USA TODAY International Edition
Greats discuss favorite 500 memories,
LEGENDS REFLECT ON TREASURED TRIUMPHS
For Mario Andretti, one of the fondest memories of his Indianapolis 500 victory in 1969 is the parade they held in his hometown of Nazareth, Pa. By any standard, that was a pretty epic day: After the parade, Andretti won a race, witnessed the birth of his daughter and even got in trouble for eating linguine. With the 100th running of the Indy 500 this Sunday, USA TODAY Sports asked three racing legends — Andretti, A. J. Foyt and Rick Mears — about the memories they hold dear from their triumphs at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
ANDRETTI’S PARADE Andretti was a teenager when his family moved from Italy to the Nazareth area. When he won the Indy 500 in 1969, his adopted hometown wanted to honor him. It made the most sense to have a parade July 12, because there was a USAC Champ Car race at Nazareth Speedway that night.
His wife was pregnant at the time, with two weeks to go until her due date — and shortly before the race, Andretti got the call that a friend was taking her to the hospital. He decided to stay at the track and race while his pit crew prepared “It’s a boy” and “It’s a girl” messages to show him on his pit board in case any news came. Andretti won and then rushed to the hospital. Well, sort of. “Actually, I went back home real quick to clean up a little bit,” Andretti said.
When he got to his house, he found his car owner, Andy Granatelli, and a few other friends making dinner.
“They were making linguine and stuff like that,” Andretti said. “And I just got a bite of that, and I rushed to the hospital. And she was just being carted into the OR, and I gave her a kiss, and she said, ‘ You son of a gun! You went home and ate?’ ”
Still, he managed to be there in time for the birth of his daughter, Barbra.
“We wanted a girl so bad, because we had two boys,” Andretti said. “We have a girl, and I go to the hallway to the pay phone, put a dime in it to call ( family). And when I hung up, it was like a slot machine. Dink, dink — I got 75 cents back! I said, ‘ Now the cup runneth over.’ ”
MEARS’ CONCENTRATION While winning the Indy 500 attracts all kinds of attention, Mears attributes his four wins largely to his ability to block out all that hype.
“This place, the pressures can really get to you,” Mears said. “It’s the Super Bowl, obviously. So I always worked very hard to keep this as just another race on another track.” That’s not easy. “You walk on the pit lane, you see the grandstands are full, you’re like, ‘ Oh my,’ ” he says. “The butterflies kick in, because that’s usually the final thing. ‘ OK, it’s showtime. It’s here.’ So they start building, and you have to keep that suppressed. But then once you get in the car and those belts are buckled, it all goes away.”
Of his four wins — in 1979, 1984, 1988 and 1991 — his ’ 91 victory is his favorite, because he came out on top of a late- race duel with Michael Andretti.
“Michael and I had the battle at the end, the shootout,” Mears said. “That’s the real memory part. Every race you gear for that. ... Who’s the shootout going to be with? And we’ve been watching Michael all day and gearing toward him. And it ended up being him. And so we ended up having the shootout and coming out on top. That’s the fun way to win. That’s more gratifying.”
FOYT’S DETERMINATION Foyt also has four wins. But when asked to recall favorite moments, it quickly becomes clear that one of the things he’s most proud of is being able to return for the 1991 Indy 500 after a horrible accident at Road America in September 1990. After the wreck, which mangled his legs and feet, the Chicago Tribune wrote that his career had almost certainly ended. That seemed to be the prevailing sentiment in the racing community, but the tough Texan was having none of it.
Determined to get back in the car, he began working with a team trainer for the NFL’s Houston Oilers. The trainer at first had him stick his legs in an ice bath — not realizing just how much metal he had in them, painfully amplifying the effects of the cold.
“They put me in that ice tank, I said, ‘ Man, I can’t,’ ” Foyt said. “And then when ( the trainer) found out I had all the metal in my legs, he said, ‘ No wonder you couldn’t stand it.’ It was all full of plates. I had, what, 28 pins in ( one leg).”
To regain dexterity, Foyt was told to sit on a stool and try to pick up marbles with his feet. To fend off gangrene, he spent several hours a day in a hyperbaric chamber. The work paid off, as he made it to qualifying for the 1991 Indy 500. And darned if he didn’t put it right in the middle of the front row.
“I was so determined to prove a bunch of people wrong,” Foyt said. “And then I come here and I missed the pole by a fraction. That’s what hurt.”
Another thing that hurt: All of Foyt’s toenails became ingrown as they grew back, so speedway medical consultant Terry Trammell had to pull them out.
Not all of Foyt’s Indy memories are painful. Of his four wins, his favorite was his last in 1977.
“I built my own car, my own motor, and I drove it,” Foyt said. “My daddy was still living and all that. We built the car in Texas, the motor was built in Texas and I was from Texas. That, probably, for anyone else is going to be hard to match nowadays.”