'It Was like God Had Just Spoken to Me'
MARIO ANDRETTI, 1963
"MARIO ANDRETTI, you have just hit the big time!" The shrill voice came piping through the loudspeaker at the small-town dirt track in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. The announcer was, unmistakably, Chris Economaki, the "dean of motorsports journalism." Mario Andretti had just won a feature race, and he was still in the car on the cool-down lap when he heard Economaki's plaudit from above. "It was like God had just spoken to me," Andretti says, looking back on that 1963 Labor Day weekend victory.
But it wasn't just one win that day. Andretti accomplished something that had never been done and likely hasn't been replicated.
The day began with a heat and a match race 30 miles from Hatfield in Flemington, New Jersey. Twenty-three-year-old Mario had been in the U.S. for only eight years, having spent most of his childhood in Italy. His family had lost almost everything in World War II and come to America penniless. Andretti was already Ferrari mad by the time he got to this country and was determined to make it on the American racing scene. He started out in three-quarter midgets and won a lot, earning a ride in 1963 in the American Racing Drivers Club series (ARDC), which ran up and down the East Coast. Brothers Bill and Ed Mataka of Maplewood, New Jersey, owned the No. 33 car Andretti drove. It was Offenhauser-powered and bright yellow with the sponsor logo "Jersey Speed & Marine" painted on the nose.
"I won that first match race and the feature in Flemington," Andretti recalls. On those tracks, in those days, it was ten-tenths all the way. "Every lap was like a qualifying lap," he says. "It takes a lot out of you."
Bu hikaye Road & Track dergisinin December 2022 - January 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Road & Track dergisinin December 2022 - January 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
MR. CALIFORNIA
MEET THE MAN WHO PUT THE STATE ON THE MAP AS THE LEADER IN THE FIGHT AGAINST VEHICLE EMISSIONS.
RESIDENT ALIEN
THE CZINGER 21C LOOKS LIKE IT ARRIVED FROM A DISTANT PLANET. INSTEAD, IT COMES FROM CALIFORNIA, WHICH IS KIND OF THE SAME THING.
FUNNY FACE
THE CURIOUS CASE OF CALIFORNIA-DIAL WATCHES.
THE PROBLEM WITH ROBERT WILLIAMS
TOWARD THE END of our third interview, Robert Williams gives me some advice about overcoming creative blocks. “Phrase it as a problem,” he says. “
Quiet Riot
In the Ioniq 5 N, Hyundai makes the case that an EV can tamp down racetrack noise without sacrificing capability.
The Sound and the Fury
A legal feud over booming decibels put California's most historic roadracing circuit in jeopardy.
HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST STUNT DRIVER
CAREY LOFTIN WAS THE KING OF THE SCIENTIFIC WILD-ASS GUESS
OFFLINE
THIS BURBANK BOOKSTORE IS A REPOSITORY FOR THE WORLD OF AUTOMOTIVE INFORMATION NOT ON YOUR PHONE.
THE COURSE OF HISTORY
The West Coast tracks where modern racing was born.
TANK WARFARE
WHAT IF THE WHOLE CAR WERE A GAS TANK?