After clinching the title as America's top driver (he lost Indy to A.J. Foyt by 27 seconds but amassed enough points in other races), Sneva returned home to Spokane, where bumper stickers and banners proclaimed, "This is Sneva Country." The parade and banquet honored not just Tom but the entire Sneva family, who have methanol in their veins and 50-weight motor oil under their fingernails. Tom's dad, Edsol, runs an auto shop and has been building and racing cars in the Northwest since the 1930s. ("My father could have been an Indy driver, but he had too many anklebiters too quick," Tom says of himself, his sister and his brothers.) Jerry, 28, was the 1977 Rookie of the Year at Indy, while Jan, 24, and Blaine, 20, race locally. The Snevas' love of fast cars has also led to tragedy. A brother, Edsol Jr., crashed in 1974 and lived in a coma for almost two years until his death at 25.
The family devotion to racing did not waver. "I was playing in the track dirt when I was 2 or 3," recalls Tom, known by his childhood nickname, Butch. But because his parents wanted him to get a degree, he enrolled in Eastern Washington State and worked part-time at the shop ("cleaning up used cars," he groans, "really a fun job"). During the summer of 1967 Tom rebuilt a 1938 Chevy coupe into his first racer. The total cost was $300, compared to the $100,000 championship Norton Spirit he was driving a decade later.
Sneva's passion for speed had other happy consequences: He met his wife, Sharon, after his speedboat swamped her dinghy at a nearby lake. "We tried to plan our wedding around the 1968 racing season," she says with a rueful smile, "then a race was scheduled for that day. If they hadn't postponed it, I wonder if he would have showed up."
After graduation from college in 1970 with a degree in education, Sneva taught school and even drove the school bus when the regular chauffeur was sick. The summers were reserved for racing. Three years later he decided to quit teaching altogether. Sharon, who travels with Tom and generally runs the business end, was at Indy in 1975 when, on the 125th lap, Tom's car careened out of control and burst into flames right in front of her. "I guess I was afraid at the time," she says, "but in the hospital when they told me he might have a broken shoulder, my first thought was, 'Oh no, he'll be out of racing for two or three months.' I realized then I wanted him to race as badly as he did. It was what made him happy." Amazingly, Tom was back at the wheel in three weeks.
Now driving for the same racing team as Mario Andretti, Sneva receives a salary and 40 to 50 percent of his winnings. This year his take will amount to about $200,000. Sneva has no doubt that he earns it. "It's a strain both physically and mentally," he says. "The temperature in the cockpit can be close to 120 degrees. I lose five pounds every race." To keep in shape the 5'11", 170-pound Sneva swims, does pushups and situps and plays racquetball.
He is too soft-spoken to fit the image of the daredevil racer. But no one is better qualified to say what makes a good driver. "You must have a feeling for what they call the ragged edge in the corners—the point where the car wants to break traction and go into a spin," he says. "Racing is a mental game. At 200 mph it's important not to get caught up in your emotions. That is a mistake I never intend to make."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
