LEXINGTON, Ohio – Statistics of Johnny Rutherford winning the first Indy car race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 1980 are in all the auto racing books.

As you would expect, he has a previously non-public side note.

“I was driving for Jim Hall with the Chaparral team and Jim had a string of victories here. He had never lost a race with the Can-Ams or the Trans-Ams or whatever he raced here,” Rutherford relates. “When I won in ’80, he told me about it. I said, ‘Thanks, boss.’ Thank goodness I didn’t know until after the race.’’

Rutherford’s victory in the Red Roof Inn 150 on Aug. 13 (photo below) followed the first of his three Indianapolis 500 victories 10 weeks earlier. In fact, the Mid-Ohio race was the last under USAC sanction and Rutherford won three of the five that season. The remainder of the season was run under CART sanction, and he went on to earn the championship.

Click it: Red Roof Inn 150 box score

Rutherford chuckles at the memory while memories for fans young and older to hold are around the corner.

An impromptu autograph session Aug. 3 forms near the IZOD IndyCar Series technical inspection station. A longtime fan delivers homemade cookies as a belated 50th wedding anniversary present for Rutherford and his bride, Betty. A father cues up his son and daughter for Rutherford to sign their paddock passes and then returns a few minutes later to request a photo with him in the center of the group.

“How often to you get to meet a three-time Indy 500 winner?” he says to his pre-teen son.

A man sporting an Ohio State Buckeyes cap asks for Rutherford’s signature on a color print of his 1963 Indianapolis 500 debut.

“Remember that?” the man asks. To which Rutherford quickly replies, “How could I ever forget?”

“It never ceases to amaze me,” Lone Star JR recounts a few minutes later as he prepares to drive the Honda Accord Safety Car for the next on-track session. “I’ve enjoyed and reveled in the good times I had in racing. If it wasn’t for the fans, we wouldn’t be out there doing what we do.

“Over the span that I had in active driving, you tend to build a fan base and the parents, or grandparents in some cases, will do that. They’ll take their children or grandchildren to the track and say, ‘This guy here was a three-time winner.’ And I always think, ‘Whoa.’ It’s something to think that they remember.

“It’s an opportunity to pay back the fans. It’s fun to meet them and sign autographs and talk about something they saw that I was a part of.”

Memories for a grandson

Austin Cindric, who competes in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda for Andretti Autosport, was making some memories, too, at Mid-Ohio.

The 14-year-old resident of Mooresville, N.C., competed on the racetrack owned for four decades by his grandfather, Jim Trueman, and the Trueman family after his death in 1986. His father is Penske Racing president Tim Cindric. He finished a career-high ninth in the Aug. 4 race.

Johnny Rutherford at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 1980