The Untold Story of the 1968 Lotus 56 Turbine Power at the Indy 500 Tales On Wheels Ep 2

[@ChuckLynch-uw5jf]

My first race was '67 and my second was '69. I've been to 42 but really regret missing '68. The Lotus Turbine is my favorite car of all time. Hands down. And Joe Leonard's paint scheme for the race was the coolest one I've ever seen. I love the yellow trim

[@philkaiser6025]

Hi Dean. Your intro graphics at 0:29 say "Parnelli Jones and the 1958 Lotus 56..." Might want to correct that. Just trying to help....

[@grahambell4298]

Graham Hill who's shown driving the car here also drove the Rover BRM gas turbine car at Le Mans in 1963.

[@bloqk16]

Aside from the graphic title error at the intro, the rest of the content was fairly presented, as I lived and followed racing back in that era. The brake technology back then created all sorts of problem for the Lotus 56. One item reported by the print media of that era was the brakes getting so hot it would boil the brake fluid, creating air-bubbles, and basically losing braking power. In an issue of _Auto Racing Magazine_ from 1968, the USAC Champ Car (Indy Car) debut race at Michigan that year did not see the Lotus 56 competing, possibly due to the high-bank oval creating suspension and wheel bearing issues for the vehicle, as several of the Champ Cars suffered wheel bearing failures. It would have been interesting to see the speed performance of the Lotus 56 had they raced in Michigan in 1968; as two years later when the next Champ Car race was held there, pole speed was at 180 mph (290 Km/h); while Indy that same year it was at 170 mph (274 Km/h).

[@manga12]

ah the turbine cars, from a more experamental era of indy when you could see many power the cars try to win, before it was pretty much a spec series today, saw the first turbine car at the auburn auction when andy granateli sold his collection in the 1990's it was a neat piece of work, it got soo close but not enough to finish the job, but dang 1000 ft lbs of torque didn't realize it put that much down and of course that would be continuous as it has continuous spin, too bad they nerfed and then wrote rules against their use soon after, same with the offenhousers and their distinctive sound, and eventual turbocharging it knew no equal for thirty years really, and the turbines I love the sound of a jet whine ah would could have and should have been.

[@pinkharrier47]

1968 not 58 as in intro

[@timothyharrison8953]

Why was there yellow paint on the front tires

[@orangelion03]

It was done to help the crews quickly differentiate them at speed. A quick way to tell which car was which. One had the yellow markings (Leonard #60), one had a white patch on the nose (#70 Hill), one had black(Pollard #20), and the fourth had no ID color (#30, Spence). This was pretty common is sports car racing at the time for multi-car teams and even still shows up today.