Art Bisch Indianapolis 1958 in the Helse Kuzma Offenhauser. This brand new Kuzma was entered at the Speedway in 1958 by H.H. Johnson and the chief mechanic was Bruce Crower. The entered driver Jimmy Daywalt was unable to extract any speed from the new car. Like the other 2 cars Eddie Kuzma built in 1958 it also had independent suspension and an apparently too soft frame which was causing some extreme handling problems. On May 21st Freddie Agabashian jumped into the car to give it a test hop. He had just turned a lap at 144.1 when he lost control in the southeast turn. This was Freddies first contact with the wall in his 12 years of competition at the Speedway, Freddie was not seriously injured but the car was heavily damaged. Bruce Crower and his crew worked around the clock to rebuild the car just in time for the second week of qualifying. Rookie Art Bisch jumped into the car after his other Ansted ride was bumped from the field. The young hotshot found enough speed to put the difficult car in the show at 28th. This was the only one of 3 new Kuzmas to make the big race and theirs was to be short lived. In the huge first lap crash Jack Turner checked up in front of Art who ran over Turners right rear. Arts car then jumped into the air and spun as the tail of the Helse car then collided with Mike Magill. Shorty Templeman was unable to avoid Bisch and slammed into Arts right front and their day was over as fast as it started. The following weekend rising star Art Bisch won the Milwaukee 100 in the Central Excavating dirt car, but sadly one month later in July Art was fatally injured at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta to become another promising young star in the world of racing that we stopped to ask ourselves...what if?
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 02:36:21 +0000