1991 Indianapolis 500
75th running of the Indianapolis 500 motor race
The 75th Indianapolis 500 was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, on Sunday, May 26, 1991. Rick Mears won from the pole position, becoming the third four-time winner of the Indy 500, joining A. J. Foyt and Al Unser. During time trials, Mears also established an Indy record by winning his sixth career pole position. The month of May for Mears was tumultuous, as he suffered his first ever crash at Indy since arriving as a rookie in 1977. The wreck during a practice run totaled his primary car, and broke a bone in his right foot. Mears kept the injury mostly secret, and later admitted that the pain he experienced during the race was so bad, he had to cross his legs in the car and push the accelerator pedal down with his left foot.
The race was noteworthy in that it featured the first African American driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, Willy T. Ribbs. It also saw its first Japanese driver, Hiro Matsushita. The pre-race attention going into the month focused on A. J. Foyt, who announced that he would retire from driving after the end of the 1991 season. During time trials, Foyt qualified on the front row, his record 34th consecutive Indy 500 appearance.
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This entry incorporates text from “1991 Indianapolis 500” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.