He had qualified safely and moved on to the interview room and sat down to take the reporters’ questions. But then Michael Andretti glanced at the TV to his right and saw that his 19-year-old son, Marco, was ready to make his own qualifying run.
Now there would be no questions. Instead, the father shifted slightly in his chair and sucked in his breath and stared intently at the screen. His left hand, palm down, rested atop the table in front of him. His right fingers, in motion, tap, tap, tapped constantly on the back of that resting hand.
A week earlier, during one of the many rain delays that disrupted practices for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, he had visited this same room, where one questioner wondered how it was to watch his son in action. The reporter began, “Some basketball coaches have told me that it’s harder than . . . “
Even before he finished, Andretti knew what was to come and smiled and said, “That’s another reason why (he came out of retirement to run in this race). If I’m out there doing my thing, I don’t have to be watching him. It keeps my mind busy.
“I’m a lot more relaxed out there doing my own thing than having to sit there and watch him in his first Indianapolis 500.”
But he wasn’t relaxed Saturday. He was coiled, frozen, a concerned father fretting over the fate of his son. That was the portrait he presented over 2 minutes 40 seconds, and only when Marco had safely qualified did he relax.
Then he faced the front of the room and exhaled audibly. “I’m playing the role of father up here watching him run,” he said.
“It’s a great feeling seeing him done with his run, but it’s also a feeling of relief.
“This is the worst day in terms of pressure. I was feeling the pressure out there and I’ve been here a while, so I can’t imagine what Marco was feeling since it’s his first time here. No matter how long you’ve come here, it’s still nerve-racking.”
That was the scene Saturday, Pole Day, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where Michael and Marco Andretti guaranteed they would be just the third father-son duo to run together in the famed 500. Michael did that with his dad Mario in the late ’80s and early ’90s, a time that also saw Al Unser Jr. racing his dad. Now there is this new combination of Andrettis set to challenge each other.
The allure of that prospect is the only reason Michael Andretti returned to the Speedway, where he last competed in 2003.
“What brought me back was Marco. If it wasn’t for Marco, I wouldn’t be back,” he said bluntly.
What did he miss in retirement?
“Nothing,” he said. “I was very happy and content. But now that I’ve made a commitment to do it, I’ve been excited because I never thought I’d have another shot at winning it. So the competitive spirit’s coming back a little bit. That side of it’s been fun. This is totally by my own choice, and I’m happy with it. I’m having fun with it.”
The same is certainly true of his son, who has shown a remarkable calm in the eye of his first Indianapolis storm. He passed his rookie test easily, improved steadily during the month, qualified even faster than his dad, and along the way absorbed inevitable shots from his Andretti Green Racing teammates.
“Marco has it tough,” one of them, Bryan Herta, said earlier this month. “He’s 19. Moved out on his own. Living here in Indianapolis, he only has about a 2,300-square-foot apartment. He’s feeling pretty cramped right now. Couple of cars. Went watch shopping yesterday. Things are tough. We’re trying to ease him through it.”
That shot alone is a measure of respect those teammates already have for the younger Andretti, who is far more than a sideshow and not here on his name alone. He has proved that with his work on the track, where his qualifying run was ninth fastest in the field, and he has proved it behind the scenes.
“It’s no secret how we work,” Herta said. “We all work together on the setup of our cars. It’s an open-book policy. We don’t keep anything from each other. Marco has been able already to provide some good insights in some of the setup changes he’s done, which have helped push direction in the team.”
“I give him an `A’ so far, I really do,” Michael Andretti said after his son’s run. “He’s really impressed me. There have been times when his car wasn’t good and he was still driving it and I thought, `Wow, how the heck is he doing that?’ So I give him an `A.'”
Minutes later, his spot in his first 500 secure, Marco Andretti walked into the interview room and was asked how he had survived so well in the qualifying cauldron even his dad finds filled with pressure.
“I got some advice from my teammate Tony Kanaan, who told me to put my helmet on and do the run in my head,” he said, as relaxed as his dad had been tense.
“That’s what I did. I had the run in my head before I went out and was surprised it went like I saw it. . . . It’s special. My whole life I couldn’t wait to be here. Now that I’m qualified for the thing, I’m definitely excited.”
– – –
The lineup
Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Lap length: 2.5 miles
Car number in parentheses; r-rookie
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ROW 1
1. (6) Sam Hornish Jr. Dallara 228.985
2. (3T) Helio Castroneves Dallara 228.008
3. (10) Dan Wheldon Dallara 227.338
ROW 2
4. (9) Scott Dixon Dallara 226.921
5. (11) Tony Kanaan Dallara 226.776
6. (4T) Vitor Meira Dallara 226.156
ROW 3
7. (55) Kosuke Matsuura Dallara 225.503
8. (8) Scott Sharp Dallara 225.321
9. (26) r-Marco Andretti Dallara 224.918
ROW 4
10. (16T) Danica Patrick Panoz 224.674
11. (2) Tomas Scheckter Dallara 224.659
12. (20) Ed Carpenter Dallara 224.548
ROW 5
13. (1) Michael Andretti Dallara 224.508
14. (15T) Buddy Rice Panoz 224.393
15. (90) r-Townsend Bell Dallara 224.374
ROW 6
16. (7) Bryan Herta Dallara 224.179
17. (27) Dario Franchitti Dallara 223.345
18. (52) Max Papis Dallara 222.058
ROW 7
19. (51) Eddie Cheever Dallara 222.028
20. (91) r-P.J. Chesson Dallara 221.576
21. (14) Felipe Giaffone Dallara 221.542
ROW 8
22. (92) Jeff Bucknum Dallara 221.461
23. (41) Larry Foyt Dallara 221.332
24. (21) Jaques Lazier Panoz 221.151
ROW 9
25. (5) Buddy Lazier Dallara 220.922
26. (17T) Jeff Simmons Panoz 220.347
27. (31) Al Unser Jr. Dallara 219.388
ROW 10
28. (12) Roger Yasukawa Panoz 218.793
29. (88) Airton Dare Panoz 218.170
30. (97) Stephan Gregoire Panoz 217.428
ROW 11
31. (61) r-Arie Luyendyk Jr. Panoz 216.352
32. (98) P.J. Jones Panoz 215.816
33. (18) r-Thiago Medeiros Panoz 215.729
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smyslenski@tribune.com
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