ALL IN THE FAMILY : The Andrettis Are the First Father-and-Son Teammates in Indy Car Racing

Ever since 1984, when the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach switched from Formula One racers to Indy-style cars, the Andretti clan has been making things happen.

Dad Mario won it that year and again in 1985.

Then son Michael, in a nice display of filial imitation, made the Long Beach race the first victory of his Indy-car career in 1986.

And Mario took what some were beginning to believe was his rightful place on the victory stand--he also had won here in 1977 in a Formula One car--again in 1987, making the Andretti family four for four in Indy car races at Long Beach.

The Andrettis made things happen last year, too--to one another. In a serious departure from tradition, not only did neither of them win the Long Beach Grand Prix, each was a serious threat only to the other. They had what the European motoring press politely calls a shunt . In plainer language, they ran into one another.

Running third, behind his father, Michael tried to pass Mario in the first turn on Lap 11. Instead, father and son tangled. Michael’s car lost its nose cone and he had to go to the pits for some quick cosmetic surgery, losing three laps in the process. Mario fell out of contention with a souvenir of his own, a flat tire.

Embarrassing? Well, sure, a little. But those things happen in the best of racing families, and the Andrettis were , after all, racing. It wasn’t as if they were teammates or anything.

So now it’s 1989 and it’s Long Beach Grand Prix time again and the Andrettis are going to try again to make something happen. But when they hit the track running on Sunday, it won’t be just as father and son, but as father-and-son teammates.

That might seem a terribly logical and completely understandable progression, but the fact is that in a sport noted for second- and third-generation drivers, Mario and Michael are the first father-son combination to drive for the same team in Indy car history.

At the urging of his father, Michael left his ride with Maurice Kraines’ Compton-based team after last season and signed on to drive a Lola-Chevrolet for Carl Haas and Paul Newman, Mario’s longtime car owners.

That came as a bit of a surprise to some, since Mario, long an established star, had once vowed never again to drive on a multicar team, citing previous bad experiences.

“Well, here we are,” he said the other day, grinning. “Things do change.

“Obviously, I think at this point that the idea started to make sense because of the fact that he’s not just another driver. He’s Michael. The down side of the two-car situations that I have had, the negative memories of open war between the drivers, I think that will not be the case here.

“This situation should work but the jury’s out and we have to go through a season yet.

“But Michael is bringing a lot to the car in himself. He has enough experience (he has won seven Indy car events) to have his own ideas about things and that’s what you want. You want a different approach and that’s where I stand to gain.

“No matter how long you’ve been around, you just don’t always--and most likely very seldom--have all the answers. You have to have an open mind and I value, very much, Michael’s input in every area.”

Michael, too, is taken with the possibilities.

“I don’t consider this a typical two-car effort,” he said. “We work together a lot more than, say, a regular two-car team. The first two years I was in Indy cars, I was in a two-car team and in those two years there was more competition within the team than there was with the rest of the field.

“It’s not like that with me and my father because we’re very honest with each other. We try to help each other out and if I don’t do well, I hope he does.

“That’s not the way it works out with the ordinary team. I liked Kevin (Cogan, his one-time teammate) a lot but we were very competitive with each other because we each had something to prove. If I didn’t do well, I didn’t want him to show me up. We don’t have that type of relationship and that’s the advantage. We’re very open and able to work together.”

As members of competing teams, they often found it difficult to converse, other than politely passing the time of day.

“There were times when, perhaps, we wanted to bounce some things off one another and resisted that,” Mario said. “We were both holding back a lot.”

Right, said Michael.

“We each had $4- or $5-million efforts behind us and it wasn’t fair to give out any secrets to each other. That made it actually touchy sometimes because we didn’t know what to say. Now we can be totally open with each other and that’s better.”

One of the big problems on multicar teams is preparing and maintaining the cars so that each driver has, basically, the same refinements in equipment. Roger Penske has been able to provide that kind of equality to his drivers, Rick Mears and Danny Sullivan, but most multicar owners can’t, or don’t.

Haas said he intends to.

“You have to treat each of them equally,” he said. “That’s the only way something like this will work.”

Already, though, the Andrettis have learned that saying equal and being equal are not quite the same. At Phoenix last Sunday in the season opener--Michael finished fourth, Mario eighth--the cars apparently had minds of their own.

“The blueprint of (Michael’s) car was the same as mine but it didn’t work at all for him the way mine did,” Mario said. “So he had to go his own way. We couldn’t really help each other. We just couldn’t relate the problems to one another. It was as if the team didn’t really exist, to be honest with you. That was a bit odd.”

So, OK, they’re father and son and teammates as well. Just how far will the team concept extend?

Only as far as the starting line, both insist.

“When it comes to the race track, we’re very competitive,” Michael said. “Once we’re on the race track, it’s every man for himself. I don’t see anything changing there. It’s only building up to the time of the race that we’re working together.”

And if that means swapping paint through a tight corner, well, that’s part of the game.

Said Mario: “We both know we play it pretty close. If something happens and one gets a wing knocked off or something, it’s just that we played it too close and one of us missed. I want to beat him and he wants to beat me.”

The master plan, of course, is for both to have good seasons, as was the case with Penske’s team last year, when Mears won the Indianapolis 500 and Sullivan the national championship.

Whatever happens, though, neither figures the father-son relationship is in any jeopardy.

Michael sees the arrangement as a one-year business deal with some people he knows very well.

“I’m very comfortable with it,” he said. “I know what I’m getting into with Carl Haas, I know the team, I know everybody there. We all knew what we were getting into when we did the deal. I think this will be the best chance of winning I’ve ever had. Now we’re just going to see how things work out.”

But won’t it be awkward if things don’t?

Not at all, said Mario.

“It won’t because we both talk about these things openly and if either one of us would be under some duress this year, well, we made the bed and we gotta sleep in it. But then, we can reevaluate, reassess the situation, whether we want to continue it beyond this. It’s going to take a few races before we can really start thinking about that.

“I don’t see us really interfering with each other’s goals and the sport of racing is so fickle that usually luck bounces from one side to the other.

“What I’ll probably see is that very, very seldom will both of us be smiling the same weekend.”

Neither will be smiling much at all if Penske’s team has the kind of season it had last year, and there was some slight indication at Phoenix that it could happen again. Mears won, finishing a lap ahead of the field, and Sullivan was third.

“We were behind, no question,” Mario said. “Mears really had things hooked up there. I hope he doesn’t do that everywhere, or I think I’ll take an early vacation.”

If it came to that, he could always take his son fishing.