The Gone Racin' Newsletter has grown too large for email messages and is now on www.oilstick.com.  This is a special edition.

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*From Dick Mittman at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

  Jack Turner, who survived three spectacular flips in consecutive Mays of 1961, 1962 and 1963 at the Indianapolis Motor

  Speedway, died Sept. 12 in Renton, Wash. He was 84.  Turner, nicknamed "Cactus Jack," drove in six Indy 500s, with his

  best finish of 11th in 1957 coming at the wheel of the Bardahl Spl.  But Turner was best remembered for his flips that became

  a feature of Indy 500 highlight films.  The first of these came in '61 when he brushed the wall on Lap 49 trying to avoid a melee

  on the main stretch in front of him and his Bardahl roadster bounded end over end. He emerged unscathed. He wasn't as lucky

  the next two years.  In 1962, he was roaring through Turn 4 when Bob Christie's car hit Allen Crowe's. Crowe's car then struck

  Turner's machine and again it began flipping. This time Turner suffered a broken pelvis and toe.  The following May the accident

  came in practice. His car began pogoing high in the air down the straightaway and before it came to rest in flames it had made

  13 aerial somersaults. Turner was burned, suffered a crushed vertebra and spent 12 weeks in the hospital.  He also announced

  his retirement. "That was the happiest day of my life," said wife Joyce from their Seattle home. "When he proposed to me he said

  he was a racer and was never going to quit. I knew I was always his second love.  "He truly loved racing and he truly loved

  Indianapolis."  The Turners were married 58 years.  A native of Seattle, Turner began racing in the Northwest in 1938. He enlisted

  in the Army shortly after Pearl Harbor and spent 32 months in the South Pacific.  In late 1945 he resumed his racing career in a

  midget race on a baseball diamond in Tacoma, Wash. He got knocked out of the race when his car hooked on the pitcher's mound.

  He went on to race in Washington, Oregon and Idaho before he and Joyce took a three-week vacation from working for his uncle

  to the Midwest in 1952 to see if he might be able to compete with the big name drivers. The Indy 500 was their main stop and the

  vacation lasted four weeks.  His uncle fired him.  By 1955, Leroy Warriner and Johnny Tolan convinced Turner he should come

  to the Midwest to race. He made his first attempt to qualify for a Champ car race at Milwaukee, but did not start. He earned $40.
  Langhorne two weeks later became his first start and he finished 13th. The following May he qualified 24th for his first Indy 500

  and finished 25th. During his career he made 32 Champ car starts, with a best finish of second at Darlington, S.C., in 1956. He

  also drove the USAC midget circuit, winning 14 National races to rank 39th on the all-time list.  Turner never sold his Seattle home.

  He and Joyce returned there each winter. He worked for a Buick agency then took courses at Cummins Diesel in Columbus, Ind,

  one summer and got a job in Seattle for Cummins. He was working for the Champion Spark Plug Co. Highway Safety Program

  when he retired from racing. Later he worked for Monroe Shock Absorbers.  He took up restoring antique autos in his senior

  years. His pride and joy, according to his wife, was a 1912 Mitchell that took him 12 ½ years to return to original condition.
  Turner was a member of the Indianapolis 500 Oldtimers. He regularly returned to Indy in May until his health failed.  "Like

  everybody, his goal was to win Indy," Joyce Turner said. "He just didn't have much luck."  Survivors in addition to his wife are

  two sister-in-laws and five nieces and nephews.  No services were held at his request.  He was cremated and his ashes will be

  spread in the Pacific Ocean.  Joyce Turner requests that donations be made to the Indianapolis 500 Oldtimers in lieu of flowers.