Mario on Racing -
- from Autoweek - very interesting read -
By ROGER HART
Mario Andretti was the first to win both Champ Car and Formula One championships and is the only driver to have scored big-time, professional race wins--such as the Indy and Daytona 500s--over the course of five decades. His name is synonymous with racing success.
Despite not having competed on a racetrack since 1994, he remains close to the sport, watching son Michael (owner of Andretti Green Racing) and grandson Marco, an IRL regular who tested in Formula One.
In Napa, as we talked wine with Mario, the conversation drifted to bench racing.
When were you last in a race car?
It was the Menardi F1 two-seater in October in Edmonton. It's really great fun . . . that car is kick-ass. As far as real race cars go, the last time was 2003 in Michael's car. It was at Indianapolis, and I got upside down. It was a fluke, really. What are you going to do? What sent me up into the air, ironically, is that I hit a chunk of the SAFER barrier. It was in the middle of the track.
Those stupid IRL cars, they have the nose-up thing. It was a perfect scenario for that to happen. According to telemetry, it took 84 g's to "unstick" the car; my exit of turn one was 222 mph. I had no warning. By the time I saw it, I was coming in full boat--my idea was to get a tow for a couple of laps from Kenny Brack to put up a big number on the board. I had no idea he had exploded an engine and hit the wall. You just don't have that information when you're testing. It was just a weird thing.
It was a blessing the way it landed [wheels down]. If it had landed upside down, I would have had a headache for a long time [laughs].
You raced at a time when many drivers died at the wheel. What about the fact that you've never really suffered a serious racing injury?
Am I fortunate or what? Do I know it? Yes. How many friends did I lose? It's ridiculous. One year in two sprint-car races, we lost four drivers; two accidents, we lost four drivers. We used to sit in the drivers' meeting at the beginning of the season, and I'd look around and wonder who was going to be here at the end of the season. It was like going to war. That was it. Whether it was midgets or sprint cars, four, five, six guys wouldn't be there at the end. That was accepted until we got to be a little bit smarter. Some of us guys with big mouths started making noises that we need to deal with safety. If we're that smart to make the cars go faster, why can't we use that same knowledge to make them safer?
Everybody had to get smarter and look at the big picture. Our sport could not have endured modern times with so many fatalities. As the sport becomes more commercial, the people, the companies that are spending millions, they don't want to go to funerals. They want to celebrate.
What do you consider your greatest racing accomplishment?
The Formula One World Championship is no doubt the pinnacle. No question about it. To me, F1 is the ultimate form of motorsport. You can argue it either way, but it is. I've been there, done all of it.
Did I derive the most satisfaction from winning it? Probably not. I probably derived the most satisfaction out of CART, because of the mix of ovals to road courses. I was never totally fond of ovals, but I loved the mix, loved the challenge of ovals. When CART was at its best, the mix was good, percentage-wise. I loved the idea that if you won the CART championship, you won on a road course and you won on an oval. There were times when there was so much satisfaction to be had from that series.
What about the IRL-Champ Car split?
Tony George is finally admitting certain things [by the series going to road and street courses, along with the ovals on which the series was based]. We've come close several times to making progress [in reconciliation], and then it just falls apart. They're all in denial. I've tried so hard to get some sense in them. They just don't seem to realize they keep losing ground. More and more, that's the thing [Champ Car's] Kevin Kalkoven doesn't really realize. He's in Dubai, cultivating those foreign markets, and it just doesn't work. It's going to be another A1 series, and there already is an A1 series that doesn't work. They are off everyone's radar, no story line. It's a shame, a total shame.
I think if reconciliation would happen, you would have mass-media interest, picked up even on CNN, for God's sake.
Have you paid attention to the F1 "spy scandal"?
How can you not pay attention to what's going on? You might think it hurts credibility, but you know what, it brought a lot of attention, and it's not all that bad. Both sides--the FIA and McLaren--are smart enough to take their licks and move on. The championship was interesting; Lewis Hamilton did his part and made it exciting.
What is the best race car you drove?
I've driven some great cars, but I'd have to say the Lotus 79. It's a modern-looking car today. It seemed as if it was a car that really suited my style. I understood the car. It's not often that you know exactly--exactly--what to do with a car. I could really, really get that car to talk for me. If I had some reliability, I would have won the championship in better style with the Lotus 78 than with the 79, even. I didn't care who my teammate was, I knew I could do better. I just understood the car.
What about your grandson Marco? Is Formula One in his future?
He needs to be in F1. That's where he needs to be. He has the talent. Evaluating Marco as I have, he has that style. He has his moments of brilliance, because he has that ability. In Jerez [at an F1 test in February 2006] in pissing rain the second day, he looked good. In the rain, in the wet, he was absolutely competitive with the times. For six laps behind Fernando Alonso, he was right there with him. Alonso never pulled away a bit.
Marco needs to step up and let people know what are his desires. I know that's where he wants to be, and I know he can do it.
Despite all your outside business interests, you're still involved in racing . . .
Motorsports will always be in my life, as long as there is breath in my body.
Reply With Quote
Wish they'd bring Super Speedway back to IMAX. That was fun. 
Originally Posted by Ted Idlof
I ask if I could check out the car and he even let me sit in it and showed me how the passengers feet were right next to his arms!
There was a small formula car steering wheel fixed in front of the passenger to hold on to as a "sissie bar" 
He was so liad back and friendly.
