500-MILE JOURNEY INTO AN ARTIST'S EYE

At his Indianapolis 500 baptism last year the artist Bob Stanley crouched down near the first turn, cocked a look at the onrushing cars—and just missed getting his head taken off by a flying wheel. He returned to his Manhattan loft, still shaken, to paint the powerful scenes on our cover and the following pages. Stanley sees the 500 in hot and cold colors, which is the abstract expressionist in him, and in great swirls of motion, which is the Indy in everybody. His portfolio includes an eyeful of Jimmy Clark and Lloyd Ruby in battle on the opposite page; the fearful mechanical splatter of the first-lap smashup he survived; and glimpses of the means by which drivers and pit men communicate. After the paintings comes another personal—and poetic—assessment of the 500.

FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

BOB STANLEY