First Family Didn’t Hand Him 5th Place

What the Hapsburgs were to Austria-Hungary, the Bourbons to France or the Tudors to Britain, the Andrettis are to auto racing. A royal family. They seem to rule by divine right.

Mario is king. Michael the Prince of Wales. Jeff is the archduke. John is kind of the royal cousin. Most people think of him as not in the line of royal accession. Kind of a Duke of Kent. Or Windsor.

John not only doesn’t look like an Andretti, he doesn’t look like a race driver. In fact, he doesn’t look like a driver. If a cop saw him driving down the Hollywood Freeway, he’d probably pull him over and hold him till his parents came to get him.

Blond, blue-eyed, almost cherubic, John looks like the lead in the school Christmas play. He’d be the one coming out in the white robe and the wings. He is 5 feet 5 and tips the scales in the high 120s. He’s as innocent-looking as an altar boy. None of the Andrettis look like linebackers, but John could get in any movie for half price and sleep in a bureau drawer. The first time A.J. Foyt saw him along the pit wall, he started to give him an autograph.

He looks as if he’d be the only guy in the race who needs a pillow to see over the wind screen.

He’s always the “other” Andretti, anyway. Uncle Mario won the Indianapolis 500. Cousin Michael is supposed to. But every time they look in their rearview mirror, there’s another Andretti there. Little John.

Michael finished second in the 500 last year, but John was fifth. If you have any doubt about his tenacity or endurance, he ran the fastest last lap in the race, 222.5. That was faster than his qualifying speed (219.05), and it is an act of faith at Indy that qualifying speeds are meant to be faster than race speeds. That made him the second-fastest Andretti in the race. Uncle Mario was seventh. He also was driving one of only nine cars running at the end.

Even for an Andretti, Indianapolis is a seasoning process. When John Andretti first showed up at the Speedway, most people thought he was just observing a family tradition. He would do a lap or two in a race or two and bow out gracefully. Get a job in a bank.

John was the son of the “other “ Andretti. His father, Aldo, was Mario’s twin brother who had been a promising race driver until he hit a wall and not only ended his career but almost his life. The accident took him off the ovals forever and he retired to selling tires in Indianapolis. Fate seemed to have dealt him the deuces while his twin was becoming a world celebrity.

John Andretti was careful to label his career in a race car as something less than a crusade to make amends for his father’s disappointment, but he admits to becoming emotional when the flag drops. “I’d give up my career to give him (his father) the career I’ve had--and he wanted,” he says.

But, if vengeance on the sport was an early motive, it has long since given way to a more familiar Andretti quest: a drive for sheer speed.

John Andretti has always lived in the shadow of his uncle and his cousin Michael. He finished 21st in his rookie year. Michael finished fourth. He finished 25th the next year, Michael was 17th. The next year he was 21st, Michael was 20th. Last year, he was fifth. But Michael was second. On or off the track, he couldn’t measure up to Cousin Michael. He won one Indy type race, Michael won 22.

“I can get to him, I can’t get by him,” John says ruefully. “It is like (Rick) Mears. Rick is one of the cleanest, least dirty drivers out there. But he has ways of not letting you past.”

So does Michael. Indy has its own ways of not letting you past. It is a race that rewards speed first--but also patience. No rookie has won this race in 65 years (I throw out Graham Hill in 1966 as he was several times world driving champion at the time, hardly a rookie) and only four rookies have won it in history.

Rookies ignore this fact of life. And John Andretti was no exception. “My rookie year, I was just having a good time. I was passing guys on the outside, challenging the corners, pushing the car.”

He thought it was an easy game. “I did have some thought like ‘Hey, that’s Rick Mears in front of me and he’s won the race four times and I have no business getting around him.’ ”

It was just as well. Mears didn’t let him get around anyway. But, gradually, John began to feel like--well, like an Andretti.

Is he more competitive with his cousin Michael--or even Uncle Mario--than the rest of the field? “Only if they’re leading,” he laughs.

There’s supposed to be an Andretti family jinx. For Uncle Mario to have won this race only once is held to be a historic injustice on the order of Sam Snead never winning an Open or Nolan Ryan never winning a Cy Young Award. Michael Andretti is validating the bad luck--he lost by three seconds last year.

Uncle Mario starts this year’s race in a customary place: the front row. For the second time in a row and the sixth time in his career. Cousin Michael starts in Row 2--for the second time in a row and the third in his career.

John Andretti also starts in an accustomed spot: the fifth row.

As usual, he’ll have uncles and cousins--and a Mears--in front of him. That doesn’t mean they’ll stay there. After all, he’s an Andretti. Indy is their kingdom, isn’t it? Anything else is a palace revolution. The rest of these guys are just peasants with pitchforks, right?