Indy 500 memories still resonate for Las Vegas casino owner

It was 40 years ago this weekend, and Michael Gaughan was sitting in Turn 1 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway watching Rick Mears go up in flames.

The two were once off-road racing teammates. The hotel-casino owner was aghast when the car driven by Mears, who would win the Indianapolis 500 a record-tying four times, burst into invisible methanol flames during a refueling stop.

“I saw his dad jump the (pit) fence with a bucket of water,” Gaughan recalled of the frightening mishap during which Mears suffered facial burns that would require plastic surgery.

Upon returning to Las Vegas, Gaughan, who then owned Barbary Coast on the Strip, would have to put out a fire of his own that had erupted over the controversial 1981 race.

Bobby Unser won for the third time that year. But following a late pit stop, Unser passed several cars before the field reformed for the restart — a violation of the rules. The next day, second-place finisher Mario Andretti was declared the winner.

“So the next morning we stopped paying Bobby tickets and started paying Mario tickets. Then they switched it again,” Gaughan said about Unser being reinstated as the winner on appeal. “What I wound up doing is paying both tickets.”

Gaughan chuckled while recalling the betting brouhaha.

“That was the only Indy race where we didn’t make any money,” he said.

Setting the line

Former Indianapolis Star sports writer Robin Miller, perhaps the foremost authority on the Indianapolis 500, wrote a story for this month’s Racer magazine crediting Gaughan for exposing the world’s most famous automobile race to a new audience.

Wrote Miller: “The Barbary Coast offered something few, if any, sports books in town would: a chance to bet on the Indianapolis 500.”

Turns out there was something in it for Miller as well. Because Gaughan’s oddsmakers knew so little about auto racing, they consulted Miller before setting the line for the big race.

“Every May on the Monday following the last day of qualifying, general manager Tony Hagler would call and I’d give him advice on favorites, underdogs and maybe a couple of props bets (like over or under 17 finishers) that he would share with the BC’s oddsmaker,” Miller wrote. “It was small potatoes because it didn’t draw a lot of action, and I think Michael just did it because he really liked IndyCar racing.”

Correct on both counts, Gaughan said.

“It probably was 1979,” he said about first accepting wagers on the 500. “I think we wrote about $5,000 the first year and $50,000 the second year. In ‘81, we wrote almost $100,000, but it was nothing like a football game.”

But the part about liking IndyCar racing? Yeah, Gaughan said. Robin Miller was right about that.

Enticed with Indy

“When I was a kid we used to listen to it on the radio,” Gaughan recalled. “From the age of nine, I was enticed with the Indy 500. The first one I saw was when my dad took me to Caesars Palace. It was on closed circuit (TV). That was the one Eddie Sachs got killed.”

Despite the sometimes grim nature of the sport, Gaughan was hooked and became a successful racer in his own right. He won his class in the 1996 Mint 400 and indoctrinated his sons to high-speed thrills. Brendan Gaughan would race at the highest level in NASCAR for more than 20 years.

But Michael Gaughan was so enthralled by the Indianapolis 500 that he wound up sponsoring a car in the 1979 race. It was driven by a journeyman driver named John Mahler.

“He was a regular at the Barbary Coast,” said Gaughan, who now owns the South Point. “He had a friend who was my bell captain. I haven’t talked to Mahler in 20 years, maybe 30. He was a fun guy.”

Mahler’s best finish in 39 IndyCar starts was sixth, and he finished 25th in the Indianapolis 500 the year Gaughan sponsored him. But he would pay back the casino owner in a unique way during a race at the old Ontario Speedway in California.

“He crashed end over end, but you could see Barbary Coast (decals) in every picture,” Gaughan said with a turbocharged laugh.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.