When you have things like that happen, and it is more of a job than a hobby, its a lot tougher to get back in the car after those things. Ongais is the only native of Hawaii to start in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Fans included his heritage in his nickname The Flyin Hawaiian, and nicknames On-Gas and On the Gas were word plays on his last name. With the explosive growth and importance of computer-based simulation in racing, theres as much emphasis on software engineering now as there once was on traditional mechanics. Weve had more people come to us than weve reached out to other people. For the 1986 season Ongais only ran the 1986 Indianapolis 500 for Interscope Racing. The guys in IndyCar racing called him The Ghost from the Coast. , (Be sure to read the end of this column for more from Prudhomme, who says some very kind and impressive things about Ongais.). Also, we have no information about his son and daughter. Every so often, a guy comes along, somebody that really catches your attention, that impresses you, and, for me, he was that guy, Prudhomme said. They required not breaking, but gentling. Ongais became the Hawaiian motorcycle champion in 1960 and was in the top three positions in the expert class from 1960 to 1962.[2]. He defeated Don Prudhomme at the 1966 HHRA Nationals Top Fuel semifinals. Danny commenced his journey from 11 Indianapolis 500 races from 1977-96 and made many races on his name as the winner. Ongais crashed in practice and suffered a concussion in 1987 at Indianapolis while driving for Team Penske, forcing him to miss the race. Hills, California, from congestive cardiovascular collapse, but not because of any accident. He would get an award, step up to the microphone and just say, Thank you and then sit down. That 1978 season also included Ongais starting in the middle of the first all-200-mph front row at Indianapolis, between pole sitter Tom Sneva and rookie Rick Mears, but his best finish in his 11 starts at the Speedway was a fourth in 1979. Editor at Ghanafuo.com David Kofi Tei, is a passionate Public Relations Lead/Journalist who mostly specializes in providing a high level of research, reporting, interviewing and broadcasting skills. As the season progressed the Parnelli 6C (which was already a two-year-old car) started to struggle due to its age. After starting last season with 61 employees, the Arrow McLaren payroll mushroomed in the offseason. Getting out of the car, Ongais pushed it the length of the quarter-mile dragstrip to claim the championship. Ongais win at Riverside was especially memorable as his dragster broke after final-round opponent Gordon Collett red-lighted, so, as was the rule back then, Ongais had to push his car the length of the quarter-mile to trip the win light. Danny Ongais, who risked his life routinely as part of his job even more than most auto racers died peacefully at age 79. So far as anyone knows, he has nothing to hide.''. RIP, my friend. His entry was taken over by three-time Indy 500 winner Al Unser, who took the replacement machine a one-year-old show-car and made himself a four-time 500 winner. Arrow McLaren was known as Schmidt Peterson Motorsports before McLaren gradually became the majority owner in mid-2021. He had that natural ability to drive anything he climbed into. [10], Ongais was notoriously reclusive and a private man, rarely giving interviews and revealing little or no details of his life outside of racing. He was 79. Ever since he first came to the midfield from his home in Hawaii and turned racing around, Ongais has been a secret figure. Parents: The undercover bloggers Parents are not In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. So we just have to keep that, and well be all right.. That comes from a focus on the culture of the team. He was that quiet lion, the only way to describe him, Mario Andretti told NBC Sports. Rosenqvist, driver of the No. All we can do is look across what corporations and companies are doing when people tell us we could do better in one space or another, she said. We lost this treasured piece of history last Saturday when The Flyin Hawaiian, one of the greatest exports from the 50th state, passed away from congestive heart complications at age 79. He was a motorcycle champion in Hawaii when he decided to come to the mainland United States and go racing. ), Danny Ongais stepped up when @INDYCAR & I needed him most. Upon joining Arrow McLaren, Ward said his No. I got to spend time with Danny at the [Indy] Speedway, and I just watched him do his thing, and he was magnificent. (The fact that we share the same birthday albeit 16 years apart has nothing to do with it.). I think weve done a great job of that. He got his licks in. Weve got a lot of positivity. For all the problems he had getting up to speed this week, Ongais knew that any driver seated in a Roger Penske-prepared car has a chance to be the anointed one come race day. ''He studies everything he says,'' says one friend, ''but why? A good guy to have a conversation with. Despite having to start from 33rd and last and despite having retired from Indy car competition nine years earlier, Ongais drove his way to seventh. If he was running at the end, you couldnt count him out. There are no visitors to Danny Ongais` world. Good grief, who can forget Jim Crawford (1990)? Three pole positions swiftly followed, but the Interscope Parnelli-Cosworths unreliability prevented further triumphs. He was a force to be reckoned with when he was out there. The team also has been aggressive outside racing. Born in 1942 in the wake of the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, Ongais grew up in Kahului on the island of Maui, and he raced BSA motorcycles as a teenager before he was introduced to the dragstrip by some friends. Thats just his makeup, the way he was. The versatile Ongais made 11 #Indy500 starts, with four top-10 finishes. [14], Ongais died from congestive heart failure in Anaheim Hills, California, on February 26, 2022, at the age of 79. Not sharp like Johnny Rutherford or deep like Bobby Rahal, but he`s certainly intelligent enough.''. His first Indy-car race came at Ontario, Calif., late in 1976. Shes like, Absolutely. . In fact, even his closest associates have little insight into his own life, as he doesnt talk about his family or his youth in Hawaii. We may earn money from the links on this page. So thats infectious for everybody.. Except Ongais, and he wasn`t talking. We needed to fill the car communicator role, and Alex was pretty happy with (Barnhart) previously, Ward said. Ongais final attempt at Indianapolis came in 1998, when he failed to qualify in a Team Pelfrey car. He and renowned innovator Mickey Thompson set nearly 300 national and international speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats in a Mach 1 Mustang during the 1960s. He was 79. The time he hit the wall in the third turn. The IndyCar team since has been integrated with McLaren Racings F1 operations, which naturally led to some growing pains. His racing career was paused as he served a three-year stint in the U.S. Army, where he became an elite Airborne paratrooper. They teamed up with the legendary Hurley Haywood to win the Rolex 24 At Daytona in 1979 in the Interscope Porsche 935 prototype. The best season for Ongais and the Interscope team came in 1978, when he won five races and eight poles en route to an eighth-place finish in the USAC standings. The Cosworth was hugely powerful, Ongais regularly appearing to dance the car on the rim of disaster on his way to eight pole positions, and when it hung together he tended to win: he racked up five triumphs that year. He also finished in 10th place in points. WebFilling the No. WebMotor sports and racing legend Danny Ongais passed away on February 26, 2022 at 3:15pm of congestive heart failure at his home in Anaheim Hills, CA, that he shared with He also recorded the fastest lap of the race, 192.678 mph, as a rookie in 1977. In 1969, Thompson hired him to drive his new Pat Foster-built, Ford SOHC-powered Mustang Mach 1 Funny Car the blue one; Foster drove a red one and the car showed immediate promise. Its high schoolers. He would retire at Michigan and Miami and fail to qualify at Nazareth. Two years later he qualified on the front row and led for four laps before crashing again. The times I got to know him; he was one that you always admired. People are curious about IndyCar even if theyve not been involved in the past, she said. Zak also leads the charge in that. WebDaniel Ongais passed away on October 11, 2019. He was easy going outside of the car, didnt say much and kept to himself but when he got in the car and put a helmet on, it was like he flipped the switch and stood on the gas.. backstretch. From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In 1978 he also made one final attempt at F1. Danny Ongais Wife: Who Is She? That 1978 season also included Ongais starting in the middle of the first all-200-mph front row at Indianapolis, between pole-sitter Sneva and rookie Rick Mears. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway detailed his death two days after the fact. Virtually all that is known of Ongais is a matter of public record. But he continued to build a wall of silence around himself. Driving for Parnelli Jones, he crashed. Theres one person coming in every other day, and it just becomes normality, the Swede said. Date, time, venue, burial service, obituary poster, Where will be Ricou Browning buried? While deployed in Europe in the early 1960s, he also got his first taste of sports-car racing that would become one of his many fortes later in his career. How much does an F1 car weigh in 2023 and what's included in the limit? He was fast. He seldom lifted no matter how crossed up and sideways the car got. In the unlikeliest alliance since Rocky joined forces with Apollo Creed, Ongais had contracted to drive a single race for Penske, the May 24 Indianapolis 500. Sometimes its easy to forget that, but I think were doing a good job here. Even his closest friends know little of his personal life. INDIANAPOLIS Danny Ongais, the first and highest-finishing Hawaiian starter at the Indy 500, also might have been one of the hardest chargers in the races storied history. He finished runner-up to Mike Snively in the Top Fuel class at the 1966 NHRA U.S. Nationals after beating the legendary Don The Snake Prudhomme in the semifinals at Indianapolis Raceway Park. He possesses in-depth Sports Journalism experience with a proven record of achievements in creating and delivering high quality engaging media content. He refuses to talk about his parents or his boyhood in Hawaii. Why Kyle Kirkwood is America's new IndyCar ace-in-waiting, Why Kirkwood is USA's ace-in-waiting Danny Ongais was my hero, Mears told NBC Sports. Thats definitely not a rumor, said OWard, who is entering his fourth season of driving McLarens No. A head-on shunt in the 1981 Indy 500 left him recuperating for the remainder of the season while four years later at Michigan he went into a barrel-roll after launching off the back of another car. For the 1984 season Ongais took over as owner of Interscope Racing fielding the #25 Interscope Racing March 84C-Cosworth DFX. (Though Indianapolis Motor Speedway had listed Ongais as the only Indy 500 driver from Hawaii, Bill Alsup, the 11th-place finisher in the 1981 race also was born in Honolulu, but his racing career primarily was built in the continental U.S.). Danny was a great guy. Whether its grabbing a badass mechanic out of World of Outlaws and introducing them to IndyCar. In 1962, Ongais was part of Leongs dragster crew at the Winternationals, where they won the Long Distance and Best Appearing awards. When he was 14, he already was speeding around on motorcycles. The success of Ongais and Field with the Interscope team also extended to sports car racing, with Field also driving. He was later discharged and returned to Hawaii for motor racing. Service in the U.S. Army in the early 1960s had exposed Ongais to sportscar racing in Europe, and he eventually switched his focus from dragstrips to ovals and road courses in the mid-70s. He had previously been inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1992. Indianapolis became his bete noir. Thats what it is all about, any way you can add another 500 horsepower, you do it. Ongais suffered serious injuries in a head-on crash in the 1981 Indianapolis 500, missing the rest of the season to recover. More of the same followed in 78. He was as smooth they get. Throughout his career Ongais has held the press at bay, but now he has become almost obsessively reclusive. Ongais` life took a wrong turn up a one-way street Thursday, when he destroyed his most precious possession. 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