Ongais made his CART debut during the 1979 season driving the #25 Panasonic/Interscope Racing Parnelli 6C-Cosworth DFX. He piloted a new Interscope IP-1 chassis, qualifying 9th and leading several laps before crashing out on lap 62 when running 5th. I got to spend time with Danny at the [Indy] Speedway, and I just watched him do his thing, and he was magnificent. How much does an F1 car weigh in 2023 and what's included in the limit? Ongais died Feb. 26, 2022 from congestive heart failure in Anaheim Hills, California. Its collegiate students wanting to grow a career. Performance & security by Cloudflare. So when this all happened, I was really Were putting the resources behind it but trying to do it in a sustainable way thats good to the people that are working here as well and also just to have fun. Danny Ongais has Have Harvey and RLL formed IndyCars next winning match-up? ''That`s his life, racing.''. I think the general direction of the team, just kind of goals and ambitions, you can feel that everyones targeting something different than they did two years ago. In 1978 he won five races and was the hottest driver on the circuit. HONOLULU (KHON2) Danny Ongais, the only Hawaiian driver to compete in the Indy 500, died on Saturday, Feb. 26, in California at the age of 79. He never really disparaged anybody. A look at seven decades of wild, wheelstanding crowdpleasers, Altered States, Part 2: Breakage, tears, and fears, but ultimately a success story, Altered States: Fear and loathing (and a lot of thrills) on the quarter-mile, Ed 'the Outlaw' Jones: Living life on two wheels for more than 45 years, You never know with nitro: A look back at seven great Funny Car upset wins, Everyone loves an underdog: Here's a list of five great Top Fuel upsets, 30 years ago: The 1992 NHRA season was a year full of historic firsts, Female Pro Stock pioneer Shay Nichols: A life well lived (and then some), Magnificent Seven: A history of female racers in NHRA Pro Stock competition, On the Gas: The drag racing life and times of Danny Ongais, By The Numbers: Pro Stock readies for 900th event 'birthday' in Pomona, That was then, this is now: A look back at the NHRA season 50 years ago. Before his championship run with Penske, Ward spent more than 12 years as an aerodynamicist and engineer with the Red Bull F1 team. Ongais and Fields success with the Interscope team also extended to sports car racing, with Field also driving. He moved up to the National Hot Rod Association AA Dragster championship and defeated the legendary Don Prudhomme in the 1966 NHRA Nationals in the Top Fuel semifinals. In the late 1950s, Ongais enlisted in the United States Army as a paratrooper stationed in Europe. [10], Ongais was notoriously reclusive and a private man, rarely giving interviews and revealing little or no details of his life outside of racing. He entered the season with the Ensign team, in a year-old N177 chassis, and retired in Argentina and Brazil with brake problems. "Ongais, Danny - Drag Racing - 2000 | Inductees | Hall of Fame", "The World Championship drivers - Where are they now? Nielsen was hard-core Ongais all the way, peppering me with facts and stats to prove his case, so, naturally, I reached out to ask for his parting thoughts on Ongais. Editor at Ghanafuo.com David Kofi Tei, is a passionate Public Relations Lead/Journalist who mostly specializes in providing a high level of research, reporting, interviewing and broadcasting skills. He had refused all requests for interviews this week, and Penske himself could not get his driver to relent. He decided to remain private regarding her life and Over the course of his Indy 500 career, he led in four races for a Nearly 50 percent of the team is comprised of engineering, commercial and finance positions with skillsets that transcend racing. I was so shocked when I heard he passed away because he was the kind of guy that's, you know, crashing Indy cars and going through so much stuff and made it though that he's gonna live forever. Ongais final attempt at Indianapolis came in 1998, when he failed to qualify in a Team Pelfrey car. After a 9-year hiatus from racing, Ongais was asked by John Menard to fill in for Scott Brayton who was killed during Friday Practice for the 1996 Indianapolis 500. The picture of the determined driver supplying his own horsepower made virtually every paper in the country, and it made him famous. He was smiling and said, Hell of a race. That was Danny Ongais. We have an ethos here where we dont necessarily want to do things the way theyve always been done in the IndyCar world. While Ongais was known for his blazing speed at Indianapolis and elsewhere, he also attracted attention for surviving some of the most violent crashes of his era. He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2000 and the Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. Ongais qualified 27th and finished 4th. 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When you want to build a high-powered racing team, software is really, really important, Ward said. (Menard recalled how he knew the driver he called The Ghost from the Coast in an NBCSports.com interview last year. At the age of 18, he earned a Hawaiian state title in motorcycle racing, and he went on to become a drag racing ace. In 1969, Thompson hired him to drive his new Pat Foster-built, Ford SOHC-powered Mustang Mach 1 Funny Car the blue one; Foster drove a red one and the car showed immediate promise. That 1978 season also included Ongais starting in the middle of the first all-200-mph front row at Indianapolis, between pole sitter Tom Sneva and rookie Rick Mears, but his best finish in his 11 starts at the Speedway was a fourth in 1979. The times I got to know him; he was one that you always admired. New hires have come from Fortune 500 companies, major brands and other professional sports an eclectic roster of past employers that includes Disney, SalesForce, the Detroit Lions, Tampa Bay Rays, Republic Airlines and Boeing Defense, Space & Security (to name a few). View their obituary at Legacy.com flowers and lei are welcomed He is survived by wife, Patricia P. Ongais of Keaau; A writer who had followed his career closely and thought he knew Ongais fairly well visited him in the track hospital. I do think he was one of the best drivers out there. WebDanny Ongais, the Hawaiian driver admired by fans and competitors for his speed and bravery in an Indianapolis 500 career spanning three decades, died Feb. 26 of For all the problems he had getting up to speed this week, Ongais knew that any driver seated in a Roger Penske-prepared car has a chance to be the anointed one come race day. Also, we have no information about his son and daughter. He also won the National Hot Rod Association AA Dragster Championship in 1965. He was inducted into the Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. run as the Daytona 3 Hour Continental (196263), 24 Hours of Daytona (196671/ 1973/ 1975present), This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 02:44. People get to see how much enthusiasm Zak brings. He really wanted to be here. Arrow McLaren still has done much of its hiring through the paddocks traditional word of mouth manner. They dominated the season, winning the Bakersfield March Meet, Orange Countys Manufacturer's Meet, and the NHRA Springnationals and U.S. Nationals. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a14578fbd9028fa Obviously, were very happy with what weve managed to pull together in recruiting talented people at a time where its a scrap for talent out there. Its pretty amazing to me with how involved he is with every aspect of the IndyCar organization, the F1 organization. They required not breaking, but gentling. Al Unser was named as Ongais replacement and drove to his fourth 500 victory in a backup car that was a show car earlier in May in a hotel in Reading, Pennsylvania. Our car experts choose every product we feature. Staffing has been a top priority at Arrow McLaren for Ward, who says he initially was nave to how hard it is to recruit for talent right now in this sport. In 1969, Ongais won the NHRA Spring Nationals and NHRA U.S. Nationals in the Funny Car class driving a Mickey Thompson Ford Mustang. We stayed friends over the years, and wed see each other at functions if he showed up. The IndyCar team since has been integrated with McLaren Racings F1 operations, which naturally led to some growing pains. As I mentioned previously, Prudhomme had some amazing things to say about Ongais, expressing a reverence that Ive seldom heard the Snake hold for other drivers. It is his and his alone. Two years later he qualified on the front row and led for four laps before crashing again. Another great driver from that era was three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Johnny Rutherford, who recalled one dramatic showdown with Ongais at Michigan International Speedway in the 1978 Norton Twin 200. Weve got to take care of our people through those hard stretches, but for the most part, its a little less time away, the travels not quite so far. Were not where we want to be right now, but thats normal. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker. A good guy to have a conversation with. Thats what we like to avoid doing because you lose a little of the human touch that way. ''He has a good brain,'' says a friend, ''and in a social circumstance can be witty. In the early 1960s he started competing in drag racing. View, Rosanne Ongais of Oceanside, California and Daisy (Melvin) Ongais-Kilaulani of Keaau; sons, Carl Moe, Jr. of Hilo, Richard (Julie) Moe of Bethel Island, California, David (Vanessa) Moe of Keaau, James Moe of Las Vegas, Nevada and Michael (Carrie) Moe of Brentwood, California; brothers, Jerome (Jean) Ongies of Oahu, Claudino (Bernadette) Ongais of Washington and Steven (Elena) Ongais of Hilo; sisters, Constance Wheeler of Arkansas and Carmen Dusza of Oahu; brother in-law, Alfred (Maile) Tavares of Hilo; sister in-law, Sharon Tavares of Keaau; 34 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren; numerous nieces, nephews a. But we are sure that it is not available and his spouses name is not available. Ongais suffered serious injuries in a head-on crash in the 1981 Indianapolis 500, missing the rest of the season to recover. He was super talented and could jump from car to car and make that car better. He was later discharged and returned to Hawaii for motor racing. The versatile Ongais made 11 Indianapolis 500 starts between 1977 and 1996, with four top-10 finishes. Pole sitter Scott Brayton suffered fatal injuries in a post-qualifying practice crash, and team owner John Menard hired Ongais as the replacement driver. Roger Penske, while employing Ongais for the 1987 Indy 500, was unable to get the racer to speak to the press, and said of him - "His whole heart is in racing, that's his life"[13] Jim Chapman, race director at Interscope Racing stated "Nobody really knew much about him where he lived, his family, stuff like that". Ongais was the only native Hawaiian to compete in the Indianapolis 500. One longtime observer feels that Ongais` reticence stems from a fear he will reveal a shallow understanding of the language, but actually, when he could be drawn out, he exhibited a better than average vocabulary. When you invest in software, you invest in the efficiency of a lot of your people. WebWas Danny Ongais Married? After starting last season with 61 employees, the Arrow McLaren payroll mushroomed in the offseason. The sad news of the death of the veteran racing driver was announced by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway two days later after his death. And well-deserved. In late 1964, Ongais moved into the nitro ranks for good, driving the Broussard-Davis-Ongais "Mangler" dragster in which he won the 1965 Grand Opening meet in his adopted hometown of Carlsbad, Calif., and later moved on to wheel the Honda of Wilmington entry in 1966 and was a dominant force in SoCal Top Fuel action, but due to his unassuming nature in addition to his well-known On the Gas nickname, he also was known as the Silent Hawaiian (and sometimes the Quiet Hawaiian) he sometimes flew under the publicity radar. Fielding the #25 GM Goodwrench/Panavision March 86C-Buick V6, Ongais dropped out with a mechanical failure. I never want to say anyone is better than me, but I'll tell you, if anybody was better than me, it was him. But no one could deny his talent. Ongais stayed active in drag racing until 1974, when he began to heavily pursue a road racing/Indy 500 career. I always wanted to be like him. A driver cannot let skill alone speak for him. We came together with a big hug. The team also has been aggressive outside racing. Palou happy to bounce back from crash and practice struggles, Chevrolet gratified, not satisfied by St. Pete IndyCar win, Hardwick slams flawed IMSA BoP, announces WEC plans, Hardwick slams flawed IMSA BoP He might show up and talk to you for a while and then youd look around and hed be gone. He dominated six races in USAC-sanctioned single-seater racing and finished eighth in the title. The car broke in two and his legs were hanging out. Its more about were happy and want people to know, and word spreads that this is a place thats trying to be good to its people and gunning for the very top. People are curious about IndyCar even if theyve not been involved in the past, she said. Weve had more people come to us than weve reached out to other people. Ongais ability to drive these cars near their performance limits unfortunately resulted in a couple of spectacular crashes in Indy. At the end of the celebration, I turned around and looked back toward the garage area and walking toward victory lane was Danny. Godspeed, racer. Ongais is the only native of Hawaii to start in The Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Fans included his heritage in his nickname The Flyin Hawaiian, and nicknames On-Gas and On the Gas were word plays on his last name. 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