Andretti’s Adventure

The first thing to do when you climb in the passenger seat alongside Mario Andretti is fasten your seat belt -- tightly. He does not drive slowly, and never did.

Andretti’s race car is a single-seater, but he’s still taking passengers along for the ride at speeds pushing 230 mph. And there are no seat belt reminders necessary. “Super Speedway” is only a movie, although it’s as close to the real thing as director Stephen Low and the Andrettis, Mario and his son, Michael, can provide.

Mario Andretti has been away from week-in, week-out competitive racing for three years now but the energy and enthusiasm for his sport remain intact. So he put his pedal to the metal one more time for this IMAX giant screen film. And the result pleased him because this is more than just a racing film.

The 48-minute movie, to be released in 60 markets next month, follows the Andrettis on the track and off.

“It’s Mario and Mike through Mario’s eyes with great racing footage,” the elder Andretti said. “We show the emotions of the season, the ups and downs, the expectations and the disappointments. But more than that, I reflect back on my experiences. You know: Been there; Did that.

“This was a chance to drive again and bring the fan closer to the experience than ever before. It is as close to reality as you can come.”

Andretti said that because of the nature of his sport, fans can’t experience the exhilaration of racing. “If you’re a golfer, you can buy the same clubs Greg Norman uses,” he said. “You can’t buy the equipment we use.”

So director Low and driver Andretti conspired to capture the experience. “The agreement was there would be no misrepresentation,” Andretti said. “I wanted no trickery. Things happen a lot faster in the cockpit than you can imagine.”

Low wanted more than a racing film. So there is footage of building Michael’s car for the 1996 season, accompanied by some coverage of Martini, the family’s pet pig. “You would like Martini,” Mario Andretti said.

Michael’s 1996 season, of course, did not include the longtime centerpiece of open wheel driving, the Indianapolis 500. Because of the feud between Championship Auto Racing Teams and the 500, in which Indy reserves spots in the starting grid for drivers from the Indy Racing League, the Andrettis won’t be there this May, either. That pains Mario.

“Of course, I miss Indy,” he said. “It was an event so important in any driver’s career. We’d rather be back there but our mission is to provide top quality cars and drivers with no form of pre-selection. It’s got to be fair and reasonable for everybody.

“How you should qualify and win is by being the best that day,” Andretti continued. “To reserve places, that’s unreasonable and unfair. Our fans want the best of the best and real racing. I hope that’s what we give them.”

Andretti said the strength of his sport has been road racing, helping ovals like Milwaukee and Phoenix to prosper and inspiring developers to build more tracks.

And where does that leave the old oval at Indianapolis?

“What is LaScala without Pavrotti?” Andretti said. “Just another theater. A soprano needs the best acoustics. The best acoustics needs the best voices.”

The film intrigued Andretti from the start. It included restoring his 1964 roadster, a car he once drove at Indy. Then there was the opportunity to drive again. “The idea of getting back in the cockpit was really appealing to me,” he said.

Once there, though, Andretti’s driving instincts sometimes interfered with his debut as a filmmaker.

“I’m the cameraman,” he said. “The camera was operated by a button that I pressed. At Sebring, we were testing and Mike was behind me. I’m going along, filming him, and my engine blows big time. Mike was cowboying back there, sliding around. He did a phenomenal job of keeping it under control.”

The sequence is not in the film, though, because there was a basic cinematic problem. The cameraman, otherwise occupied with his car’s problems, had failed to push the button.