A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE : These Wins Were Special for Andretti

Mario Andretti has won a world championship, four national championships, an Indianapolis 500, a Daytona 500 and races in a dozen countries, but the most satisfying time of his career might have been a weekend in August three years ago in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

It was at Pocono International Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., only an hour’s drive from the Andrettis’ private lake resort, where he and his family play.

“Great moments? I’ve had a few, but that week at Pocono was something special,” the 49-year-old Andretti said as he relaxed during preparations for his 24th Indianapolis 500 next Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “We won everything there was to win, right in our own back yard.”

Mario won the main event, the Domino’s Pizza 500 for Indy cars. It was the first time in 15 years that he had won at Pocono. Michael, his oldest son, set a qualifying record of 205.724 m.p.h. in winning the pole for the race. Jeffrey, his other son, won the pole and a race for American Racing Series cars.

“After something like that, you sit down, look at one another and think, ‘Gosh, never in anyone’s wildest dreams would that happen.’ Look at the odds. They were overwhelming against it. You’ve got to pinch yourself to make sure it’s not a dream. It was one of the happiest weekends I’ve ever had.”

Earlier that year, Mario had had a memorable Father’s Day, edging Michael by 7/100ths of a second at Portland, Ore., in the closest finish in modern Indy car history. Michael had been leading when he ran out of fuel and Mario ran him down right at the finish line.

“Michael dominated the race that day and deserved to win, but we all know what a fickle sport racing is, and that day happened to be my day,” Mario said.

He is proud that his sons have followed him into racing, and that Michael is now his teammate on the Paul Newman-Carl Haas team, but it wasn’t planned that way.

“If you had asked me 20 years ago what I thought about my sons becoming race drivers, I’d probably have said I was against it,” Mario said. “I knew what a tough sport this was. I’d lost some good friends and had some frightening moments. It wasn’t what you would plan for your children.

“But now that they’re in it, and doing well, I’m as proud as a new father. I look on it as a compliment to me, that they chose for their career something that had been my life. It was something that we never pushed. It seemed to unfold, like it was just the natural thing to do.

“It’s funny. Now that we’re together in racing we see a hell of a lot more of each other. I really wasn’t around much when they were growing up. I was always on the move and before I knew it, they were half grown.

“I didn’t try to influence them, but the trappings of racing were all around. The first thing anyone gives the son of a race driver is a toy race car. Then, as they grow up, they’re exposed to all their dad’s toys. Everything’s motorized and they grow up around them. When they get old enough, 9 or 10 or so, they start playing with them, too. It’s just a natural progression into a race car.”

Next Sunday, Mario will start in the middle of the second row and Michael on the outside of the seventh row. Jeff, still working his way toward Indy cars, will drive the next day in a Formula Atlantic race in Lime Rock, Conn.

What influenced Mario to become a race driver was not the family’s toys, but a day in his native Italy, where he saw the great Alberto Ascari, Ferrari’s world champion, drive in the Mille Miglia.

“I knew from that day, I think I was about 13, that I wanted to be like Ascari,” he said. “He was the hero of every young Italian kid and when he won that day, I had never seen so much excitement since I heard my parents cheering when the war (World War II) ended. I never met Ascari, but to this day he has been my racing idol.”

Which may help in understanding why Andretti’s choice as his most cherished victory among the 97 major races he has won was the South African Grand Prix in 1971, two years after he had won the Indianapolis 500.

“When I’m asked what was my greatest win in racing, most people expect me to say the Indy 500,” he said. “But as a kid growing up with the heritage of Ferrari, the one that always comes to mind first is winning my first Grand Prix, in a Ferrari. It was the first race I’d driven for Ferrari, and to win it. . . . Well, it was kind of overwhelming.”

Seven years later, he won the world championship, driving a Lotus, powered by a Cosworth-Ford engine, for Colin Chapman.

That triumph is memorialized by the license plates on the family Lamborghini Countach: FI 78.

The downside of racing is the loss of friends, and Andretti knows that feeling too well.

“I can take everything else in this sport, the disappointment of losing races at the last second, to almost win and then have something break, that goes with the territory. God knows, I’ve had a lot of that, but you get over that.

“What you never get over is losing friends.

“One of the first was Jud Larson, in a sprint race in Reading, Pa., in 1966. And then a few months later, Billy Foster got killed in a stock car race at Riverside. I was running in both of them. They were close buddies at the time, when we all hung around together and traveled together.

“Then, when Ronnie Peterson got killed at Monza the same day I won the world championship, that was a real bummer.

“We were not only teammates for Lotus, we were good friends. We had great times together and we stayed at each other’s home. We were already planning a vacation together in Hawaii when the season ended.

“What was going to be the happiest day of my life, reaching my most cherished goal, turned sour. I just couldn’t accept it for a long time.”

Does having his son in a race add a burden to Mario?

“It was worse when I was on the sidelines watching,” he said. “I was not a very good spectator and a lot of times I was a nervous wreck. I found out what (wife and mother) Dee Ann had been going through all these years.

“Once Michael reached a point where I saw he could take care of himself, I rested easier. Then, when he got into Indy cars and was racing me, I had to keep my mind on my own program. As a father, you never totally shut out the fact that it’s your flesh and blood out there, especially since I know better than anyone what can happen. However, you learn to live with it.”

When Andretti first drove here in 1965, his qualifying speed was 158.849 m.p.h. This year he qualified at 220.486.

“The changes in speed are enormous, that’s obvious,” he said. “But the changes in safety are so great that it is much safer at today’s speeds.

“Before the roll cage, racing was an evil sport.

“When I started out, it was not acceptable for a driver to bring up safety. It wasn’t considered macho. Drivers were on their own then, and they didn’t open their mouth because no one wanted to act like they were scared. Even if they were.

“It was a grim feeling, to look around the driver’s meeting at the start of the year and wonder who would still be there at the end of the year.

“But that has changed. This is a good business, we love it, and now drivers feel they can come forward and suggest changes. One of the best things about CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc.) is that they really respect the input from the drivers. Different drivers see different things about different tracks and CART listens.

“Unfortunately, sometimes it takes accidents to wake people up to the problems, but the new policy of trying to anticipate problems has made racing a much safer sport.”

In 1969, the only year Andretti won here, he was badly burned on the face by a flash fire when the Lotus he was testing lost a wheel and crashed during practice.

“I was lucky to walk away from that one with only the burns I had,” he said. “Fire was such a horrible thing back then. I think the biggest advancement in safety has been in the containment of fires.

“Technology gained from the Vietnam war was applied to racing and now we use the same compound in the fuel cell that was developed for helicopters, and we use disconnect lines like they have on airplanes. You see flash fires flare up when a car hits the wall, but usually they go out just as fast.”

The four-wheel-drive Lotus was demolished in that crash, so Andretti turned to a year-old Hawk-Ford, qualified it in the middle of the front row and finished more than two laps ahead of runner-up Dan Gurney.

“The thing I remember most about that race was getting a big, fat kiss in Victory Lane,” he said.

Lots of other people remember it, too, because it wasn’t from Dee Ann or that year’s race queen, but from excitable car owner Andy Granatelli.

When Mario returned home to Nazareth, Pa., after winning the 500, the city fathers changed the name of Market Street to Victory Lane.

Driving for more than 25 years is like watching a child grow up, Andretti said. You don’t notice the changes much until you look at old pictures.

“As long as you’re involved in the progression yourself, you don’t notice it so much. You’re never startled at a child’s progress. It’s the same in racing. You don’t think about increases in speed, for instance, until someone reminds you that you’re going 50 miles faster than you were a few years ago.

“If I had left for a year or two, or even six months, and then tried to come back, I would probably have noticed a big difference.

“When you really take notice is when someone brings out some old pictures. When I see those old cars, and the way I looked and where I was, I have to shake my head over how different things have become.

“Usually, I get a good laugh out of it, thinking that what I’m looking at was the state-of-the-art equipment 15 or 20 years ago and how far removed it is from the reality of today’s equipment.”

Andretti has run the gamut of racing equipment.

He started out driving a Hudson Hornet modified stock car that he and his twin, Aldo, shared after the family had emigrated from Italy.

Mario became the sole racing Andretti after Aldo was seriously injured in an accident. Aldo’s son, John, is carrying on the driving tradition for his side of the family and will be in next Sunday’s 500 along with his cousin Michael and uncle Mario.

John’s car, in fact, will be sponsored by Granatelli, the same flamboyant personality who owned his uncle’s car in 1969.

Mario got his first taste of open-wheel racing in a three-quarter midget. He won his first TQ feature on March 3, 1962, in a 35-lap race at Teaneck, N.J. From there his progression went to full midgets and sprint cars, in which he scored one of his first United States Auto Club victories at Ascot Park in 1965.

“It used to be, the only way we could break into Indy car racing was to grind it out, driving midgets, sprint cars or modifieds,” he said. “It was every man for himself, and there weren’t very many other drivers who would give you any help. Guys who had an edge weren’t about to let out what it was.”

Once Andretti got to Indy cars, however, he was an instant success, driving for Al Dean in the Dean Van Lines Special. In 1965, his second year, he finished third in the Indy 500 and won the United States Auto Club’s national championship. He repeated as champion in 1966 and also won in 1969 and 1984.

But his career wasn’t limited to Indy cars, or Formula One.

“I used to race everything I could get in,” he said. “There wasn’t a whole lot of money back then, like there is today with all the big corporate sponsors, and Dee Ann and I needed every paycheck I could get to raise three kids.

“It used to be, when I was breaking in, that drivers were type-cast. There were dirt track drivers, oval drivers, road racers and so on. There wasn’t much crossing over. I think Dan Gurney and I started that. We showed them that a guy in one series could race with guys in another one.

“I’ve always felt that a stock car driver like Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt could do just as well in an open-wheel car if that’s where he started. Or Danny Sullivan or Niki Lauda could adapt to dirt track racing if that’s what they wanted.”

In 1967, Andretti won the Daytona 500 in a stock car, the Sebring 12-hour endurance race with Bruce McLaren in a Ford Mark IV sports car, a match drag race in a Ford Mustang and eight Indy car races en route to being named Martini & Rossi driver of the year.

He was also selected driver of the year in 1978 and 1984, making him the only person to win the award in three decades.

Andretti was 24 before he drove his first Indy car race, 25 when he drove in the 500. His son, Michael, was 20 when he made his Indy car debut at Las Vegas and was in the 500 at 21. Al Unser Jr. was 20 when he first drove in the California 500 at Riverside in 1982.

“It’s not just that they’re coming up younger,” Mario said. “I would say, at the same age, they are light years ahead of where I was.

“The big difference is driving schools. It’s a real advantage to have them. When I came up, what I learned I learned on my own. A few guys, like Rodger Ward, gave me a helping hand. But most of the older drivers weren’t too keen about young guys coming along.

“The young drivers arrive now with much more discipline. Michael went to four different schools to get his training, so by the time he showed up for his first Indy car race, even though he was only 20, he was well prepared.

“The schools go a long way to weeding out guys who aren’t qualified, too. The instructors are very capable and know how to spot exceptional talent, and how to tell if someone isn’t capable of adapting. They do more than just instruct, too. They have actual races that give young drivers a baseline of what to expect.

“The only thing bad, if you can call it bad, is that the seriousness is eliminating some of the irreplaceable characters we used to have in the sport, guys like Herk (Jim Hurtubise) and Eddie Sachs and Curtis Turner, and guys who loved to party when they weren’t racing.

“The light side of the sport has suffered because there’s so much money involved. I guess it’s that way in all sports today. It’s kind of sad, in a way.”

Mario will be 50 next February. Has he given any thoughts to retirement?

“No, not as long as I feel I am competitive, as long as I can bring to the table what I’ve always brought to the table. I hope I recognize it when I can’t, and if I do, I’ll just go fishing.

“And if I win Indy next week, or win the national championship this year, it would have no bearing on my decision to retire. None at all.

“I’m enjoying myself too much, and a lot of that has to do with being on the same team with Michael. Like I said, it’s something you couldn’t dream of happening, and yet it is.”