The 58th 500 Mile International Sweepstakes was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Sunday, May 26, 1974. Johnny Rutherford, in his eleventh attempt, won the race from the 25th starting position, the farthest back since Louis Meyer in 1936.

The race was run relatively clean, with no major crashes or injuries, a sharp contrast from the tragic 1973 race a year earlier. In order to increase safety, significant improvements were made to the track, and the cars. Wings were reduced in size, and pop-off valves were added to the turbocharger plenums in order to reduce horsepower and curtail speeds.

For the first time in Indy history, the race was scheduled for the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. This ended the "never on a Sunday" policy previously held from 1911 to 1973. At the time, it was also the earliest calendar date (May 26) that the race had ever been held.

On race day, A. J. Foyt broke the all-time record for most starts at Indianapolis. The 1974 race was his 17th Indy 500 start (all consecutive), breaking the record of 16 previously held by Cliff Bergere and Chet Miller. Foyt would go on to start a total of 35 consecutive races.

* Includes days where track
activity was significantly
limited due to rain

The race was run in the wake of the energy crisis, which precipitated several changes to the schedule. During the offseason, government officials were pressuring sports and recreational organizations to curtail their energy consumption. Track management did not want to shorten the traditional 500-mile race distance, but agreed to voluntarily curtail other track activities. In the first half of 1974, NASCAR decided to trim all of their race distances by 10%, as well as scale back practice and ancillary events. Earlier in the year, the Daytona 500 was notably trimmed by 20 laps (the race officially started on lap 21), and the race ran a distance of only 450 miles. Furthermore, the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring were canceled outright.

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Wikipedia