Speed doctors: A surgeon & trauma doctor collided. Without them 'those drivers were dead'

CARMEL — Dr. Steve Olvey is sitting in a black-and-white checkered chair in the front room of his home, surrounded by a makeshift racing museum of newspaper articles, hall of fame relics, helmets and an old photograph of his favorite childhood driver, Bill Vukovich, who crashed into a cloud of smoke and died right in front of his eyes. Olvey was 10, sitting in the stands of Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1955 with his dad when Vukovich's car became airborne, sailed over the backstretch wall and burst into flames .

Young Olvey stared in disbelief as the somber voice came over the intercom: Bill Vukovich has been mortally wounded. Olvey looked up wide-eyed at his father and said, "Oh, that means he's OK? " No, his father told him, that is not what those words mean at all.

That seemed to be the morbid theme of Olvey's racing childhood. He would get a favorite driver, and that driver would be killed two weeks later. He would get another favorite driver, and that driver would be killed three weeks later.

There were no safety protocols. There were no paramedics on track. Drivers would stop mid-race, get out of their cars and try to help save a fellow driver from a burning car.