Rick Mears: Four Indy 500 Wins, a Record Six Poles, and the Coolest Head in Racing

Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Driver Spotlight - where we pull one driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the man who owns the Indianapolis 500 qualifying record book.

The Short Version

Rick Mears won the Indianapolis 500 four times, which only three other drivers in history have ever done. He also sat on the pole at Indy six times, and nobody has matched that. He did all of it in one uniform, for one team, across a 15-year run at Team Penske that produced 29 IndyCar wins, 40 poles, and three national championships. He was never the loudest driver in the paddock. He was almost always the fastest one when it counted.

From the Desert to the Brickyard

Rick Mears was born on December 3, 1951, in Wichita, Kansas, and grew up racing in the dirt. He started on desert motorcycles as a teenager, moved into dune buggies, and by 1972 he and his older brother Roger were two of the top off-road racers in the southwestern United States. That is an unusual road to Indianapolis. Most of the drivers he would eventually beat came up through sprint cars and midgets on ovals. Mears learned car control by pointing something loose at a rock pile in the desert and keeping it pointed straight.

The break came in the fall of 1977. Roger Penske needed a driver who would run the full American schedule, because Mario Andretti was splitting his time with Formula 1. Penske put Mears in the car part time in 1978, and the rookie went out and became the first Indy 500 rookie to qualify above 200 mph. He started third that May and shared Rookie of the Year honors with Larry Rice. Penske had seen enough. Mears was full time for 1979, and he never drove a top-level IndyCar for anyone else.

Signature Moments

His first full season could not have gone much better. In 1979 Mears won the Indianapolis 500 from the pole and took the national championship in the same year. He added titles in 1981 and 1982, giving him three championships before his 31st birthday.

The 1984 Indy 500 was the dominant one. Mears started third, led 119 of the 200 laps, and beat rookie Roberto Guerrero by more than two laps at an average of 163.612 mph. Four years later he delivered the win that Penske people still talk about. In 1988, Team Penske became the first team in Indy 500 history to sweep all three front-row spots, with Mears on the pole at 219.198 mph alongside Danny Sullivan and Al Unser Sr. Mears took the lead for good on lap 129 and beat Emerson Fittipaldi by 7.072 seconds.

Then came 1991, the one that put him in the record books for good. Mears qualified on the pole at 224.113 mph. Late in the race Michael Andretti went around the outside of him in turn one on lap 186 and took the lead. Most drivers file that away and wait. Mears went right back to the same piece of racetrack on the next lap, ran the outside line through turn one again, and took the lead back. He won by 3.149 seconds and became the third four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500, joining A.J. Foyt and Al Unser.

One of the best to do it. On this day in 1979, Rick Mears won his first of four Indianapolis 500 wins from the pole position. He later went on to win in 1984, 1988, and 1991. #Penske60

— Team Penske (@Team_Penske) May 27, 2026

By the Numbers

Here is the full career, laid out in the parts that matter. Every figure below is a top-level IndyCar career number.

The Two Crashes He Came Back From

The calm reputation hides how much this career cost him. On lap 58 of the 1981 Indianapolis 500, fuel gushed out of the refueling hose before it was properly connected and sprayed over Mears and his crew. Methanol burns with an almost invisible flame, so for several seconds nobody in the pit box could see what was on fire. Mears was burning from the waist up. He and four crew members went to the hospital, and he needed plastic surgery on his face and nose.

Three years later it was worse. In September 1984, a few months after his second Indy win, Mears crashed into a guardrail during practice at Sanair in Quebec and severely injured both feet. He spent the offseason in surgery and rehab and came back to race in 1985. He never walked the same again. He also went out and won two more Indianapolis 500s after it.

Off the Track

Racing runs all the way through the Mears family. His brother Roger raced off-road and IndyCars, his father Bill was there in the pits the day of the 1981 fire, and his son Clint went on to race as well. Mears has never been a self-promoter. He was known in the paddock for being unfailingly polite, for thinking two steps ahead of everyone, and for being nearly impossible to rattle.

He retired at the end of 1992, and even that was quiet. He announced it at the Team Penske Christmas party, and nobody in the room except Roger Penske and Mears' wife knew it was coming. He had just turned 41. He has stayed with the team ever since as a driver advisor, working with drivers including Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin. He is in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, and the Team Penske Hall of Fame.

Fun Stats

A few numbers that stick. Mears set a world closed-course speed record at Michigan in 1986 at better than 233 mph. He won a record 16 poles in 500-mile races. He is the only driver with six Indy 500 poles, and three of his four wins came from the pole. He made 11 front-row starts at Indianapolis, six of them in a row, and both are records. And he was the first rookie ever to qualify above 200 mph at the Speedway, which he did in his first month of May.

The Bottom Line

Plenty of drivers were faster than Rick Mears on a given Saturday. Almost nobody was better at being fast on the one Saturday and the one Sunday that mattered most. Four Indy 500 wins, six poles, one team, zero drama. That is the whole career.

Gear Up for the 500

Mears never had a signature shirt in our store, but the race he owned four times absolutely does. Here is what is in stock right now from the Indy 500 rack.

• Indy 500 Champions T-Shirt - the winners list, Mears on it four times
• 109th Indianapolis 500 Back Home Again Tee
• Indianapolis 500 Snake Pit Tee
• 109th Indianapolis 500 Car Flag Tee
• Shop the full IndyCar collection