Just as qualifying trials began for next week's Indianapolis 500, the illustrious class of 1965 lost Gordon Johncock, a two-time winner. His car was ready: it had been running near the front at over 210 m.p.h. But the driver was out of tune and time. "That morning I lay there in bed thinking about everything. All of a sudden I sat up and said, 'That's it for me.' " Mario Andretti, a classmate present later at Johncock's valedictory press conference, called his friend's retirement "clever," an odd word. "I've always thought of race-car drivers as being clever or stupid," Andretti explained....
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