Word: andrettis
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...have any feeling ofaccomplishment about anything unless there's a lot of risk to it," says Mario Andretti. He was already racing automobiles-90-m.p.h. Formula Juniors-in Italy at an age when no state in the U.S. would have given him a license to drive the family Volkswagen: 13. "I was crazy," he agrees, now that he is 27. "None of my relatives even knew what I was doing except my old priest uncle, and I had him hiding it because I told him in confession so he couldn't tell...
Born near Trieste, diminutive (5 ft. 6 in., 135 Ibs.), Mario Andretti came to the U.S. in 1955 and settled in Nazareth, Pa. He originally intended to be a welder, gave up that idea when he discovered that he could make more money racing stock cars and midgets on the dirt tracks of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Today, Andretti is the hottest racing driver in the world...
Driving to Riches. You name it, Mario drives it: Indianapolis cars, stock cars, sports cars, sprint cars. He did have to say no to Enzo Ferrari, who begged Mario to drive for him on the Grand Prix circuit; the Grand Prix races conflicted with Andretti's previous engagements, and besides, Ferrari doesn't pay enough. "Anybody who can drive and doesn't come out of it a rich man is a fool," says Andretti...
...rookie at Indianapolis, he astounded racing experts by placing third and winning $42,551. That same year he won the U.S. Auto Club's big-car championship, a title he took again last year when he won eight out of 15 races and $82,695. This month Andretti teamed with New Zealand's Bruce McLaren to win the Sebring twelve-hour endurance race for sports cars-averaging a record 102.9 m.p.h. in a Ford Mark IV. As soon as that race was over, he flew to Georgia where he took over the wheel of a 1967 Ford stock...
...Pole. So small (5 ft. 6 in., 138 lbs.) that he could barely see over the hood of his Dean Van Lines Hawk, Italian-born Mario Andretti, 26, averaged 165.8 m.p.h. to sew up the pole position. Scotland's Jimmy Clark, the 1965 winner, came next with a clocking of 164.1 m.p.h. The once reliable Offenhauser engine, winner of 18 out of the last 19 500s, but consigned to oblivion after Ford swept the first four places last year, made its comeback-in the hands of Parnelli Jones, who clocked 162.4 m.p.h. A. J. Foyt was not ready...