Willy T Ribbs on becoming the first black driver in Indy 500: 'The pressure was unbelievable'

“That was Saturday night,” recalls Ribbs. “On Tuesday, Walker had the money in his account.

“He called me and said ‘The money is there – in the bank!’ Walker was excited as a blind dog in a butcher’s shop!”

After years of chasing budgets to go racing, Walker couldn’t quite believe someone just handing the cash over. Part of the building excitement wasn’t just that a fast driver and able team manager were joining forces – they also had one of the best race engineers in the business.

“Derrick had Tim Wardorp – he was the man,” says Ribbs.

“With every race driver that I’ve ever known, there’s an energy that they will get from engineers that they’re close to or that they trust.

“Indianapolis is just so dangerous, you need that trust in your engineer. Fernando Alonso will tell you how difficult Indy is and what it does to you mentally – at 11am you think you’re one bad cat, at 3pm you think you’re a bum!”

Ribbs would certainly need confidence – in spades – from the team, because he wasn’t going to get it from his car.

Newly christened ‘Walker Racing’ had purchased a year-old Lola chassis to compete that year. In terms of absolute IndyCar pace, the chassis was already obsolete. The Cosworth DFS engine that came with it wasn’t much better.

This point was hit home during the 1991 Rookie Orientation Programme (ROP) held at Indianapolis in late April. The Walker driver couldn’t get his car much over 200mph, far off the pace needed to gain approval to enter qualifying for that year’s 500. The solution was to change the Cosworth power unit for something much more powerful.

The team opted for a Buick engine, known to be packed with horsepower, but also heavy and not altogether reliable.

Matters were not helped further by the fact that Ribbs couldn’t get truly let rip on track. He knew that if he damaged the car, all their efforts would come to null.

“There was no margin for error,” he says. “I didn’t have a back-up car, so I couldn’t go out there and take any unnecessary chances. I couldn’t jump into the pool with both feet – I had one foot in at a time.”

Luckily, Wardrop’s ice-cool approach to racing brought a serenity over Ribbs in focusing on the job in hand. The historical significance weighing over his driver had the potential to blow him off course.

“There was media asking me: ‘Do you feel like you’re responsible for 50 million African-Americans?'”

“I was spending so much time with Tim on the laptop,” he remembers. “He was just so good and had a very calm demeanour, nothing got him excited – nothing! What he wanted to do was to not get me amped up.”

“There was media everywhere, asking me these questions: ‘Do you feel like you’re responsible for 50 million African-Americans? Do you think you have to succeed because 50 million African Americans are watching and praying? And, if you don’t, maybe there won’t be another African American racing for a hundred years?’ All these kind of questions!”

At least for the majority of the time, Ribbs managed to shut out the noise. Though he may now appreciate the meaning of what he achieved for black people around the world, at the time he was focused simply on qualifying.

“My number one responsibility was to myself, my team, sponsors and my family. Not for anyone else,” he asserts.

“It was all over the news that we were out of engines and it was also leaking out that Buick wouldn’t give us any engines.” says Ribbs. “Well, that got back to Detroit, because the motorsport manager did not want to give us a Buick factory engine. After some squeezing, we got that engine.”

Engine building firm Brayton Engineering had helped Walker, encouraging the manufacturer to step in. Buick sourced a third engine whilst Brayton helped rebuild the team’s defunct second power unit.

As a result, Ribbs missed another two days worth of crucial practice laps before his resuscitated PU was installed on Friday the 17th. He barely made it down the pitlane before that blew as well. Ribbs and co had so far finished off three engines (the second one twice) and counting.

Buick in the meantime persuaded the King Racing team to part with one of its engines to give Walker Racing a fourth chance.

Ribbs managed to make some laps at the death in practice on Friday afternoon, ready for qualifying the next day.

Or maybe not. The Walker Racing Lola hadn’t set one timed lap on Saturday before it blew a valve. Engine no4 was scratched off.

Buick stretched again, now offering up a fifth power unit for Ribbs’s final qualifying attempt on the Sunday. The last day to get into the race, this really was the Speedway’s last chance saloon.

One hour into the six-hour session and, unbelievably, that engine died too, a huge plume of smoke emanating from the back of the car at Turn Four.

“That particular was a turbo, we just had to switch it out,” says Ribbs. “But the mechanics had to make sure sure that there was no metal inside in the oil – that took three to four hours to do. The day was nearly over when we got back.”

As grandstand finishes go, it didn’t get much closer than this. It was now all or nothing for Ribbs to realise his life’s dream.

Wardrop had apparently been coaxing his driver along with the promise of “special tyres” when they felt the time was right to make the run. Now was that time.

“I said, ‘You got some tyres that you got saved for me, right?’”, recalls Ribbs. “And Tim said, ‘Yeah, I got them locked in the closet.”

Said tyres were duly rolled out. Ribbs had thirty minutes for his only shot at making the 1991 500, as he tried to become the first black person to qualify.

“I knew I was going to be fast enough to be in the show, but I wasn’t sure whether we were going to make the 10 miles,” he says.

“I ran the first three laps and a half laps flat out, then on the final lap lifted a tiny bit at Turn Two, went flat through Three and lifted again for Four.

“When I came off Turn Four I looked down at the gauges and next thing I know the chequered flag is there – that’s how fast you’re going.”

Ribbs clocked a four-lap average of 217.358mph, securely putting him 29th in the field for that year’s race around the Brickyard.

“Everyone there was lined up and they were waving their arms – I was in!”

Willy T Ribbs had become the first African-American and black person to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

Somehow, with a driver that had barely driven the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with a threadbare squad run on next to no budget, and an out-of-date car which had lunched five engines, the Walker Racing Team had made it in.

“As I was on my cooling down lap on the corporate suites off to the right, everyone there was lined up and they were waving their arms – I was in!”

Famous shots of Ribbs rolling down a pitlane flooded with well-wishers, his belts undone, arms aloft out of the cockpit, really do illustrate one moment of sheer release, adrenaline and unadulterrated joy. The Walker Team could barely believe it either.

“They were on their tippy-toes,” Ribbs says. “Some were crying. You could feel the happiness and the energy. There’d been a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

Unfortunately, after that herculean effort of all involved, the race – perhaps predictably – didn’t go so well.

Five laps in, on a restart, Ribbs over-revved his engine, finishing off his sixth Buick for the Month of May.

Even now, Ribbs sounds upset about the race. All that effort, and over so quickly.

The Californian would come back in 1993 with Walker Racing again, where they would go to finish a respectable 21st. Their event that year was as uneventful as ’91 had been action-packed.

However, it’s his incredible qualifying effort two years earlier that will always stand out for Ribbs. It’s history, and he made it.