Now he is father to Shirley and Tony's daughters, Bryn, 18, and Taryn, 13, trustee of their estate and head of Tony's racing team. His full-time job is advertising manager at an Indianapolis auto dealership. "The race team doesn't pay me," Merle said. "That's a love interest.. . .

"Everything Tony had is my responsibility now. Every decision I make has to be for the welfare of the children. What's great for the race team might not be great for them. It's a real tightrope between being custodian and trustee. The bottom line is that it's more important for the children to win than for the race team to win."

The eventual end of Bettenhausen Motorsports, whenever it happens, likely will signal the end of the Bettenhausen line in auto racing. Gary, 58, has 38-year-old twin sons who have no interest in the sport. And if Merle's son Ryan ever thought about slipping behind the steering wheel of a race car, his parents -- despite Merle's love of the sport -- steered him away from it years ago.

"When Ryan was 4, Gary brought a Go-Kart over to our house," Merle said. "Ryan sat on Gary's lap, and they went sliding around all over the place. And Ryan got out of the car and his eyes were as big as silver dollars. It was like, "Man, this is really neat.'

"That night Leslie and I (since divorced) talked it over. I mean, did we want, as we grew old, to be worrying about somebody in our family driving a race car? We decided, no, we don't Ryan going down that road."

The Go-Kart stayed for about a week, Ryan pushing it to the top of the sloping driveway, jumping in and coasting just short of the street. "Then we told Gary to take the Go-Kart home," Merle said. "And those knuckles that would've been bent around a steering wheel, I straightened 'em out and taught him how to dribble a basketball."

Ryan Bettenhausen, coach Steve Alford's first basketball recruit at Southwest Missouri State in 1995 and captain of the Bears as a junior and senior, is in his first year as assistant coach at Franklin (Ind.) College.

"My father and I got to talking (in October) when we were watching the California race, the one Greg Moore was killed in," Ryan said, "and I told my father, "If you'd never gotten in your accident, I'd probably be racing.' "

"If he'd wanted to get into racing. . .," Merle Bettenhausen paused, then started over. "I encouraged my son to become a great businessman and make millions of dollars and own a racing team. That's a lot different than sitting in a race car with a helmet on."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.