Kevin Cogan

Cogan finished his first CART season 23rd in points.

At the end of the USAC Gold Crown season, Cogan finished 47th in points.

John Kevin Cogan (born March 31, 1956 in Culver City, California ) is a former race car driver who drove in Formula One from to.

Driving a RAM Williams in the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix, he failed to qualify, suffering the same result driving for Tyrrell at the 1981 US GP West.

Cogan made his Indycar debut at the 1981 Indianapolis 500, driving the No. 32 Sugaripe Prunes Phoenix PR-01-Cosworth DFX for Jerry O'Connell Racing, as part of the USAC Gold Crown Championship.

The reason was that Cogan ran the 1981 race without a USAC Class I license and received no points for his 4th-place finish.

Cogan quickly fell out of favor following the humiliation stemming from the accident.

It was followed by a noticeable "blacklisting" by fans and press.

Cogan nearly had the dubious distinction of taking out two of the most famous American auto racing legends (Foyt and Andretti) in one move in the biggest race of the season.

He then moved over to Indy cars in 1982 but his career was cut short by a series of accidents.

In 1982 Cogan joined Team Penske to drive the No. 4 Norton Spirit Penske PC-10-Cosworth DFX.

At the season-opening Kraco Car Stereos 150 at Phoenix International Raceway, he qualified and finished in third place.

The remainder of his season was inconsistent, highlighted by a second-place finish at the Domino's Pizza Pocono 500 at Pocono International Raceway to teammate Rick Mears.

Cogan also had two pole positions at the Budweiser Cleveland 500 at Burke Lakefront Airport and the AirCal 500 at Riverside International Raceway.

He finished the season sixth in points while Mears won the championship.

Penske released Cogan at the end of the season.

During qualifying, Cogan set a new one-lap track record of 204.638 mi/h and a record four-lap average of 204.082 mi/h.

He was beaten only by his teammate, Mears.

Cogan started from the middle of the front row, next to pole-sitter Mears, and A. J. Foyt.

As the field approached the start-finish line to start the race, Cogan suddenly swerved right, touching and bouncing off Foyt's car, and directly into the path of and collecting Mario Andretti.

The cars of Dale Whittington and Roger Mears, deeper in the field, were also damaged due to the field checking up.

Bobby Rahal also reported getting hit from behind, but was undamaged.

The race was immediately red-flagged.

Cogan's shocking accident took out four cars, including himself and Andretti.

Foyt's team was able to make repairs and pushed his car out for the restart attempt.

Meanwhile, Andretti and Foyt were furious and outspoken about their displeasure with Cogan.

Andretti shunned Cogan's attempts to explain himself with a light shove.

Andretti on live radio and television said, "This is what happens when you have children doing a man's job up front."

Back in the garage area, Andretti complained about Cogan's abilities, claiming that Cogan was "looking for trouble", that he "couldn't handle the responsibilities of the front row" and that the Penske car he was driving was "too good for him".

The commonly outspoken Foyt also chimed in during comments to ABC's Chris Economaki with, "...he ran right square into my goddamned left front...'Coogin'."

Later, Foyt said back in the garage area, of the crash and of Cogan that "It was a stupid deal. The guy had his head up his ass."

Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford and Bobby Unser later placed some blame for the accident on the polesitter Rick Mears, for bringing the field down at such a slow pace.

Johncock, who went on to win the 1982 race, pointed out that Andretti had jumped the start, and could have avoided the spinning car of Cogan had he been lined up properly in the second row.

Foyt wrote a memoir of his career in 1983 and when mentioning the crash, in a more analytic form, assigned some blame on Mears for the slow start, while assigning Cogan the rest of the responsibility.

Cogan qualified in 12th place and finished the race in fourth place with 197 laps completed.

Despite this Cogan lost the Rookie of the Year Award to Josele Garza.

Cogan then competed in the rival CART/PPG World Series for O'Connell.

In his debut, the Gould Rex Mays Classic at the Milwaukee Mile, Cogan qualified in seventh place and finished in second.

After the race, he was ranked fifth in points.

Cogan participated in four more races that season with his best finish coming at the Los Angeles Times 500 at Riverside International Raceway.