It has been a year since the saga of Andretti agony at Indy reached the third generation. Still, the memory seized 20-year-old Marco Andretti viscerally, visibly, just the other day — just as it has “a couple of times a day, every day since,” he said.
“We lost the biggest race in the world.”
He spoke as if it had happened minutes earlier.
“This was right in his grasp,” said Mario Andretti, still hurting for his grandson.
“I mean, it just really bothers you,” said Michael Andretti, who last year, for a fleeting moment, was so sure his son had won that he pumped his fist in the air from his own cockpit at 220 m.p.h. as he ran third just behind Marco and Sam Hornish Jr.
Marco, a 19-year-old rookie, led the race exiting the final turn of the final lap. Surely, within seconds, he would become Indy’s youngest winner, three years younger than Troy Ruttman in 1952.
There had never been a pass for the win on the last lap in the Indianapolis 500, which began in 1911, let alone on the home stretch, let alone right at the checkered flag.
The Indianapolis 500 may no longer be the biggest race in the world, to the world. A dozen devastating years of schism in U.S. open-wheel racing have eroded the race’s renown.
But it remains Olympus to the Andrettis, who have paid so dearly here. They have dominated, electrified and charmed the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, only to suffer more and longer-running heartbreak than any other bloodline.
Preparing to make his second 500 start in Sunday’s 91st running, Marco is already burdened by an enormous sense of opportunity lost.
“Even if we end up winning here, [last year] is still going to bug me,” he said. “You’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity you can.”
He bases that on family history. He will run again as a teammate to his father, who will make his 16th — and final, Michael says — attempt to end an almost legendary run of awful luck here.
The Andrettis’ only rivals among famous families here, the Unsers, at least have the satisfaction of nine 500 wins among three of them.
Five Andrettis have made 55 Indy starts, including Mario’s other son, Jeff, and nephew John. Mario led more laps here, 556, than two of Indy’s three four-time winners: A.J. Foyt and Rick Mears.
Among father-son drivers, Mario and Michael have led more laps here by far, 1,086, than Al Unser Sr. and Al Unser Jr. with 754. But the elder Unser won here four times, the younger twice.
For all of this, the Andrettis have but one Indy win to show: Mario’s in 1969. Still they deny, even bristle at, the term, “the Andretti Curse.”
Bracing for shootout
Whatever it is, Marco was about to break it. About to …
“Now there’s going to be a shootout,” Mario recalls thinking, standing in the pits. “Hornish was lurking right there. I figured, ‘He’s going to come like a train.’ Which is what he did.”
Marco knew Hornish had a faster car, from the fabled stable of longtime family friend and nemesis Roger Penske, the team owner who already had won this race 13 times with nine different drivers.
But Marco had a half-straightaway lead as they took the white flag signaling the final lap, and knew “a last-lap pass is really unheard of here,” he recalled. “And if a leader is leading out of Turn 4, you hardly ever see him get passed by the time you get to the start-finish line.”
All that sorrow. All these years. At 220 m.p.h., Marco hurtled toward making up for so much.
Bad memories of ’92
Since age 5, in 1992, he had consciously, memorably experienced the Andretti anguish here. Indeed, ’92 had been the family’s worst Indy 500 ever.
“That was a horrible day,” Marco recalled the other day.
His Grandpa Mario crashed terribly and suffered severe foot injuries. Uncle Jeff crashed even worse, suffering career-ruining injuries to his feet and lower legs.
But Michael led, running away, pressing on, anguishing, not knowing the condition of his father and his brother.
“I knew. I knew,” Marco said. Even at age 5, he was monitoring television and radio, including the team radio channel. “I definitely knew they were hurt. Jeff’s case was more severe. And they wouldn’t tell Dad (Michael) anything. … Here he is leading the race and not knowing if his brother is even alive.”
Michael had led 160 of the first 189 laps and was pulling further away when, with 10 laps of the 200 left, a small belt broke on his engine. His car rolled to a stop off the track.
“I followed him everywhere and just sat there and listened and watched,” Marco recalled.
“Dad went to the hospital afterward. He just wanted to tell them he’d won the race for them. And he couldn’t even do that, to top it all off.”
Al Unser Jr., in a car inferior to Michael’s, won in the closest finish in 500 history, after long shot Scott Goodyear pulled almost alongside coming to the line, but couldn’t get past at the checkered flag. In 2006 would come the second closest, but more electrifying.
Taken by surprise
Surely, Marco thought, he could hold on as Unser had. Nobody passed on the last lap, off the fourth turn.
“What I did was bait [Hornish] to the inside, thinking he didn’t have enough speed,” Marco said. “I knew he was fast … but he beat me by a car length. That just caught me by surprise.”
Theoretically, Marco could have blocked Hornish at the last second.
“There would have been a freaking big accident,” Mario said. “There’s no way Sam would have backed off.”
“If I had moved over, maybe I could have ended up in the tower at 200 m.p.h.,” Marco said. “That’s not the way I want to win the Indy 500.”
“The ‘experts’ tell me, ‘Oh, Mario, if you had been in that car you would have made it wide,’ and all that. “You know what? I was most proud of Marco for making his split-second decision not to block when he saw Sam coming.”
Oh, well. At least Marco made the Indy 500 memorable again.
“Yeah,” his father said. “Unfortunately we’re on the wrong end of it … that’s the way it goes.”
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ehinton@tribune.com
