rabbit
05-01-03, 02:24 PM
I'll save you having to register for Autosport:
Dear Nigel,
What was Mario Andretti thinking? He's just survived a horrifying accident while testing at Indianapolis and he was darn lucky to do so. Here is a man with nothing left to prove, yet he goes out and again risks contact with those concrete walls. What is it in him do you think that drives him to do this type of thing? What's the motivation? Why take such big risks?
Wyman Pattee
Oakville, Ontario
Canada
Dear Wyman,
I've written about this in Fifth Column in this week's magazine, and the gist of my piece is that Mario Andretti is completely different from any other racing driver I have ever known. You mustn't think of him in terms of normal people - or even normal racing drivers.
At the end of 1978, the year in which he won the World Championship for Lotus, I did a book with Mario, and we have remained friends ever since. To that extent, therefore, I think I probably know him better than a lot of people, and believe me I have never met anyone like him. As I mention in the column, he once said to me, "I figure I was put on this earth to drive race cars", and that simply sums him up.
No one, I would warrant, has ever loved motor racing - and driving - more than Andretti. This, remember, was a man who competed in both the F1 World Championship and the USAC Championship at the same time! "I remember May of '81," he said to me once, "Imola one Sunday, qualifying at Indy the next, Zolder the next, the race at Indy the next, Monaco the next... You woke up in the morning, looked at the ceiling, and thought, 'Jeez, where am I? The Speedway Motel or the Hotel de Paris?'"
It was not until he was well into his thirties that Andretti decided to give precedence to F1, yet still he drove in 128 Grands Prix, and to that you have to add 407 'Indycar races', plus numberless events in midgets, sprints, stock cars, sports cars, F5000 cars, and so on. Simply, Mario was one of those drivers who considered a weekend without a race a weekend lost. By the time he retired from fulltime driving, in 1994, he was 54 years old, and had won Indycar races in four separate decades, the first in 1965, the last in 1993.
After his final CART race, at Laguna Seca, he was understandably emotional. "Now," he said, "I have to see if there is life after driving..." If he were now retired, he made an exception for Le Mans, which he had never won, and in 1995 finished second there, the best result he was to achieve.
The thing is, Andretti has never lost his love of driving a racing car, and never will. When a film, 'Superspeedway', featuring Mario and his son Michael, was made towards the end of the '90s, much of the in-car footage was shot by him, and he was still amazingly quick. In 2000, when F1 went to Indianapolis for the first time, Porsche offered him a guest drive in the Carrera Cup race, and he accepted without a second thought - proving, incidentally, way quicker than the other guest driver, one Al Unser Jr.
People thought he was crazy to do these things, but Andretti has never bothered to try and justify himself. As far as he's concerned, it's no one else's business: in his mind, he has always been a racing driver, and always will be, and if some folk can't understand that, well, it's their problem.
Last week, at Indianapolis, he climbed into an Indycar for the first time in many years, and, at the age of 63, was very soon running competitive laps, in the 225mph bracket. No one knows more about running at the Speedway than Mario, and both the Andretti-Green team and the Honda people were highly impressed, not only by his speed, but also by his feedback.
Had Brack's engine not let go in turn one, Kenny would not have crashed - and neither would Mario. Yes, he was phenomenally lucky to get out of the accident as good as uninjured, and he knows it too, which is why it is most unlikely he will ever do it again. But to ask, 'What was Mario Andretti thinking?' is to fail completely to understand a man unique in racing history. It wasn't a question of having anything to prove.
As for his motivation, well, helping his son's team at a difficult time must have come into it, but mainly what Mario was thinking was that he would enjoy driving an Indycar again, simple as that. And until Brack's engine blew, he was doing precisely that.
Dear Nigel,
What was Mario Andretti thinking? He's just survived a horrifying accident while testing at Indianapolis and he was darn lucky to do so. Here is a man with nothing left to prove, yet he goes out and again risks contact with those concrete walls. What is it in him do you think that drives him to do this type of thing? What's the motivation? Why take such big risks?
Wyman Pattee
Oakville, Ontario
Canada
Dear Wyman,
I've written about this in Fifth Column in this week's magazine, and the gist of my piece is that Mario Andretti is completely different from any other racing driver I have ever known. You mustn't think of him in terms of normal people - or even normal racing drivers.
At the end of 1978, the year in which he won the World Championship for Lotus, I did a book with Mario, and we have remained friends ever since. To that extent, therefore, I think I probably know him better than a lot of people, and believe me I have never met anyone like him. As I mention in the column, he once said to me, "I figure I was put on this earth to drive race cars", and that simply sums him up.
No one, I would warrant, has ever loved motor racing - and driving - more than Andretti. This, remember, was a man who competed in both the F1 World Championship and the USAC Championship at the same time! "I remember May of '81," he said to me once, "Imola one Sunday, qualifying at Indy the next, Zolder the next, the race at Indy the next, Monaco the next... You woke up in the morning, looked at the ceiling, and thought, 'Jeez, where am I? The Speedway Motel or the Hotel de Paris?'"
It was not until he was well into his thirties that Andretti decided to give precedence to F1, yet still he drove in 128 Grands Prix, and to that you have to add 407 'Indycar races', plus numberless events in midgets, sprints, stock cars, sports cars, F5000 cars, and so on. Simply, Mario was one of those drivers who considered a weekend without a race a weekend lost. By the time he retired from fulltime driving, in 1994, he was 54 years old, and had won Indycar races in four separate decades, the first in 1965, the last in 1993.
After his final CART race, at Laguna Seca, he was understandably emotional. "Now," he said, "I have to see if there is life after driving..." If he were now retired, he made an exception for Le Mans, which he had never won, and in 1995 finished second there, the best result he was to achieve.
The thing is, Andretti has never lost his love of driving a racing car, and never will. When a film, 'Superspeedway', featuring Mario and his son Michael, was made towards the end of the '90s, much of the in-car footage was shot by him, and he was still amazingly quick. In 2000, when F1 went to Indianapolis for the first time, Porsche offered him a guest drive in the Carrera Cup race, and he accepted without a second thought - proving, incidentally, way quicker than the other guest driver, one Al Unser Jr.
People thought he was crazy to do these things, but Andretti has never bothered to try and justify himself. As far as he's concerned, it's no one else's business: in his mind, he has always been a racing driver, and always will be, and if some folk can't understand that, well, it's their problem.
Last week, at Indianapolis, he climbed into an Indycar for the first time in many years, and, at the age of 63, was very soon running competitive laps, in the 225mph bracket. No one knows more about running at the Speedway than Mario, and both the Andretti-Green team and the Honda people were highly impressed, not only by his speed, but also by his feedback.
Had Brack's engine not let go in turn one, Kenny would not have crashed - and neither would Mario. Yes, he was phenomenally lucky to get out of the accident as good as uninjured, and he knows it too, which is why it is most unlikely he will ever do it again. But to ask, 'What was Mario Andretti thinking?' is to fail completely to understand a man unique in racing history. It wasn't a question of having anything to prove.
As for his motivation, well, helping his son's team at a difficult time must have come into it, but mainly what Mario was thinking was that he would enjoy driving an Indycar again, simple as that. And until Brack's engine blew, he was doing precisely that.