An acclaimed race driver and a sportswriter: two lives cut short

A fan favorite even though he shunned publicity, hard-charging Bill Vukovich was the two-time defending champion at the Indianapolis 500 and on his way to a third consecutive victory in 1955 when he was killed during a horrific crash.

One of his closest friends was a nationally acclaimed sportswriter, charismatic Angelo Angelopolous of the Indianapolis News, who chronicled Vukovich's rise from a hard-scrabble childhood (and a family tragedy) to his triumphs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Angelopolous had completed an eagerly anticipated biography of his friend before the sportswriter died at age 43, probably as a result of radiation exposure he endured as a pilot in World War II by flying over atomic bomb sites in Japan.

The manuscript of the biography of Vukovich went unpublished for nearly 65 years and remained in the closet of Angelopolous' nephew. But Vukovich never has been forgotten among Indy 500 history enthusiasts. A photo of the publicity-adverse driver covering his face in his Gasoline Alley garage after escaping crowds following his triumph in 1954 remains the bestseller in the Speedway's photoshop.