Marco Andretti, Andretti Green Racing, NYSE, Michael Andretti, Mario Andretti, IndyCar Series, Mid-Ohio, Richmond, Chicago, Motegi
Hard luck
40 IndyCarSeries 2007 Review
STRANGE DAYS
Last year a rookie sensation, Marco Andretti experienced a
sophomore slump of epic proportions this season. Now he
attempts to regroup for 2008 and turn his luck around
Words by Jeff Olson • Photos by Darrell Ingham/Getty Images
A
lmost before the race had started, Marco
Andretti was hanging upside down,
covered with chunks of sod and mud, his
first race at Mid-Ohio turned on its head. It was
the second time in eight races that a car under his
control had flipped upside down, and yet another
race lost to circumstances beyond his control.
In one frightening moment in July, his entire
sophomore season in the IndyCar Series found its
defining moment, and it was not pleasant or
clean or anything like it should have been. It was
muddy and unexpected and, at times, violent.
Still, Andretti learned something from the flip at
Mid-Ohio and the rest of his difficult 2007 season.
Racing is a crazy game, filled with happenings you
don’t expect and can’t predict. On occasion, what
should have been a spray of champagne is instead
a trip to the infield care center. On occasion, racing
makes no sense whatsoever.
“Sometimes you just have to learn to accept
that there is no rhyme or reason to any of this,”
Andretti declares. “Sometimes it’s just a matter
of circumstance, and nothing you do to prepare
or plan can prevent it. Sometimes bad things
happen, and they happen to everybody. You just
have to accept that and understand it and keep
moving forward.”
Moving forward means preparing for next
season, a task that’s already at hand for the 20year-old
son of Michael Andretti and grandson
of Mario Andretti. Even before the 2007 season
had ended, the youngest Andretti planned and
arranged for the 2008 season, his third in the
No. 26 Andretti Green Racing Dallara-Honda.
“I’m at a point right now where I can’t wait
for next year,” Andretti says. “I’m just glad this
year is over with. I couldn’t get out of my own
way in the beginning of the season, and it never
got much better. It didn’t matter what I did off
track to stay focused. As soon as things didn’t go
right, I started questioning everything. ‘What am
I doing?’ That’s when you’re out of it.”
Good example: Andretti had the fastest lap in
practice for the June race around the Richmond
oval, but qualifying was rained out. As a result, he
started back in the pack and finished 12th.
“I won’t bore you with the details of each bad
race,” Andretti says with a grin, “but it seems like
it was one thing after another.”
He may not provide details of each strange
circumstance, but the statistics will. Andretti
crashed six times in 17 races, including upsidedown
excursions at Indianapolis and Mid-Ohio.
Two other crashes were deemed severe – a slam
into the inside wall at Motegi that bruised an
arm, and a crunching blow at Chicago that left
Andretti with a sore neck.
The other crashes – including tangles with
AGR teammates in two races – left Andretti
wondering about his ability and whether he
would ever expand upon his triumphant rookie
season. Plainly, he began to doubt himself.
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