Toddy Ruttman Kloos teared up the other day when sharing one of many stories about her late father, Troy Ruttman, who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1952 at age 22 - and is still the youngest winner ever at Indy.

Toddy, who has lived in Coeur d'Alene since 1993, recalled a conversation she had with Bobby Unser, a three-time Indy 500 champion, last year when she went back to Indianapolis for the 100th anniversary of what is dubbed "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing."

"He told me that 'One time, I didn't have a ride in a stock car,'" Toddy recalled. "My dad was close with the Unsers. He said, 'Your dad got on the phone, and I had a ride in a race car within five minutes.'"

Troy Ruttman died in 1997 of lung cancer at age 67. He only visited Coeur d'Alene once, but has three relatives living in the area.

Toddy’s mother, Beverly Benson, and sister, Roxanne Holland, both live in Hayden.

Troy Ruttman came up for a visit in 1995, and they took him out on a cruise boat on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“He thought it was beautiful here,” recalled Toddy, who moved up with her husband from Huntington Beach, Calif. “I’d been up here 3 or 4 years by that time, and he said he knew why I stayed.”

TODDY WAS 2 1/2 when her father won at Indy. Back then, the race was not on TV, only on the radio, so Toddy and other family members listened to the race at their home in Lynwood, Calif. — some 15 miles south of Los Angeles. In its story the next day, the Los Angeles Times referred to him as “One of our Southern California ‘hot dog kids.’”

When Troy Ruttman first raced at Indy in 1949, he was only 19, but race officials thought he was 21 because his mom had altered his birth certificate. Back then, you had to be 21 to race at Indy; now, the age limit is 18. When he returned to Indy two years later officials had found out about the bogus birth certificate, but by then he was 21 — old enough to race at the Brickyard.

One year later, Ruttman won at Indy, and Toddy remembers the stories like it was yesterday — instead of 60 years ago.

His was the last dirt car to win at Indy — before they switched to the roadsters.

“The last 10 laps, he would tell me the story, he was looking at his tires and he could see the threads, saying ‘Come on, baby, hold on,’” Toddy said.

She recalled her dad’s first pit stop during that race, roughly 100 laps in — when his car suddenly caught on fire.

Mind you, this was before fire-proof suits and all that. Troy Ruttman drove that race wearing a collared, short-sleeve shirt.

“My grandpa was on the pit crew, and he’s trying to get my dad out and take the shoulder harness off and dad says, ‘No, pops, put out the fire. I’ve got to race,’” Toddy recalled.

Ruttman’s pit stop lasted some 2 minutes.

Not only that, Ruttman lost a tire weight off his right front midway through the race, causing the front end to start shaking at high speeds.

But Billy Vukovich, who was leading, had his own lengthy pit stop later when they ran into problems changing the lug nuts on his tires. Slowly but surely, Ruttman gained ground on “Vukie.” Vukovich slammed into the fence on the 191st lap, and Ruttman went on to win by an astounding three laps.

With an Offenhauser engine and Kuzma chassis, Ruttman averaged 128.922 miles per hour — a number Toddy seemingly has committed to memory — and the fastest average time to date. Last year’s winning average speed at Indy was 170.265 — the fourth-fastest in history.

Toddy recalled being at the 1964 Indy 500 when Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed in a fiery crash on the second lap.

“Me and my brother Troy Jr. were in the pit grandstands, and it happened down in Turn 4,” Toddy recalled. “Both those guys started on the same row as my dad did. I screamed, ‘Junior, that was dad,’ and Junior said ‘No, dad made it through’ ... nobody knew for an hour what had truly happened.”

After another racer was badly burned a week later at Milwaukee, Troy Ruttman decided not to test the fates and opted not to renew his contract. He retired at age 34, after 19 years of racing.

BORN IN Mooreland, Okla., Troy Ruttman is in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame, among others.

A book about him, called “California Gold: The Legendary Life of Troy Ruttman,” written by Bob Gates, is due out next month. Toddy gave the author the OK to write about her father, and he interviewed her, her mother, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones and others.

Ruttman died one month before a planned day to honor him in his hometown. Organizers still went on with the celebration, and Toddy said some 200 people in a town of 1,000 showed up to honor her father.

“He was very humble; he probably wouldn’t want to be recognized,” Toddy said.

Back in the day, on some high-banked tracks, the promoter would offer a $500 “bounty” to anyone who could beat Ruttman. They would start him in the back of the pack, and he would still find a way to win.

Toddy still remains close to IndyCar racing. She’s been back to Indy roughly eight times since her father retired, and her dad comes up occasionally in conversation and on Facebook.

She has communicated recently with George Fullmer, who raced against her dad in the 1960s, and later became a Realtor in Post Falls.

She said she knew Dan Wheldon, the 2005 and 2011 Indy 500 champion, who died in a crash later last year in Las Vegas, and said he was “the nicest man.”

Toddy said if her dad was still around, he would be “very saddened” by the state of IndyCar racing, mostly caused by the split between CART and the Indy Racing League in 1994. The Indy 500 has regained much of its popularity, but the other IndyCar events garner little attention. “He would be saddened by the division, and it’s never recovered.”

Also, she said with her father at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, he might not fit into current race cars, which are designed for shorter, slimmer drivers.

Troy Ruttman’s record, which has stood for 60 years, was almost broken in 2006 by Marco Andretti, who finished second as a rookie to Sam Hornish. There are two drivers in the field for today’s race, both 21 — Josef Newgarden, who qualified seventh, and Sebastian Saavedra, who qualified 24th — who are young enough to break her dad’s record.

If it happens, Toddy said she would be sad to see the record leave the family — but realizes that records are made to be broken.

You get the feeling if Troy Ruttman was still around when his record was broken, he would be one of the first to congratulate the new record-holder.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.