Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/857677
torrancememorial.org PULSE | 25 H E A RT B E AT S A VIEW FROM THE DASH AUTO RACING LEGEND PUTS PEDAL TO THE METAL TO SUPPORT HOMETOWN HOSPITAL. WRITTEN BY COLLEEN FARRELL PHOTOGRAPHED BY SHANE O'DONNELL A s far back as he can remember, Rufus Parnell Jones has felt the need for speed. "You know how when you pull up to a stop sign, you have the instinct to be first? I just took that to another level," he says. His first taste came in the mid-1940s as a youth in Torrance. At age 11, he started his first job breaking quarter horses. Torrance was still part of the Wild West, consisting of miles of open prai- rie, farmland and dairies. He saved enough money to buy his own horse and began riding in ama- teur races in Carson. By 13, he had grown too tall to be a jockey, so he traded his horse in for a hotrod. "I had a track roadster 23 T-Bucket with a (Ford) Model A engine and no fenders on it. I was always getting caught speeding down the hill on PCH," he says. "All of the cops in Torrance and Redondo knew me. We would take off across the flower fields to get away." At 17, under the name Parnelli Jones, he entered his first professional race—a jalopy race at Carrell Speedway in Gardena. His childhood friend Billy Calder had given him the nickname "Parnelli," hoping the Jones fam- ily would not discover their son was racing cars as a minor. From there he quickly developed his skills, racing in many different classes in the 1950s. "I was at an age where I could have easily turned in the wrong direction," he says. "A lot of my friends went to jail. Racing helped keep me out of trouble." Jones' first major championship was the Midwest Region Sprint Car Title in 1960. During that race, promoter J.C. Agajanian spotted his talent and became his sponsor. He made his debut at Indianapolis in 1961. In his first Indy 500 race, he led early and ran among the leaders until being hit with engine prob- lems and a flying stone from the track. e blow bloodied his face and blurred his vision. e combination slowed him to a 12th-place finish. However his skill didn't go unnoticed. He was honored with the title "Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year," along with Bobby Marshman. In 1962 Jones became the first driver to qualify at the Indy 500 at over 150 mph. He repeated the feat in 1963 and dominated the race to win the 500 by a comfortable margin. Aer his Indy 500 win, opinions back home in Torrance shied about the former drag racer. City officials awarded him the key to the city at a special recognition dinner. Parnelli Jones sits in a replica of the 1960 Watson Roadster #98 Agajanian Willard Battery Special he drove to win the Indy 500 in 1963.