Indy 500 veteran Rasmussen dies aged 85

Rasmussen, a native of Edmonton, Alberta, started racing on dirt tracks in Southern Alberta, and made more than 600 starts in the touring CAMRA series. He made more than 50 USAC Sprint Car starts before reaching USAC National Championship (Indy car) in the 1970s.

He scored three top-10 finishes in 23 career starts with a best finish of seventh in a 100-mile heat race in 1975 at Ontario Motor Speedway, and he went on to claim ninth in the 500-mile feature race.

Rasmussen tried to qualify six times for the Indianapolis 500 and succeeded three times, in 1975, ’77 and ’79. His best result came in the second of these, with a 13^th place finish in his Rent-a-Racer, Inc. entry.

The most remarkable aspect of Rasmussen’s achievements was that he was a fabricator who literally built his own Indy car chassis, the ‘Rascars’, and powered them with AJ Foyt-built engines.

While 1977 saw his best result at Indy, Rasmussen is usually remembered for being involved in one of the most spectacular shunts in Indy history on his debut in ’75. On Lap 125, Tom Sneva was lapping the rookie when he ran over the Rascar’s left-front wheel at Turn 2.

The contact launched Sneva’s car into the air, over Rasmussen and then disintegrated along the debris fence spraying fuel and breaking in half. Fortunately the cockpit section landed the right way up, and Sneva was able to walk to the ambulance, having suffered burns to his face and hands.

Rasmussen retired as a driver in 1979 after suffering an injury in a crash at Pocono Raceway and thereafter focused on his work as a racecar engineer, designer, builder and fabricator in the Indianapolis area.

According to a release from IMS, he “designed and built some of the first wings for Indianapolis 500 cars and created innovative rear wings for NHRA Top Fuel dragsters. He also built machines for varied racing disciplines, including ice racing, motorcycle sidecar racing and karting.”

Rasmussen was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2001.