Speedway, Indiana (March 1, 2025)………Lee Kunzman, who endured multiple harrowing racing accidents, yet persevered through severe burns and broken bones to race on successfully in USAC Sprints, Midgets, Champ Cars and Indy Cars, passed away on February 27, 2025. He was 80 years old.
Kunzman’s first impression of motorsports came in the mid-1950s as he listened to a radio broadcast of the Indianapolis 500 from his Guttenberg, Iowa home. Quickly, young Kunzman had identified Pat O’Connor as his first racing hero.
In all, Kunzman collected 30 career USAC national feature victories as a driver – 16 in the midgets, 14 in sprint cars. The first of his USAC victories came with the midgets in his home state at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa, setting a new track record in qualifying before going on to win the feature in a ride owned by Bob Willey. Better yet, the victory came in Kunzman’s first career USAC start!
Prior to that, Kunzman had earned honors as the 1967 Little 500 Rookie of the Year at Anderson Speedway, and later that same season, was named the IMCA Sprint Car Rookie of the Year. But Kunzman truly broke out in 1969 with eight USAC National Midget victories on the season, including the Astro Grand Prix at the indoor dirt oval constructed inside the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. In 1970, he added another marquee USAC National Midget victory during the Night Before the 500 at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Just as Kunzman’s career was burgeoning, his life changed in an instant just seven days later in June of 1970. During a USAC National Sprint Car heat race at Odessa, Missouri’s I-70 Speedway, Kunzman’s throttle stuck, sending him careening into the outside turn two wall, clearing a fence and flipping over several times. Kunzman crawled from the wreckage of his flaming sprinter through an ocean of fuel, which permanently scarred him with third degree burns over 40 percent of his body, burning off his nose, eyelids and lower lip, plus a broken right arm, a fractured right wrist and a broken neck.
After a bone specialist told him he’d probably never race again, Kunzman was released from the Research Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri on August 1, just shy of two months after the accident.
Undeterred, the accident didn't dampen Kunzman’s spirit or desire to race again. In his very first race back, nearly 11 months later on April 25, 1971, Kunzman returned to victory lane in a USAC National Midget feature at Ohio’s Tri-County Speedway aboard Howard Linne’s machine, the first of three series victories for Kunzman that season. Also in 1971, Kunzman began to thrive in USAC National Sprint Car racing, scoring an Independence Day triumph for car owner Bob Ziegler at Pennsylvania’s Reading Fairgrounds.
Starting a string of top-five points finishes with the USAC National Sprint Cars, Kunzman took fifth in 1971, then won five more in 1972 at the wheel of R-B Racing’s Clamato Special en route to a third place points finish. In 1973, Kunzman was victorious in a series-high eight features and led the point standings into mid-October with four events remaining. However, in the end, Kunzman finished as the runner-up, a mere 24 points behind champion Rollie Beale.
Just when Kunzman seemingly was on top of his game, and shortly after finishing a career-best third with the Indy Cars at Texas World Speedway in late 1973, misfortune struck Kunzman once again. A crash caused by a mechanical failure during an Indy Car tire test at California’s Ontario Motor Speedway in December 1973 left Kunzman with critical head injuries and paralysis on the left side of his body that affected his arm, hand and legs. The accident derailed his career, forcing him to miss the entire 1974 season.
Yet, Kunzman soldiered on, making his Indy Car return to Ontario 15 months later in March 1975 where he finished third in his heat and fourth in the 500-miler. In fact, he made 41 career Indy Car starts under the USAC banner between 1969-1980, including four starts at the Indianapolis 500 with a best finish of seventh in both 1973 and 1977. Kunzman recorded his best career Indy Car finish during the 1979 round at Atlanta International Speedway, finishing second to Johnny Rutherford with CART.
In his post driving career, Kunzman, a 2006 inductee into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, became the team manager for Hemelgarn Racing, winning both the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and the 2000 Indy Racing League championship with driver Buddy Lazier.
