Indy Tests the Limits of Men, Machinery, Sanity, Andretti
In the market for a new sedan? Had it with the old family jalopy? Dinging you to death, is it? Losing power? In the garage all the time?
How would you like to answer the following ad if you found it in the classified section of your friendly neighborhood newspaper?
“Nr. new. Lo mileage. One owner, late model, factory demo. Sun roof. As is. No air, heat, radio. No backup lights. No backup. No lights. No directional signals. Left turn only. Crank start. Not operable at night or in wet weather. Tires, $1,000 apiece with frequent changes advised--every 50 miles or so. No extras. Fuel economy 1.8 m.p.g. highway, 1.6 in traffic. Top speed 240 m.p.h. Needs quarter-mile braking area unless it hits something.
“Breakaway construction. Comes in decorator styles with beer or tobacco ads from hood to rear wing. Insurance prohibitive. Manufacturer’s warranty: 500 miles, unless car turns right, hits wall, turns over or catches fire, any of which likely. Also suitable as large flower pot.”
If you saw such an ad, you’d be tempted to run to your nearest police station or Better Business Bureau, but the copy actually describes the state of the art of the 1985 Indianapolis race car.
And, instead of calling their lawyers, 33 of the bravest, most daring young men in the world, several with pronounced limps, nearly all with burn scars from past duels, will climb into these lemons at about 11 o’clock here on Sunday morning and hope they will be able to climb out three hours later without the help of two doctors and/or a stretcher and oxygen mask. If they do, rewards are up to $2,795,000.
They opened up the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 75 years ago as an American automotive proving ground.
It has since proved conclusively that people burn, cars crash, speed kills--and that people will pay to see all three.
It pioneered the rear-view mirror in a sport where 99% of the danger comes from the front, but if it tested anything to the fullest it was the flameproof suit. The track’s contribution to the flame-retardant industry far exceeds any to the automotive.
It studiously ignores its own lessons, like the fact that 220 m.p.h. is too fast for an object to go not on rails or in space.
It is without peer for after-the-fact engineering. For instance, not until driver Tony Bettenhausen crashed a car in practice, wiping out 20 rows of seats in the grandstand--unoccupied, fortunately--did they install cable-stitching in the fence.
Helmets, seat belts and fire extinguishers followed on the heels of aeronautical, not Indianapolis research--although there were plenty of examples of their need available.
Its rules it got through a fun house mirror. Its qualification procedures, designed to attract spectators not sportsmanship, frequently puts cars going 200 m.p.h. or more well behind cars going 15 m.p.h. slower. But that’s all right. After all, the track is a full 50 feet wide in most places.
It has done so much to advance good old American know-how that all but two cars in this year’s race have English chassis, and all but three have English engines. It took the Europeans to bring the rear-engine cars to Indy’s racing. It’s not surprising that, after 68 years of Indianapolis 500s, about 30% of the cars on American roads are imports.
Foreign drivers have been less eager to take on Indy, preferring, no doubt, more conventional suicide attempts.
But, one import who has always been drawn to Indy like a moth to flame has been the most successful, or at least persistent foreign born ever to race here.
Mario Andretti is as identified with Indy as the checkered flag. The one-time Italian waif, washed up on the shores of World War II with the rest of the human flotsam of a displaced persons camp near Trieste. Mario has conducted a 20-year love affair with Indianapolis, even if it only occasionally is requited.
Andretti hit the track the way Caruso hit Carmen. Rookie of the year his first year, when he finished third, he was the darling of Speedway--daring, fearless, as cheerful as a summer on the Wabash. He drove hard, smiled a lot, had this little-boy look and the appealing accent of a Roman shoeshine boy. Indy adored him.
He put his car on the pole twice but drove it into the ground both times, finishing 30th one time and completing only 27 laps another. He stopped after two laps a third time.
Still, when he won in 1969, everyone thought he had was finally on his way, the greatest race driver of the ages at the track, at one with A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Bobby Unser, Louie Meyer, Mauri Rose and Wilbur Shaw.
But Andretti has not won again at Indy despite having driven 1,792 laps around it, all at break-neck speed, in 19 years. He became an international celebrity on the champagne circuits but almost always returned loyally to the shot-and-a-beer blue-collar oval of Indy. For Mario, it was unfinished business.
His son, one of 13 offspring of Indy drivers now in racing, is the boyish young Andretti in the f these days but Mario is still chasing that elusive second visit to Victory Lane.vl,3
Why? he was asked. Did he feel unfulfilled? Was one victory not enough for Mario Andretti?
“If I was fulfilled, if I was satisfied with that, what the hell would I be doing here?” demanded M”It’s never enough. If you’re satisfied, you’re a second-class citizen.”vl,3
Did he think he should be working on his fifth or sixth victory, not his second?
Mario sighed. “Years ago, you could start back in the pack in this race and have no trouble passing 15, 16, 17, 18 cars,” he said. “Today, you don’t see any second-class equipment anymore. There are no slow cars.
“Everyone in this field is going 200 miles an hour. When I came here, we were trying to get to 160. The cars have improved dramatically, they are so equal down the straightaway, you need patience as much as speed.”
Are the speeds then too high? he was asked.
“If you don’t want to go fast,” advised Mario Andretti, “you should drive a canoe.”
