MILLER: Remembering the Ascot tragedy

Above: Don "Pappy" Branson winning at the Sacramento Mile in 1965.

Fifty years ago in a sprint car race at Ascot Park, a veteran hero and a future star perished in the same accident to bring the curtain down on one of USAC's darkest seasons.

Don "Pappy" Branson, a 46-year-old master of the dirt making the final start of his remarkable career, hit the first-turn wall and collected Dick Atkins, a 30-year-old charger from California who slammed into Branson's car.

Branson was dead on the spot. Atkins suffered burns and a fractured skull and passed away the next day.

It was the second double fatality of 1966, as sprint car stalwarts Jud Larson and Red Riegel lost their lives that June during the same crash at Reading, Pa., after Chuck Rodee died at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, USAC midget champ Jimmy Davies was killed in Chicago and Ron Lux succumbed to sprint car injuries in Tulsa.

But the memory of Nov. 12, 1966 remains painfully clear to Mario Andretti and Bobby Unser.

"I was running alongside Don going down the straightaway when he didn't lift going into Turn 1 and hit the wall," recalled Andretti, who ironically was teammates that night with Atkins for Wally Meskowski's operation.

"They red-flagged the race and you knew it was bad. Don was such a neat guy, a crusty, solid veteran you could learn so much from, and Dick was a handsome, neat kid with a lot of talent and everything going for him. It was heart-wrenching."

Unser was standing in the infield with Roger McCluskey because mechanical issues with their cars forced them to miss the main event.

"We saw it happen and I'm 98 percent sure that Pappy either had a heart attack or a stroke because he didn't even make an attempt to turn," the three-time Indy 500 winner said.

"And that was Don Branson, one of the best ever; he just doesn't drive straight into a wall."

A native of Rantoul, Ill., Branson (pictured, with Parnelli Jones in 1960) made his first start at Indianapolis as a 39-year-old rookie in 1959 and went on to score seven USAC Champ Car wins (in a dirt car, roadster and rear-engine car) and qualify twice on the front row at Indy.

But his forte was dirt racing, and he always had everyone's attention.

"You have no idea how much respect I had for that guy," Andretti continued. "If I was at a sprint or dirt car race and drew a qualifying number behind Don, I'd always watch where he ran and I'd do the same thing because he was the master. There was no better qualifier."

Added Unser: "I watched him and always went faster and he would be willing to take chances and go where nobody else did."

Considering he was a Type 1 diabetic (who only confided in Unser), winning races in the sweltering heat of the summer with no power steering made Branson's accomplishments even more impressive.

"The only reason he didn't win four times more races is that he would get so tired," declared Uncle Bobby. "He was even more of a hero to me because of what he had to overcome," Andretti echoed.

Atkins (pictured, with Johnny Rutherford at Salem a month before Atkins was killed at Ascot Park) had been bumped that May at Indy in a team car to Parnelli Jones that wasn't very good but captured his first USAC Champ Car feature at Sacramento just a couple weeks before losing his life.

"I was there watching and he was running third to Mario and George Snider," Bill Vukovich said. "With two laps to go, Mario lost the rear end, Snider slid into the back of him and Atkins passed them both to take the win. He also won the Turkey Night Grand Prix and he was damn good."

The added tragedy for the Branson family was that Ascot was his swan song, and he'd already agreed to take a job with Goodyear in 1967.

"Don was real happy because he'd had a great career and now he was going to have a nice job as a field manager with Goodyear," Unser said. "He, Mario, McCluskey and myself went everywhere together, and Don would always fly with me in my junky airplane and he was the guy who told Bob Wilke to put me in a Leader Card ride for 1967.

"He didn't know much about racecars except how to drive them. He knew they had to run right rear weight and run the cushion and nobody did it better. He was a fine man and a helluva racer."