Jack
McGrath

Jack McGrath, whose full name was John James McGrath, was born in Los Angeles on 8 October 1919 and grew up in South Pasadena. In the late 1940s he raced midgets at Gilmore Speedway in Los Angeles, and in 1946 he won the first California Roadster Association championship. With his friend and teammate Manuel Ayulo, he helped establish roadsters as viable race cars on the tracks. At national AAA level he won the 100-mile races at Syracuse and Langhorne in 1951, the Syracuse race again in 1952 and the Milwaukee 200 in 1953. He finished second in the AAA championship in both 1952 and 1953.

From 1950 to 1960 the Indianapolis 500 counted towards the Formula One World Championship. McGrath started the race every year from 1950 to 1955, always in a Kurtis Kraft, which gave him six World Championship starts. He took one pole position and two podium finishes. In 1954 he became the first driver to lap faster than 140 miles per hour in qualifying, started from pole and led the first 44 laps. That year he was 12th in the World Championship standings, his best placing. In 1955 he started on the outside of the front row and fought a 26-lap battle with Bill Vukovich, which ended on lap 54 when the magneto on his engine failed.

McGrath died on 6 November 1955 in the Bobby Ball Memorial at Phoenix, the last AAA dirt-track race of the season, held on the one-mile oval at the Arizona State Fairgrounds.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jack McGrath (racing driver)”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.