Meeting Louis Meyer; Twenty Years Ago…

HAMMOND, IN: In 1990, my wife, 10 year old daughter and I had our own “close encounter” with a racing legend. While driving west on a two week vacation, I remembered having read that 87 year old Indy Champion Louis Meyer, the first three-time winner, was living in retirement in the tiny community of Searchlight, Nevada, and had recently lost his wife of many years. Our map revealed that we were in range of Louis’s home.

I wasn’t really sure what I should do…if anything…having never met Mr. Meyer. We soon found that Searchlight, NV consisted a single intersection with a few low buildings…and one large casino! It was mid-week, around lunchtime, and the casino was nearly empty. I asked the cashier if I could see a local phone book, and she handed me a thin pamphlet! I wondered aloud if she knew of a former racing champion named Louis Meyer. She said, “Sure…you want to talk to Louie?” Before I could stammer a reply, she dialed her phone and handed me the receiver!

A few minutes later, we walked up to a nice double-wide trailer…and there he was; the same face I had seen on the Borg Warner Trophy and so many photo’s over the years. Without hesitation, Louie shook our hands and invited us in. Believe me…I was pinching myself.

I noticed immediately that there were very few racing memento’s visible in his home, with the exception of a couple of Indy starting line panorama photo’s from the ’30’s. I said, “Gee, there’s good old Chester Rickter at both ends of the photo”. The next thing I know, Louie is deep in a closet digging out a stack of dusty photo albums! Wow…

The thing I remember is that Louis Meyer seemed to be much more proud of his accomplishments with the Meyer-Drake Engineering business than he did of his driving career, which surprised us no end. He seemed to consider himself just a racing engineer who happened to have some luck (!) driving race cars. I did ask him if he could name one driver he competed against that stood out, and he answered, “Well, Ted Horn was a pretty smart fella”. ‘Nuff said!

We spent about three hours with Mr. Meyer that afternoon almost twenty years ago, looking at old photo’s, chewing the fat, and admiring his shinny new jet ski! Today, it almost seems like a dream…but it really happened. We will never forget what a gracious, sincerely friendly gentlemen he was. After our time together was over, I thought of many more questions I wish I’d have asked…

We continued our vacation later that day, but we all knew that we had already experienced the highlight of the trip. Louis Meyer became my hero that day, and remains so even now.

RacingNation Crew

Related Posts

• 
  Motorsports Minute: Alexander Rossi
• 
  Motorsports Minute: Matt Tifft
• 
  Motorsports Minute: Alexander Rossi