LONG POND, Pa. – Contrary to her husband’s purported recollection, Betty Rutherford wishes to set the record straight regarding their first encounter.

“It was his rookie year at the (Indianapolis Motor) Speedway. I was working at the Speedway as a nurse and had been for three years. He was going out to take part of his rookie test, dropped his helmet in his car, looked up and I was standing at the fence. He says that he winked at me and I winked back, which is absolutely not true. He waved and I waved back.

“After his run, I was back at the nurses’ station on Gasoline Alley and he walked by and said, 'Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?' I thought, ‘Oh, how original.’ He said something about going to dinner and I said, ‘OK, but my girlfriend is with me and we’ll have to go together.’ So we did.”

“I was a gentleman and paid for the ‘chaperone,’ too,” chimes in Johnny Rutherford.

Their eyes meet across the table and they laugh at the memory from May 1963. Today, the Rutherfords are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Appropriately, it’s at a racetrack as “Lone Star JR” is the driver of the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray pace car for the Pocono INDYCAR 400 Fueled by Sunoco.

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Pocono Raceway, where Rutherford won in June 1974 to complete a run of three consecutive victories (the first of his three Indianapolis 500 wins and two weeks later at Milwaukee) in his celebrated auto racing career, is among the dozens of motorsports venues the couple has made and shared memories over the years.

Before their initial date, the Indiana-born Betty had accepted a position as a surgical nurse at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Southern California. Little did she know how quickly her life would be altered.

“In the meantime, my dad, who knew some things about auto racing and the wives and girlfriends of the drivers, his first question was ‘Is he married?’ and I said ‘No.’ I had done my research,” she says. “They came to the track the next weekend to meet him.”

JR effortlessly slides in to pick up the story: “We went up in the old Tower Terrace and she introduced me to her parents and brother and sister. We were talking and her dad was very cordial, and all of a sudden over the garage area public-address system came an announcement: ‘Johnny Rutherford, meet your wife and kids at the garage area gate.’ I just happened to be looking at her dad and I would have loved to have a picture of the look on his face.

"We stepped up to the railing and looked into the garage area and Bobby Marshman and Chuck Hulse (veteran drivers) were rolling on the ground laughing. They played a good one on me.”

Again, the couple reacts as if the incident had been played out this past May at the Speedway.

They were engaged on June 2 and married five weeks later.

“And they said it wouldn’t last,” Betty interjects with a laugh.

Strength through perilous times

Being a registered nurse that had worked at a racetrack somewhat prepared Betty mentally for the perilous barnstorming life of her husband. It wasn’t, she acknowledges, chapters for the faint of heart.

“You learn how to deal with the dangers of auto racing and I’ve always found my best friend in that area is God,” she says. “I ask him for help every single day, and during the racing season He would have to do double duty. I’d say, ‘OK, it’s up to you because I can’t do anything about this.’ That got me through the rest of the day.”

Adds JR: “It took me a while to realize that the drivers in this sport aren’t the tough ones. It’s the wives. They never knew if we were ever going to come back. The period when I started was very dangerous, still is, but more dangerous back then because the safety of the cars was much less. Betty helped me see that.

“We go out and do our thing and if something happens then it’s over, but for them it’s a continuing saga. Betty has been the rock of the Rutherford family.”

For a time, she literally stayed connected by doing the team’s timing and scoring on pit lane.

“That kept me busy and I could hear him on the radio,” she says. “It gave me a lot of insight into racing and a lot of new friends.”

That led, in part, to Betty being co-founder in 1981 of CARA Charities -- a driving force behind philanthropic projects on behalf of the open-wheel motorsports family, fans and its sponsors – among her other charitable events and ambassador roles over the years.

“Betty just didn’t stay on the sidelines. When the opportunity presented itself she got involved,” Johnny says. “I always knew where she was, and her personality, she doesn’t take ‘No’ for an answer. I thoroughly expected I would be on the parade lap and they would hold up my signboard that said ‘Betty’s in jail.’ ''

Final anecdote

When the prime-time TV show “Dallas” with principal character J.R. Ewing was all the talk at the water cooler from 1978-91, it sparked an idea. At Michigan International Speedway, Betty wore a T-shirt on pit lane that read, “I sleep with the REAL JR.”

“We’ve had a lot of great times together, traveled around the world doing different things in racing,” Johnny says. “And to think about it, it’s been 50 years? Wow.”