I doubt that very few members of this Board have any idea of who Jim Rathmann is. He won the 1960 Indy 500.
Yet, if you read his NY Times obit you can’t help but admire him, be entertained or just say, “that was interesting.”
RIP Jim Rathmann. You lived a life worth living.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/sports/autoracing/jim-rathmann-1960-indianapolis-500-winner-dies-at-83.html?scp=1&sq=jim%20rathmann&st=cse
Nice article. From Apollo 13 I remember the eye-catching Corvette that Gary Sinise (playing astronaut Ken Mattingly) sits on to watch the launch. One more detail they got right.
One of the best stories in The Right Stuff was about when Gordon Cooper took him flying. he told Rathmann not to fly too low or pigeons would crap on the plane. Rathmann laughed and Cooper took that as a challenge and proved it. If you ever wondered what it would take to scare a guy who won the Indy 500 when cars were essentially deathtraps, that’s what it took.
He had a hell of a life. RIP.
Here’s my favorite tidbit:
These are 2 things that couldn’t happen to someone here, in this day and age.
In hindsight, when you think of it, Jim Rathmann, and his free Corvettes, were a bigger threat to the moon effort than the KGB.
