Gary was born in Blue Island, Illinois, and graduated from Bremen High School in Midlothian, Illinois, in 1962. His father Tony Bettenhausen was one of the iconic figures of American open-wheel racing before his death in a testing accident in 1961. Gary's brother Tony Jr. was a CART driver and team owner. Another brother, Merle, lost an arm in a racing accident. The family's collective presence across American open-wheel competition made the Bettenhausen name one of the most recognizable in the sport across generations.
Gary married his wife Wavelyn on January 4, 1964. They had three children: Gary Jr. and twin sons Cary and Todd. Bettenhausen died on March 16, 2014, in Monrovia, Indiana.
Bettenhausen began his career in USAC midget car racing. He finished third in the national midget points in 1967 and won the 1967 and 1970 Turkey Night Grand Prix, a prestigious indoor/outdoor event on the midget calendar. He won the first leg of the Astro Grand Prix in 1969, held in the Houston Astrodome, and claimed the overall 1972 Astro Grand Prix title. He also won the 1976 Hut Hundred, amassing a total of 27 career USAC midget victories across his career.
Bettenhausen won the USAC sprint car championship in both 1969 and 1971, establishing himself as one of the premier sprint car competitors of the early 1970s.
On July 4, 1974, a severe crash at a USAC Championship Dirt Car race in Syracuse, New York, crushed his left arm and left it permanently paralyzed. Bettenhausen underwent rehabilitation and regained sufficient mobility to continue racing, though he never fully recovered the use of the limb. He went on to win the USAC Dirt Track championship in Silver Crown cars in both 1980 and 1983, demonstrating that his on-track capabilities survived the injury.
Bettenhausen competed in Indy-style championship cars from the mid-1960s through 1996, winning six USAC Indy Car races over the course of his career. He made 21 starts at the Indianapolis 500, contesting every event from 1968 through 1982 with the exception of 1979 (when he failed to qualify), and again from 1986 through 1993.
His best Indianapolis finish came in 1980, when he worked his way from 32nd on the starting grid to third at the checkered flag — one of the more significant charges in that era's race history.
In 1972, Bettenhausen came closest to winning the race outright. He led 138 of 200 laps and appeared to be in control of the event when his engine failed with only 24 laps remaining, dropping him to a classified fourteenth. The mechanical failure denied him a likely victory and remains one of the prominent "what might have been" moments in Indianapolis 500 history.
At the 1991 Indianapolis 500, Bettenhausen posted the fastest qualifying speed of the entire field at 224.468 mph. However, because his run came on the second day of qualifying, Rick Mears — who had qualified at 224.113 mph on the first day — retained the pole position under the rules then in effect.
Bettenhausen made eight career starts in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, recording four top-ten finishes. His best result was a fourth place at the 1974 Motor State 360 at Michigan International Speedway.
Bettenhausen was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1998, recognitions that acknowledged the breadth of his achievement across the two grassroots disciplines where his career began.
Gary Bettenhausen's record of winning USAC championships across three distinct disciplines — midgets, sprint cars, and Silver Crown — while simultaneously competing at the Indianapolis 500 for more than two decades places him among the most versatile American open-wheel racers of the postwar era. That he achieved much of this after a career-threatening arm injury in 1974 adds a layer to a story already defined by the weight of a famous racing surname carried into its next generation with distinction.