Lloyd Ruby

Ruby's Indianapolis record reads as a catalog of near misses. He led the race in five different years between 1966 and 1971, 126 laps in all, including 68 in 1966 and 42 in 1968, when he finished fifth. In 1969 a crew member waved him out of a pit stop while the fuel nozzle was still in the tank, rupturing it and ending his race. He made eighteen starts, from 1960 through 1977, and never won. His last ended on lap 34 with a crash. He entered the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 1991.

What the plaque says

Lloyd Ruby Richard Lloyd Ruby, "The Gentleman from Wichita Falls," was on the world stage in 1960, racing in his first Indianapolis 500. He went on to compete in the Indy 500 for 18 consecutive years, leading the race in portions of five of six consecutive starts. He scored 11 finishes in the top 11, with a close third place finish in the 1964 race. He joined fellow Wichitan George Barringer in the exclusive champion 100 mile-an-hour club and is enshrined in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame. Lloyd began racing motorcycles in high school, dominating the flat dirt oval before transitioning to popular midget dirt cars. In 1948-49, Lloyd won 91 midget feature races and three regional championships across the United States. During the 1950s, Lloyd raced sports cars, finishing runner-up in the 1959 United States Auto Club National Road Racing Championship. In 1965, Henry Ford II hired legendary car builder Carroll Shelby to design a car that would beat Ferrari in motorsport endurance races. The now famous Ford GT40 was born. Shelby brought in Lloyd and Ken Miles as drivers. They won the 1965 Daytona Continental and the inaugural 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring in 1966. The Ford GT40, the "Ferrari Killer," became the first American car to win a world class endurance race. The fourth and youngest child of Paul and Roxie (Webb) Ruby, Lloyd always claimed Wichita Falls as his home. Lloyd was honored by the city in 2006 with the official naming of the Interstate 44 overpass as the "Lloyd Ruby Overpass." Remembered fondly by those who knew him around the world, Lloyd is buried in Riverside Cemetery, overlooking the overpass that bears his name. (2021)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kell House Museum — steps away
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 0.7 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 12 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• Wichita County Water Improvement District No. 2 — 0.2 mi
• St. Paul Lutheran Church — 0.2 mi
• Wichita Falls Junior College — 0.2 mi
• Church of the Good Shepherd — 0.2 mi