Arie Luyendyk – born September 21, 1953 in Sommelsdijk, Netherlands – is nothing short of Indy 500 royalty. The Flying Dutchman not only has two wins to his name, but he also has the fastest one and four-lap qualifying time points. Strangely, these records were set in a year when he did not win a race, or even get a pole.
Luyendyk liked the Brickyard from the beginning. He earned Rookie of the Year honors in 1985, which was also his first full year of racing in the Indianapolis 500. Then, when he took the checkered flag five years later, he did so while setting a long-standing record for fastest average race speed. It would be 23 years before anyone covered the 500-mile race at a speed faster than Luyendyk’s 185.981 mph. He also won in 1997, but his record-setting qualifying runs came in 1996, when he clocked a single-lap top speed of 237.498 mph and an average speed of 236.986 mph for four laps.
indianapolis motor speedway museum It also reports that, unofficially, Luyendyk ran a lap at 239.26 mph. However, Scott Brayton was named the official pole sitter, despite a four-lap qualifying time of 233.718 mph. Unfortunately, Brayton was killed during practice just six days later, with Tony Stewart taking his place on the starting grid. Luyendyk’s trail doesn’t look likely to subside any time soon. This year’s Indy 500 winner, Felix Rosenqvist, had a thrilling final lap, but he qualified well ahead of Luyendyk at a speed of 231.375 mph. Of course, this was partly because the race’s governing body had changed the engine rules following the Flying Dutchman’s record-breaking performance 30 years earlier.
Why no one has qualified faster than Luyendyk at Indy
Like many sports in America, the history of top-level open-wheel racing in this country has included its fair share of labor conflict in the form of competitive leagues. For example, in motorsports, the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) broke away from the United States Auto Club (USAC) in 1978 to become the dominant force in the sport, but USAC remained the sanctioning body in charge of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Tony George, who managed the track from 1990 to 2009, intensified the CART controversy by creating his own motorsports series for the 1996 season, the Indy Racing League (IRL), which eventually took over the Champ Car series. The IRL would later transition to the NTT IndyCar Series. A major factor in George’s move was a MAGA-like goal of making the game more American. This was a push against foreign racers and engine manufacturers who were finding success in the CART series.
John Oriowicz outlined the story behind the Indy-car civil war in his book “Indy Split”, but one key was a change in the sport’s engine rules. The series essentially eliminated the high-powered turbocharged V8s favored by CART and replaced them with naturally aspirated 4.0-liter blocks with a redline capped at 10,500 rpm. In other words, the 1996 Indy 500 qualifying session, which also included Luyendyk’s record-setting run, was the last session to feature the more powerful kart-style motors. Nowadays, the series supports two engine brands – Chevrolet and Honda – each offering a twin-turbocharged V6 mill with hybrid assistance – which hasn’t helped either one catch up to Luyendyk.
Why didn’t Luyendyk get the Indy 500 pole in 1996?
Qualifying for the 1996 Indy 500 was quite a complicated affair for both Luyendyk and Brayton. First, Luyendyk’s primary car was damaged, so he had to run in his backup for qualifying – initially appearing to claim the fastest time of the day with a top speed north of 233 mph. Brayton was in second place at the time, but decided to make up that time to get his backup car even faster. Bratton finished the day with an average speed of 233.718 mph, the fastest ever for a pole winner – the current record was set by Scott McLaughlin in 2024 at 234.220 mph. It doesn’t take a calculator to see that Brayton’s speed was about 4 mph slower than Luyendyk’s 237-mph record. So what?
As it turned out, Luyendyk’s backup car was disqualified from the first day’s session when it was found that he weighed 7 pounds under the rules’ minimum weight requirement, prompting him to return to his primary car on the second day. However, because he was disqualified from the first day’s session, he was eliminated from the top 19 starting spots in the race, which were reserved for the first day’s qualifiers. Luyendyk would be the fastest qualifier on day two, setting a famous average speed of 236.986 mph, yet still finished 20th at the start. Ultimately, he finished 16th and abandoned the race on the 149th lap due to car damage. The good news is that Luyendyk got his revenge the following year, taking another pole position and his second victory.
