JOE LEONARD, TWO-TIME USAC NATIONAL CHAMP, PASSES AWAY AT 84
Joe Leonard, a two-time USAC National Champion and three-time AMA Grand National Champion, passed away Thursday, April 27 in a San Jose, California nursing home. He was 84 years old.
The versatile San Diego, California native first rose to fame on two wheels, capturing the AMA Grand National Championship in 1954, 1956 and 1957, including back-to-back victories on the 4.1-mile Daytona Beach course in 1957 and 1958.
After the 1961 season, Leonard made the move to four wheels and, in 1964, was named USAC Stock Car Rookie of the Year. That same year, he made his USAC National Championship debut on the dirt at the “Magic Mile” of the Du Quoin (Ill.) State Fairgrounds, finishing 14th for car owner Tassi Vatis. The season would end on a high note with Leonard collecting his first top-five finish in the series at Phoenix International Raceway.
A year later, Leonard made his first entrance to the Indianapolis 500 where he would go on make nine starts between 1965 and 1973. Leonard scored a pair of third-place finishes at Indy in 1967 and 1972, but it was 1968 when he came closest to putting his likeness on the Borg-Warner Trophy. After qualifying for the pole position in Andy Granatelli’s famed turbine-powered machine, Leonard led 31 laps and seemed poised for victory with just nine laps remaining when a fuel pump broke, ending his bid for Indy glory.
Leonard earned his first career USAC National Championship victory at the 1965 Milwaukee 150 for Dan Gurney’s All American Racers, but it was with the Vel Miletich/Parnelli Jones team in which he found his greatest success beginning with the 1970 season.
In 1970, Leonard once again blazed the trail to another win at the Milwaukee Mile in the “Rex Mays Classic.” In 1971 and 1972, he nabbed consecutive championships and found winner’s circle a total of four times, once in 1971 at the second running of the “California 500” at Ontario Motor Speedway, and three-in-a-row during a mid-season stretch of the 1972 season that saw him win at Michigan, Pocono and Milwaukee.
Leonard was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1991 for his success in motorcycle racing and, in 1998, was inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association’s Hall of Fame.
USAC extends its condolences to Joe Leonard’s family and friends.