Andretti Plan Was to Win by Slowing Down

If Mario Andretti can’t beat you with horsepower, he’ll beat you with his head.

The wily little Italian-American veteran and his Lola couldn’t run away from the field Sunday the way they did in last year’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, so he changed his tactics.

Instead of challenging the Marches of Danny Sullivan and former world champion Emerson Fittipaldi in a head-to-head horsepower race through the streets of Long Beach, Andretti cannily backed off and let the others pass him. That way he conserved his fuel and completed the 90-lap, 150-mile race with only one pit stop.

When Sullivan and Fittipaldi were forced to pit a second time for fuel, Andretti cruised back into the lead and held it to the checkered flag. The results not only proved advantageous to Andretti but also provided a much more exciting race for the 65,000 spectators.

“I couldn’t have gone another lap at full power,” said an elated Andretti. “The strategy worked, but the tank was dry at the end. I’ve been blessed with a lot of happy days in my career, but the odds were against things happening this way. I was a little luckier than the others.”

Luck, brains or horsepower, the results were the same.

Last year he won wire-to-wire by 63 seconds over Geoff Brabham. This year he won by 60.13 seconds over Fittipaldi, who inherited second place when Sullivan, in one of Roger Penske’s impeccably prepared Marches, ran out of gas for the second time on the final lap.

Andretti, now 45 and graying a little at the temples, collected $92,634 for the Carl Haas-Paul Newman team. He averaged 87.694 m.p.h. for the 1 hour, 42 minute, 50 second ride around the 11-turn, 1.67-mile street circuit. It was Andretti’s third Long Beach victory, coming after wins in the 1977 Formula One and 1984 Indy car races. It also was his 43rd career Indy car win, moving him a little closer to A. J. Foyt’s record 67.

The first half of the race, run while a drifting fog bank partially obscured the track at times for spectators in the balconies of the International Tower and the Sky Room of the Breakers, had all the earmarks of another Andretti runaway. He broke on top from his pole position and when Bobby Rahal dropped out on the second lap, no one seemed prepared to challenge the red Lola.

Rahal, who started alongside Andretti on the front row, tapped a wall at Turn 2 on the second lap and then hit another after he exited the Hyatt hotel garage and cut through the parking lot toward Seaside Way.

“It got a little sideways coming into the corner and I got into the wall enough to break the suspension,” Rahal said. “It was not very smart on my part. I probably was trying a little too hard too early.”

Andretti built up a 12 second lead as first Jacques Villeneuve and Bruno Giacomelli and then Fittipaldi and Sullivan trailed in second and third place. Villeneuve ran out of fuel on the course and Giacomelli dropped out with broken suspension to end their threat.

But all was not well with Andretti, either. The pre-race plan was for him to pit on Lap 46, but when the fuel light began to flicker on his instrument panel, he came in two laps early. Then, his two-way radio fouled and he could not communicate with crew chief Darrell Soppe.

“I was on my own out there and I had to make the decision to back it (fuel pressure) down and not fight Sullivan,” Andretti said. “It was my own decision and I had to live with it. Things just came around for me later.”

Andretti had started the race with 48 inches of turbocharger boost--the maximum permitted by Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART).

“When I lost those two laps, I knew I couldn’t finish under full power so I turned the boost down to 45 inches to conserve my fuel. I didn’t even have any fight when Danny (Sullivan) passed me. When he built up a 15-second lead, I knew I couldn’t change my plan but I knew he would have to make two stops.”

Sullivan, a former Formula One driver making his first start for Penske, pitted first on lap 37, seven laps earlier than Andretti. He was on a two-stop ride from the start.

“We were the first of the leaders to pit and it was way too early,” Sullivan said. “We knew then we had fuel problems, but what killed us was when we ran out at Turn 9 before the second pit stop and I had to be pushed in with a dead motor.

“I didn’t know if Mario was slowing down deliberately or he had some problem, but I was surprised when I passed him so easily. I kept on it trying to build up as big a lead as I could so I could make a quick stop for a splash (of fuel) toward the end, but it didn’t work out for us.”

Fittipaldi, too, was trying to make it on one stop, but he came up one lap short.

“I thought we’d lost second when I pitted on the last lap and saw Sullivan go by. I was very happy when I saw the back of his car going into the pits.”

Sullivan ran out for the second time just as Andretti was taking the checkered flag.

Only Andretti and Sullivan led the race, first of CART’s 14-race PPG World Series of Indy Car season. Andretti led the first 58 laps, then Sullivan led 20 and Andretti the final 12.

“It’s always nice winning the first race of the season and it’s always nice to win your first race for a new sponsor,” Andretti said.

The winning car was sponsored by Beatrice Companies of Chicago, which had never sponsored a car before.

Mario’s son, Michael, did not fare so well. He tangled with Roberto Guerrero of Colombia on the start and although he managed to get up to fifth place, he dropped out with a blown engine.

“We started with new discs (brakes) and didn’t really warm them up on the pace laps. When we started, I hit Guerrero from behind because I couldn’t stop. Roberto did a heck of a job saving it or we would have been in the thick of things.”

Guerrero never recovered. He came in with a flat tire on the third lap, overshot his pit, stalled his motor and never got back in the race.

“Something broke in the rear suspension,” he said.

Pancho Carter, driving the only stock block-powered engine among the 28 starters, finished only 13th but was pleased with the performance of his Buick Hawk.

“We were short on horsepower today, but just wait until we get to Indy,” said Carter, who suffered cramps in both arms during the final 20 laps which made shifting difficult.

Rocky Moran of Pasadena, making his first Indy car start since driving in one race in 1981, won $1,000 as rookie of the race.