Johnnie Parsons and the first championship 500

Johnnie Parsons, the 1949 AAA national champion, won the 1950 Indianapolis 500, the first to count toward the new World Championship.

Johnnie Parsons was born in Los Angeles on 4 July 1918. As a teenager he worked around his uncle's garage, which housed the cars of several local racing drivers, sold programs at midget races, and learned to weld and build cars himself. His own racing began in 1940 in midget cars at Atlantic Boulevard Speedway, and in 1942 he won the United Midget Association championship with 18 victories.

After the Second World War he moved into AAA racing, winning the Midwest midget title in 1948. In 1949 he finished second at Indianapolis in his first attempt and won the AAA National Championship, driving for Frank Kurtis, whose Kurtis Kraft cars were the leading Championship cars of the early 1950s.

In 1950 the Indianapolis 500 became a round of the new Formula 1 World Championship, and Parsons won it in his Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser. Those points placed him sixth in the inaugural championship standings, even though he raced nowhere else in the series. He returned to the Speedway every year through 1958, with a best result after that of fourth place in 1956.

His World Championship record shows 10 starts, 1 win, 1 fastest lap and 1 podium, all at Indianapolis. He was known as a charger, often working his way forward from the back of the field. Parsons died on 8 September 1984.

0 world titles, 1 wins, 0 pole positions, 10 starts.

Teams

Victories

• Indianapolis 500 1950