Fred
Agabashian

Fred Agabashian was born in Modesto in the United States in 1913. He began racing midget cars as a teenager and collected several titles: the Northern California Racing Association championship in 1937, the BCRA championship for Jack London in 1946, and the same title for George Bignotti in 1947 and 1948. He made his Indianapolis 500 debut in 1947 and finished ninth. In 1949 he won a 100-mile Championship car race at Sacramento.

From 1950 to 1957 he started the Indianapolis 500 every year, a race that counted towards the Formula One World Championship in those seasons. All eight of his world championship starts came there, with the cars running as Kurtis Kraft and, in 1950, also as Maserati. In 1952 he took pole position in the Cummins Diesel Special, the first turbocharged car at Indianapolis, but it retired after 71 laps. In 1953, on a very hot race day, he finished fourth with Paul Russo taking over the car during the race. It was his best result at Indianapolis. In that year's championship standings he was classified 18th.

He failed to qualify at Indianapolis in 1958 and retired from racing afterwards. He then worked as a colour commentator for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network from 1959 to 1965 and again from 1973 to 1977. He died in Alamo, California, in 1989. He was inducted into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame and, in 2005, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame.

Source: Wikipedia, “Fred Agabashian”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.