(outside),
Danny Sullivan (middle),
Rick Mears (pole position)
Start Danny Sullivan darted into the lead at the green flag, with
Rick Mears in second. In turn two,
Scott Brayton spun, collecting
Roberto Guerrero, and both cars crashed into the outside wall.
Tony Bettenhausen Jr., behind the incident, also crashed. On lap 6, the green flag came back out.
Danny Sullivan got the jump on the start, and pulled out to a comfortable lead. The top five would be Sullivan,
Rick Mears,
Al Unser Sr.,
Al Unser Jr., and
Mario Andretti.
First half During the first sequence of pit stops,
Tom Sneva crashed coming out of turn four on lap 34. Under the yellow,
Teo Fabi, using the Porsche engine, pulled out of his pit stall with one of the rear wheels not secured. The wheel came off, and the car bottomed out, creating a terminal oil leak.
Danny Sullivan continued to dominate in the lead, with
Rick Mears falling to 10th place with handling problems.
Al Unser Sr. and
Al Unser Jr. continued to hold on to the top five, with
Arie Luyendyk also lurking.
Jim Crawford also began working his way into the top ten. Three additional single-car crashes occurred prior to the halfway point.
A. J. Foyt wrecked coming out of turn two on lap 58, due to handling problems and slick conditions. On the ensuing restart on lap 64,
Arie Luyendyk tagged
Ludwig Heimrath Jr., sending Heimrath spinning and crashing out of turn four.
Steve Chassey crashed in turn 4 on lap 81, suffering a concussion. Both
Mario Andretti (gearbox) and
Al Unser Jr. (CV joint) came to the pits for long repairs. Both cars re-entered the race several laps down. After suffering early handling issues, Rick Mears radioed his crew and requested that they switch to the old style wheels. The car was not handling well with the new style flush disc wheels. The crew had to scramble back to the transporter to collect sets of older style wheels, and have all the tires re-mounted back in the garage area. On lap 93, the caution came out for debris on the track.
Rick Mears had just un-lapped himself, and got back on to the lead lap. Leader
Danny Sullivan pitted, giving the lead for the first time to
Jim Crawford in the Buick-powered machine. Crawford blistered the track for the next several laps, with a noticeably drastic racing line, dipping deep below the white line, and aggressive dicing through traffic.
Second half led 8 laps. At lap 100,
Jim Crawford led, with
Rick Mears finally back up to second,
Al Unser Sr. third.
Danny Sullivan had slipped back to fourth. On lap 102, Sullivan's front wing adjusters broke, sending his car up into the outside wall in turn one. After leading 92 laps, Sullivan was out, but Penske teammates
Rick Mears and
Al Unser Sr. were now in control. Crawford's turn at the front totaled eight laps, which would be the only laps not led by the Penske team. After a caution for debris (
Unser ran over a rabbit),
Rick Mears took the lead on lap 113.
Johnny Rutherford crashed in turn one, similar to Sullivan's crash. At age 50, it would be Rutherford's final lap in Indy 500 competition (he would fail to qualify in subsequent years and officially retired in 1994). After trading positions,
Rick Mears took over the lead for good on lap 129. With Mears pulling away, the rest of the top three was being battled out amongst Al Unser Sr. and Jim Crawford.
Emerson Fittipaldi worked his way up to the top five, as did
Bobby Rahal with the
Judd. After several long pit stops to repair gearbox problems, an oil leak, and electrical gremlins,
Mario Andretti finally called it quits. With the leaders nearing lap 170, Mario was about 50 laps down with a dead engine. Mario was credited with 118 laps in 20th place.
Finish With
Rick Mears seemingly in control, the only battle that remained was for second place.
Emerson Fittipaldi was running second, but he was deep in traffic. In the final twenty laps,
USAC officials were contemplating issuing a two-lap penalty to Fittipaldi for allegedly passing a car under the yellow while exiting the pits on lap 164. Indecisive, USAC officials first penalized Fittipaldi, retracted the penalty, then re-instated it over a matter of minutes. This infuriated Fittipaldi and car owner
Pat Patrick, who threatened to file a protest once the race was over. Fittipaldi was dropped to 7th place, two laps down. The resulting scoring adjustments elevated
Jim Crawford to second place, and
Al Unser Sr. into third. On lap 194,
Jim Crawford got sideways in turn three, which flat-spotted his tires. He ducked into the pit area to change tires, but the crew had difficulty changing them, and he lost several seconds. He dropped back to 6th on the track. Suddenly Penske teammates
Rick Mears and
Al Unser Sr. were running 1st-2nd. Moments later, on lap 197 a piece of bodywork flew off of
Michael Andretti's car. The yellow came out, and the safety crews rushed out to fetch the debris. However, the caution was extended when another piece of debris fell off one of the safety trucks. They were unable to clear the track before the white flag was displayed for the final lap. The race finished under caution with
Rick Mears winning his third Indy 500. Some confusion hovered over the placement of other cars, but for the moment,
Al Unser Sr. was second,
Michael Andretti third, and
Bobby Rahal worked all the way up to 4th in the Judd-powered entry.
Post-race After the race, during the post-race scoring evaluation, Patrick Racing was prepared to protest Emerson Fittipaldi's two-lap penalty. USAC claimed that while exiting the pits, Fittipaldi passed the lapped car of
Rich Vogler, and did not properly honor the blend-in rule. Fittipaldi claimed that Vogler waved him by as they exited turn two to the backstretch. When Vogler got word of Fittipaldi's penalty, he immediately rushed to the USAC officials and corroborated Fittipaldi's account. Vogler claimed that he was 8–10 laps down at the time and purposely waved Fittipaldi by, and that the penalty was "unjust". Under the rules at the time, slower cars that were a lap or more down were permitted to wave other faster cars by during caution periods. It was a move primarily used by backmarkers in order not to impede the leaders on the ensuring restart. USAC re-evaluated the situation, and when official results were posted Monday morning, they retracted Fittipaldi's penalty once and for all. Fittipaldi's laps were reinstated, which elevated him to a second-place finish.
Al Unser Sr. was officially third, denying
Penske Racing of their first 1st–2nd Indy sweep.
Jim Crawford's exciting day finished with a 6th place, the
Buick V-6's best finish to-date. One year after his best ever finish in the Indianapolis 500, Dick Simon raced from 16th starting spot to finish 9th in his final "500" as a driver. During the season finale weekend in Miami, Simon would announce his retirement from driving to concentrate running his race team. ==Box score==