I spent the "Month of May" at Indy in 1983 with Danny Ongais and Interscope Racing. We started the month with an 83 March Indy car with a turbo V6 Chevy built by Ryan Falconer. The engine(s) decided they did not like their crank shafts very well and we got a lot of "practice" changing engines. Best we ran was 196 or 98 and the fast guys were going 206. Danny could see the hand writing on the wall, you needed a March chassis but a Cosworth engine. We had several back at the shop in California so DO flew home and got a couplle shipped to us. At the same time our back up car was delivered from March it too had a Chevy V6 in it but DO had told March to include all of the parts to put a Cosworth in it when they shipped it. Every thing arrived on a Monday the week before qualifying. Myself, another crew guy, Alan Bricky and a young guy from March (can't remember his name) took every thing and our tool boxes to Grant Kings shop and spent the next 3 day(that is 72 hours pretty much non stop) getting everything together. Got the car to the track late Wednesday night and on Friday during "Happy Hour" we ran the fastest time of the week, 207. The rest is another story.
Indy racing now is Formula Ford on steroids, all of the cars are the same only difference is you have an choice between a Honda or Chevrolet (Illmor) engine. When I was there although there were lots of Marchs and a few Lolas there were also some cars that were designed and built specifically for Indy, Penskys come to mind and I think that Foyt may have still been running his own cars. I always thought it was much more interesting seeing many different designs of cars for Indy instead of the "belly button" cars that are run today. That is why I love Bonneville.
Rex