Note: This story is taken from the 2025 Brickyard 400 Official Program. To read more stories like this one and learn more about what's happening this weekend, purchase your Official Program here or at the track!
The stock car racing world couldn’t wait to turn laps at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1994, when NASCAR ran its first Brickyard 400. Joe Ruttman was no different in his enthusiasm.
It was personal.
IMS is where his father, Ralph “Butch” Ruttman, wrenched some of the Speedway’s most successful cars. Among them was the car Ralph’s son, Troy Ruttman, drove to victory in the 1952 Indianapolis 500 as the race’s youngest winner, and Ralph was crew chief when Art Cross finished second in 1953.
Joe Ruttman, Troy’s little brother by 14 years, had put together a successful record as a stock car driver, winning the 1980 United States Auto Club championship (with his father as the crew chief) before racing full time in the NASCAR Cup Series for five seasons between 1982 and 1991.
“My father was a big factor in Troy’s success, and he was a big factor in my success,” Ruttman said. “He meant a lot to both of us in a much different time.”
For the 1994 Brickyard 400, Joe Ruttman hooked up with the Roulo Brothers Racing team from Chicago and arrived at Indy eager to drive on the same hallowed circuit where his brother and father had performed.
“I’d shuffled myself out of a good ride in Cup,” Ruttman said. “The boys from Chicago came along and offered me an opportunity to try to qualify for that. It was probably the highest high, having the opportunity to run that race. As a kid, you look at the Speedway, and it’s so mammoth. To see that many people in one place watching a race, it was mind-boggling.”
Racers realize their dreams at Indy, but the Speedway also can leave them shattered. The 1994 Brickyard 400 dealt Ruttman the most difficult moment of his racing career, with a phenomenal back story.
He missed qualifying for the race by .003 of a second – three milliseconds. That’s how long it takes a housefly to make one flap of its wings.
Ruttman’s missed opportunity, however, allowed mentor and friend A.J. Foyt to make the race for what became his final competitive drive around IMS.
“I was a kid when Troy won, and looking back at it, it was pretty traumatic (to miss the race),” said Ruttman, now 80. “We really thought we had a shot at sneaking in, and here comes along Foyt -- he was the next-to-last guy to qualify – and he beats us by such a small margin.”
Ruttman was part of a two-car team with the Roulo Brothers; he drove the No. 39 Chevrolet while Indy 500 veteran Stan Fox drove the No. 09. Special as it was to drive in the same tire tracks as his brother Troy, the most important thing was for Joe to feel comfortable in the stock car. And he did.
“We really thought we had a good shot at it because our corner speeds were really good,” Ruttman said. “We kept an eye on that because at Indy the corners are really long, and they eat up a lot of time. So, we kept looking at our corner speeds.”
The race drew a NASCAR-record 86 entries – among them two Indy 500 winners, Foyt and Danny Sullivan – for 43 starting spots that included three provisional starters. The fastest 20 on the first qualifying day were locked into the starting field, which left Ruttman and Foyt among those coming back the second day to determine the final 20 to make the race on speed.
Ruttman drove a lap of 168.587 mph to secure the 40th spot, which held up until Foyt went 168.596. By time, Foyt covered the 2.5-mile track in 53.382 seconds vs. Ruttman’s 53.385.
Three one-thousandths of a second. Three milliseconds.
A housefly’s wing speed. A race driver’s broken heart.
“Had we been better at our straight-ahead speed we could have potentially qualified in the top 20,” Ruttman said. “That’s really the part that hurts. That was probably the biggest disappointment of any one race that I missed in my life.”
It gave Foyt, who raced his final Indy 500 in 1992, his last competitive drive around IMS, where he finished 30th. Foyt entered the Brickyard 400 in 1995 and 1996 but failed to qualify.
Foyt was a special person to Ruttman, who cherishes the time he was invited to Foyt’s Texas home in the early 1980s.
“Not many people know about this, but he invited me down to the ranch and we spent the better part of a day, just he and I,” Ruttman said. “He gave me a lot of advice, tips on life and what to do in racing. It was based around Troy. He realized how great Troy was as a driver.
“Winning the USAC championship (in 1980), I got a chance to race with him one-on-one. It was a great honor to race with him, and for him to take time out of a busy schedule and give me good solid advice, it was very special.”
The Foyt who Ruttman experienced that day wasn’t the same intensely competitive one he’d seen at the racetracks.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Ruttman said. “When I drove in, I saw the signs outside, ‘You’ll be shot on site. I did think twice because he was very volatile at the racetrack. He was everything but that when he and I talked. It was like a father-and-son conversation. That amazed me as much as anything, trying to give me some good solid advice and explaining that he raced against Troy and what he thought of Troy as a race driver.
“He knew Troy had a drinking problem and some of the advice was about that aspect. I had seen it as a younger boy, and I’ve never drank a beer. He discussed business aspects. I was never the talented driver that he was, but it was really great to have someone like him sit down and take that much of his time.”
Ruttman went on to drive five full seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series, and he finished 12th in the 1983 season standings. In 20 years, he recorded 19 top-five finishes and 60 top-10s. He finished second in the newly formed NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series standings in 1995 and recorded 11 victories in the trucks from 1996-2007, including one when he was 56 years old.
“I never really had the chance to thank A.J. personally for what it meant for him to single me out and give advice to me,” Ruttman said.
Like his day with Foyt, the anguish of that 1994 qualifying experience at Indianapolis, where the Ruttman name is so iconic, has never faded.
“Just starting the race would have meant so much,” he said. “I got to run some practice and qualifying laps there. The painful thing is the guy who knocked me out of starting that race. And by how little it was. Point zero, zero, whatever.”
Despite success in the truck series the next decade, Ruttman never considered attempting the Brickyard 400 again.
“To say I’d driven at Indy would have meant a lot,” he said. “But it was probably the biggest disappointment of my racing career, and I didn’t want to add to the disappointment.”
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Tickets are available for the Brickyard 400 presented by PPG for the NASCAR Cup Series and the Pennzoil 250 for the NASCAR Xfinity Series during Brickyard Weekend on July 25-27 at IMS. Visit IMS.com to buy tickets or for more details.
