Through the Fire
There’s a long-standing superstition in Indy Car racing that green cars are bad luck.
Mel Kenyon, a 32-year-old rookie in 1965, was sponsored by Sprite. That meant his sleek racer would bear the soft drink’s lemon-lime hue.
Kenyon failed to qualify for his first Indy "500" that year. But the brilliant dirt track driver appeared to have a limitless future in Indy cars.
On June 20, the engine of his lime-colored No. 21 exploded about halfway through a race at Langhorne, PA. He spun in his own oil and hit the wall. The impact rendered him unconscious. Two other cars skidded on the oily track and slammed into Kenyon’s fuel tank.
He was instantaneously coated with oil and fuel, which erupted into flame. Mel slumped motionless in his cockpit, burning alive.
In the Bad Old Days of Indy Car racing – high speeds, big wrecks, and rudimentary track safety features – all too many drivers were lost.
But Mel Kenyon would not be one of them.
Joe Leonard, one of the other drivers involved in the crash, didn’t run toward safety. Seeing the unfolding tragedy, he ran toward Mel. So did a fan, later identified as Ed Riker (in the yellow shirt in the picture above), who scrambled over the infield fence and headed straight into the chaos.
By the time Kenyon could be pulled from his car, he had been at the mercy of the flames for three minutes. Forty-percent of his body was covered with third-degree burns.
But he was alive.
Mel was ultimately transferred to an Army burn unit in San Antonio. His wife at first did not recognize him. The pain was so excruciating that screaming permanently damaged his vocal chords. He lost all five fingers on his left hand.
The medical staff predicted he would need a nine-month recovery. A mere three months later, he headed home.
Kenyon never considered retiring from racing. His brother and father, who were members of his team, engineered a special glove for his left hand that allowed him to insert a pin into the steering wheel and maintain control. Incredibly, he showed up at the Indy "500" the very next May and finished fifth. In the years that followed he earned a third place finish and two fourths as well – one of the "500’s" best records for a non-winner.
He is not the only man ever to race at Indianapolis in a green car. A week from Sunday, it’s likely there will be at least three of them.
But the native of Lebanon, IN is the only man ever to compete in the world’s most famous race with no fingers on one hand.
Kenyon kept driving until the age of 76, racing as many as 90 times a year. He won seven national championships in midgets – small open-wheel dirt track cars.
Kenyon came to believe that God had saved him for a reason. Today, at age 92, he remains active in Christian ministry.
“I will always be grateful for Joe Leonard, who somehow saw me and waded into sheets of flame to help me,” he says.
Joe didn’t have to do that. Mel Kenyon represented the competition, after all.
Nor did Ed Riker have to abandon his seat as a spectator and run onto the track, risking his own safety. Either man could have concluded, “This isn’t my wreck. That isn’t my fire. I’m sorry for the guy who’s in trouble, but I need to take care of myself.”
One of life’s great dramas is answering God’s call to help those in obvious need, even when it’s not our “job” to do so.
That may mean redefining the race we are in. And it might mean refusing to settle for watching life play out from a distance.
Such choices will always involve an element of risk.
In fact, if we determine to run straight into the chaos of someone else’s worst day, we really have only one guarantee.
God will be in the midst of that chaos, too.
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Glenn McDonald is an ordained Presbyterian minister, has 45 years of congregational and workplace leadership experience, and is the author of ten books on discipleship and spiritual formation. He and Mary Sue have four children, nine grandchildren, and enjoy living on a small horse farm not far from Indianapolis.
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