Swede Savage
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David Earl "Swede" Savage, Jr. (August 26, 1946 - July 2, 1973) was an American race car driver.
Born in San Bernardino, California, Savage began Soap Box Derby racing at the age of five. He moved up to racing quarter midget cars then at age twelve to Go-Kart racing. By his mid-teens he was racing motorcycles competitively. He was honored as an all-state high school football player at San Bernardino's Pacific High School as a junior, but was ruled ineligible for his senior year because he had accepted prize money racing motorcycles and was therefore ruled a professional athlete. In 1967, Savage made a point of showing up at a Ford Motor Company test session at Riverside International Raceway attended by, among others, racing legend Dan Gurney. Also in attendance was a Ford public relations executive named Monte Roberts, who watched Savage wheelie a motorcycle for the better part of a mile and, struck by Savage's "racy" name, encouraged Ford officials to take Savage under their wing. After a partial season driving NASCAR stock cars in the South, Savage received a telephone call from Gurney inviting him back to Southern California to try his hand at sports car racing. Savage debuted in the old SCCA United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC) series in April 1968, driving a Lola T-70 (the car campaigned by Gurney in the 1967 Can-Am Can-Am racing series). In 1968 and 1969 he also raced in NASCAR events. Competing in the 1969 Daytona 500, he was forced out after a wheel fell off on lap 124 and he crashed. In 1970, Savage and teammate Dan Gurney drove identical factory-sponsored Plymouth Barracudas in the Trans-Am Series.
Driving an IndyCar, Savage won the 1970 "Phoenix Bobby Ball 150."
He competed in the Indianapolis 500 twice.
In the 1972 Indianapolis 500, he finished 32nd after dropping out on lap six with mechanical problems.
In the 1973 Indianapolis 500, Savage qualified fourth and had the lead for twelve laps until he was passed by Al Unser on lap 55. On lap 58, Savage skidded in oil at the exit of turn four. His car then slid sideways across the track and violently impacted the inside track wall at an oblique angle. The force of the impact caused the car to disintegrate in a plume of flame. The engine and transaxle tumbled end-over-end to the pit lane entrance while Savage, still strapped in his seat, was thrown back across the circuit. Savage came to rest adjacent to the outer retaining wall, completely exposed.
A young crew member for Savage's Patrick Racing teammate Graham McRae, Armando Teran, ran out across the pit lane and was struck by a fire truck rushing up pit road (opposite the normal direction of travel) to the crash. Teran was killed instantly.
Swede Savage joked with medical personnel after the wreck, and was expected to live when taken to the hospital and for some time thereafter. However, he died in the hospital thirty-three days after the accident. It is widely reported that Savage died of kidney failure from infection, but Dr. Steve Olvey, Savage's attending physician at Indy (and later CART's Director of Medical Affairs), claimed in his book "Rapid Response" that the real cause of death was complications related to contaminated plasma. Olvey claimed that Savage contracted hepatitis B from a transfusion, causing his liver to fail.
He was interred in the Mt. View Cemetery in his hometown of San Bernardino, California. Married with a six-year-old daughter, his widow Sheryl was expecting their second child at the time of his death.
[edit] Indy 500 results
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