The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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November 15, 2009

Oklahoma: Historian goes the distance for biography

The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Bob Blackburn got to know Jack Zink in 2001 when Blackburn, looking for interesting exhibits for the new Oklahoma History Center, needed to fill an area devoted to sports and decided it needed a race-car and not just any race-car.

All of Blackburn’s sports friends pointed him in the same direction: Tulsa’s Jack Zink. A call to Zink’s ranch west of Tulsa resulted in a two-hour meeting at the Faculty Club in Oklahoma City, which netted Blackburn a four-wheeling tour of the ranch in the Osage Hills where Zink let him drive.

It launched a friendship as the two worked their way through the research that resulted in the Zink exhibit at the museum. It also set Blackburn on the path that would result in more research at Zink’s ranch, in newspaper archives and in Indianapolis, where Blackburn was privy to archival materials and photos highlighting the exploits of the Zink Racing Team. Coupled with many more interviews, Blackburn’s work culminated in his “To Indy and Beyond: The Life of Racing Legend Jack Zink.”

Blackburn’s research revealed that Zink built his first vehicle, a wooden car powered by a two-horsepower engine, at age 13. Zink started building custom midget racers while a senior in high school. Studying engineering at what is now Oklahoma State University, he continued to build and drive race-cars. He raced his first stock car in 1950. He continued his racing career while working for his father’s John Zink Co., which built custom-engineered incinerators, burners and other combustion equipment.

John Zink backed his son’s racing passion, with the understanding that Jack would not be at the wheel of any of the high-powered racers. In 1955, the John Zink Special won the Indianapolis 500. Jack, who headed up the Zink Racing Team, was only 26 years old. The team repeated the feat the next year, when a new version of the car took the checkered flag at Indy.

The Zink team competed at Indy for several more years, but focused its attention more on the developing NASCAR circuit.

Later concentrating on stock car racing on local tracks, from 1968 to 1980, the Zink team sponsored cars driven by Buddy Cagle and Emmett Hahn at Tulsa Speedway. Zink also discovered off-road racing. The team won more than a dozen such races, including the Baja 500. Ever-competitive, Zink last competed in an off-road motorcycle event in Baja at age 73.

Zink’s health began to fail as Blackburn neared the end of the writing phase of the book, which the author was able to finish with the help of Jack’s wife, Jan, and his son Darton. Blackburn said he finished the draft of the last chapter in time for Jack to read it.

Zink died a few weeks later, on Feb. 5, 2005, at the age of 76.

“To Indy and Beyond” was privately released last year, but is now available at Amazon.com, selected Tulsa bookstores, jackzinkracing.com, and the online gift shop of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The book also chronicles Zink’s sailing and business success, and how, during the last decade of his life, he developed his 33,000-acre ranch into a venue for Boy Scouts and their families.

Darton Zink’s eulogy for his father is printed in the book as an after-word. Darton said Jack Zink did not give up motorcycles because he was too old, but because at 73, “it just takes too long to heal.”

He also said everyone related to Jack Zink benefited from his passionate approach to life.

“Growing up, Neel, Whitney and I thought everyone knew how to swim, snow and water ski, ride motorcycles, race sailboats, and pitch a tent in a field and camp out in the dead of winter,” Darton Zink said. “Today, when any of us exceeds expectations or beats a competitor or endures through difficult circumstances, we know that we owe Dad a great debt for proving to us that we are tough.”

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