Andretti remembers the old days

Mario Andretti remembers when stock car and Formula One drivers raced in the Indianapolis 500, when Indy-car drivers tried their luck at Daytona.

Names like Yarborough, Unser, Andretti and Allison battled on the same track.

Those days are over. While motorsports continues to grow, the circuits are as isolated as ever. The Italian-born Andretti sees no hint of a renaissance.

"When top drivers are under contract with top teams, they want your hide," he said. "They don't want you to play in anybody else's house."

Stock car drivers like Cale Yarborough and brothers Bobby and Donnie Allison, as well as the best drivers from Europe, used to run the Indy 500.

Andretti won the Indy 500 and CART championship, the 1967 Daytona 500 and the Formula One title. He has twice driven at Le Mans with his son Michael, and the elder Andretti's nephew, John, joined them to make it a trifecta in 1988. If it has wheels on it, someone named Andretti has driven it.

Even so, Dan Gurney is racing's undisputed jack all trades. And he mastered them all, too. Now a CART owner, Gurney won seven F1 races, seven Indy-car races and five NASCAR Winston Cup events. That kind of versatility has gone the way of tires kicking up sand on the old beach course at Daytona.

"We probably test more in one season now than I did in my entire career," said Gurney, who won 48 races in 20 countries with 25 makes of cars. "The trend is toward specialization."

Modern drivers have too many responsibilities to concentrate on anything more than their own series. And since American open-wheel racing split into two rival leagues, the Indy 500 has lost much of its luster.

"It was a good thing for the sport, because you had top drivers, top talent in different disciplines mixing it up," Mario Andretti said. "It was adding spice to Indianapolis to have stock car drivers there, to have Formula One drivers. It was adding spice to Daytona to have open-wheel drivers there."

The IROC series pits racers from different series against each other in identically prepared cars a few times a year. But in recent years, only Robby Gordon and John Andretti have made the effort to run a significant race in a series other than their own.

And it required a Herculean effort. When Gordon tried to race in the Indy 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 on the same day in 1997, rain washed out the Indy race and foiled his plans. Team owner Felix Sabates spent an estimated $2.5 million to have one driver competing in both events. Everything was timed to the minute, with three airplanes and four helicopters lined up to shuttle Gordon between the races.

John Andretti finished 10th in the Indy 500 in 1994 and 36th in the Coca-Cola 600 later in the day.

"Up until 1989, I ran IMSA races, I ran all kinds of things like that," said Bobby Rahal, retiring at the end of his 17th CART season. "I really enjoyed it. But the commitment that's needed to compete precludes that."

In addition to a heavy race schedule, drivers are required to make test runs and promotional stops on every bye weekend to stay competitive.

"I see what Michael's commitments are just for this team with 19 races," Andretti said. "I mean, he hasn't got time to do anything. It's not like he's that he's sitting home idle, twiddling his thumbs or going fishing."

Andretti would love to see his son compete against, say, Dale Earnhardt in a prestigious race one day. But where? The problem facing American racing runs deeper than the intrigue of Unsers racing Allisons and Andrettis.

"Something is missing," Andretti said.

He is talking about the Indy 500. When Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George reserved nearly all the starting spots in the race for drivers in his Indy Racing League, CART decided not to run there.

Now CART's rising star, Alex Zanardi, is mulling a return to Formula One. And he might not be the last to leave if Indy remains off-limits.

"Guys like Zanardi, a champion in this series, and he has never even been around Indianapolis," Andretti said. "Is that a crime or not?"

Andretti has thought about fixing Michael up with a one-shot NASCAR ride at the Brickyard 400, the Winston Cup race that has taken the old speedway by storm. What a wonderful return to Gasoline Alley that would be for the Andrettis. Too bad it probably won't happen.

"Let's face it, when I was doing it in the '60s, it was nothing like it is today," Andretti said. "Yeah, it was competitive. But today, they've got 30 or 40 cars inside a second. You've got to have it together. For guys to go once, it would be pretty tough, if not impossible."

Will the best drivers in the world ever find a place with room for all of them again?

"It would take a lifetime," Andretti said. "That's how strong tradition is. It takes a lifetime to create a tradition, and it probably takes five years to destroy it."

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