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In order to hide the full capabilities of their not-so-secret weapon during the month of May, the Penske drivers turned few practice laps, and even resorted to lifting off the throttle most laps to hide the extreme advantage of the engine so the Speedway would not step in and change the rules before raceday.

How powerful was the Beast? In dyno testing, it matched the other engines in the field while running at only 7,000 rpm, while it measured almost 1025 horsepower at a near-raceworthy level of 9800 rpm. That meant straightaway speeds of more than 240 mph even with drivers lifting the throttle in each corner.

With three Mercedes-powered Penske cars in the starting field, Tracy dropped out near halfway with heavy smoke coming from the engine. Panic ensured to diagnose the problem, and it was found that debris had been drawn into the turbocharger causing the failure, rather than something internal in the engine.

Unser and Fittipaldi easily dominated the race, leading a combined 193 laps. Fittipaldi led the most laps and threw away the victory on lap 184 when he crashed while trying to lap the second-place Unser. The crash left Al Jr. as the lone bullet in the field, but his pace was easily fast enough to carry him to his second 500 victory.

The Speedway changed the rules long before the 1995 race to try to make the pushrod engine less powerful, but even with the new restrictions, the Ilmor brain trust decided the engine would still have an advantage. In response, the rules were changed a second time, effectively making the engine uncompetitive and securing the Mercedes-Benz 500I as a one-time marvel of engineering and effort.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Jade Gurss is the owner of fingerprint, inc., a sports publicity company. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, including what is believed to be the biggest-selling motorsports book in American publishing history (Driver #8 with Dale Earnhardt Jr.). His two decades of publicity and marketing experience involves nearly every category of motorsports, including nine innovative seasons as NASCAR publicist for the Budweiser brand and Earnhardt Jr. His blog can be seen at: http://fingerprint.typepad.com

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The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED