It Wasn’t a Win for Mario Andretti, but It Was Next Best Thing

Twenty-one racing seasons ago, a young, hot-footed Italian immigrant from Pennsylvania picked up his first victory in auto racing, winning the Hoosier Grand Prix, a road race at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

Scampering around the pit area that afternoon was the driver’s 2-year-old son.

Sunday, the son passed the father, literally and figuratively. Michael Andretti started in the seventh position, Mario started in third, but Michael passed Mario Andretti on the fifth lap of the 95-lap Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. That moved Michael into fourth place, and he went on to win the race, his first Indy-car victory.

“The first big one you never forget,” Mario said.

Mario’s car deserted him in bits and pieces Sunday and he limped home through the streets of Long Beach in fifth place. He drove half the race with no brakes and no clutch. None. Try it some time. Mario was like a man riding a motorized skateboard on the freeway.

Immediately after the race, Michael Andretti was mobbed by his crew, fans and the media. He broke away and walked back to where his father’s car was parked, and they shook hands.

“I just told him it was beautiful, man,” Mario said. “I’m happy for him. He had it coming.”

But dad was sad, too. Mario doesn’t like to lose. In 23 seasons, he has won 45 Indy-car races, and he is particularly fond of winning at Long Beach. He won here in ’84 and ‘85, and also back in ’77.

He was always a popular winner, Mr. Charm and Personality, a hit with the fans and the media.

Mario takes losing hard, and this wasn’t his day. These Indy cars are sensitive little toys. They make a lot of noise and go a million miles an hour, but you look at ‘em wrong and something falls off.

On the pace lap Sunday, the equivalent of pulling out of your driveway, one car was already smoking and two others were leaking fuel, and Roberto Guerrero’s car sputtered and died. Just his luck, it happened 20 feet after the new-car warranty expired.

The car sponsored by Skoal smokeless tobacco was black-flagged off the course because it was smoking. Another car, named the Skoal Eagle, was forced out of the race after 72 laps with a broken wing. Honest.

At least Mario and his bright red car were still on the track at the end, still chugging along, more than a lap behind, when Michael took the checkered flag.

Still, for Mario, it was a loss, and he loses hard. He briefly answered a few questions immediately after the race, then jumped on a moped and putted to his racing team’s tractor trailer, where he took refuge for 20 minutes before meeting a couple of members of the press.

“It was a long race for me, I’ll tell you that,” Mario said, relaxing in a dark, quiet corner of the big truck trailer. It was a long way from the winner’s press conference, an event Mario has owned here at Long Beach.

He didn’t find out until after pulling into the pits that his son had won the race.

“He looked good when he passed me,” Mario said. “He looked solid. I felt he was doing good, the way he went for the front it looked like he had things well handled. I knew he’d sure as hell be in the thick of it.

“I knew I couldn’t chase him. My brakes were already gone, I was in no condition to contend (with) him.”

And Mario was too busy driving to worry about his son’s chances for victory.

“We run our own race,” Mario said. “As long as he’s safe, we don’t need to know (who’s leading).

“At least the day wasn’t a total loss for my family. I’m disappointed for our own team, but I can’t hide the joy for Michael. Let’s face it, he’s my boy.”

But he’s not a mirror image of the old man, at least not behind the wheel.

“Michael is very calculated, certainly not breakneck,” Mario said. “He goes fast, but he watches himself. Quite honestly, that’s the only area where I could contribute (to his racing education). I always told them (Michael and brother Jeff), ‘Don’t make the same mistakes I made, don’t overdo it.’ I’ve overdone it plenty. They’ve both been good listeners.”

And good learners, evidently. And as one Greek philosopher once said--and I paraphrase--Isn’t it the ultimate goal of the teacher to at last be outdone by the student?

Still, you could see that Mario had wanted to be up there battling for the checkered flag. In ’77 he won at Long Beach in dramatic fashion, passing the leader near the end of the race.

Sure, Mario loved seeing his kid win, but how much sweeter it would have been had dad been running neck and neck with Michael at the end, pushing the hell out of him. Father and son. Think Mario would have backed off? Let the kid ease into his first big one? Forget it.

Two reporters asked their last questions and left Mario alone in his truck, changing out of his fireproof racing uniform into something more comfortable.

He was on his way to a victory dinner.