Victory at Last

High-profile drivers on the breakthrough moments that made their careers.

BY A . J . B A I M E

‘It Was like God Had Just Spoken to Me’

M A R I O A N D R E T T I , 1 9 6 3

“ M A R I O A N D R E T T I , 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. ”

Right after, Andretti trailered the car from Flemington over the state line into Pennsylvania. The Hatfield Speedway dirt track was a third of a mile and banked— “a very fast, very interesting track, ” he recalls. By now, the sun had set and the lights were on. Andretti won his heat and went on to win the feature. Then things got really exciting.

There was a legend about a midget driver named Shorty Templeman. The night before the Indianapolis 500 in 1956, on a quarter-mile paved track that used to be across the street from the Brickyard, Templeman won three feature races in one big event—one in the afternoon, one at night, and one after midnight. In 1963, the ARDC was scheduled to run a third feature race due to a rainout earlier in the season. If Andretti could win it, he would match Templeman’s achievement of three features, and unlike Shorty’s race, the third ARDC race would be run before midnight, so all three would be in one day. Andretti went out and won that final race.

“As far as is known, ” he says, “in sanctioned events, this is the only time three features were won within one day. That put my name on the map nationally. ”

The following year, Andretti debuted in Indy car, running 10 of the season’s 13 races. In his first full season, in 1965, he won the national championship, snapping A.J. Foyt’s streak of four straight titles. Even now, Andretti still hears Economaki’s voice over the loudspeaker at that small-town Pennsylvania track. “It was this amazing thing, ” he says, “that I’ll never forget. ”

B

A

‘I’m a Driver Who Happens to Be a Woman’

J A N E T G U T H R I E , 1 9 7 7

A. Mario Andretti entered the big time in 1963 with an amazing Labor Day weekend of racing. B. A clearly delighted

Janet Guthrie upon becoming the first woman to qualify for the Indy 500. THE PRESS CALLED her the “goddess of racing. ” When Janet Guthrie debuted in Indy car for the 1976 season, she had a helmet-clad Athena—the Greek goddess of war—painted on the car’s nose.

“We’re all drivers here, ” she told a reporter before the Schaefer Beer 500 that year at Pocono. “I’m a driver who happens to be a woman. There is no reason—physical, emotional, or psychological—that a woman cannot drive a car as well as a man. And when men don’t feel ashamed of being beaten by a woman, we will have come a long way. ”

Guthrie had a daring childhood. “I was born an adventuress and grew up insufficiently socialized, ” she says today. “My first love was flying. I soloed for the first time when I was 16, got a private license at 17 and an instructor’s and commercial license before I got out of college. ” She was a development engineer at an aviation firm when she bought a seven-year-old Jaguar XK120M and discovered motor racing. She raced SCCA for years, plus the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

“After 13 years, I was out of money, ” she says. “I had one used-up race car, no insurance, no house, no jewelry, no husband. I was saying, ‘Janet, you should come to your senses. ’”

Then a phone call changed everything. Longtime Indy-car team owner Rolla Vollstedt wanted Guthrie to drive for him and become the first woman to qualify for the Indy 500. That year, 1976, she didn’t make the cut; Vollstedt’s car wasn’t quick enough. But press attention got her a NASCAR ride. She became the first woman to compete in the Daytona 500, finishing 12th in 1977. Then in May it was back to Indy, which in those days utterly eclipsed any other race in the Western Hemisphere.

“Rolla had gained enough sponsorship money to purchase a better car, ” Guthrie says. “On the first day of practice, I set the fastest time. I went back to the garage, and Rolla said, ‘Well, Guthrie, that oughtta get their attention. ’” While straining to make the field, Guthrie crashed at 191 mph. She still made the grid, qualifying 26th out of 33 positions. Even before she returned to the pits, she knew: “My life would never be the same. ” Her achievement made newspapers all over the globe.

Before each Indy 500, track owner Tony Hulman made his famous pronouncement: “Gentlemen, start your engines!” This time he said, “In company with the first lady ever to qualify at the Indianapolis 500, gentlemen, start your engines!”

Guthrie made it 27 laps before her engine blew. She went on to start 11 Indy-car races with one topfive finish and 33 NASCAR Cup races with five top 10s. She didn’t just break the racing glass ceiling; she motored through it at nearly 200 mph.

‘I Went from Chump to Champ’

D AV Y J O N E S , 1 9 8 6 , 1 9 9 6

WANNA SEE AN UP -AND-COMING professional athlete in his worst moment? Search “Davy Jones Road America crash” on YouTube. The year was 1986, and the Chicago-born driver was 22, racing a BMW-powered March GTP in IMSA. Jones tucked in behind a Nissan going through Road America’s famous kink when he lost downforce on the car’s front end. The vehicle was in pieces in seconds, and Jones was lucky to be alive. “The car was absolutely destroyed, ” he remembers. He ended up in an ambulance, fearing this shunt could be a career ender.

The team manager, John Dick, came to Jones and said, “Davy, BMW and all the powers that be just lost a million-dollar race car. But the team believes in you. We’re going to build you a new car. We’re going to go to Watkins Glen, and we’re going to kick ass. ”

And that’s exactly what happened. Four weeks later, Jones and teammate John Andretti won at Watkins Glen.

“I went from chump to champ, ” Jones recalls. That victory launched Jones’s trajectory. But as many fans know, that’s where this story really gets interesting.

Jones debuted at Le Mans with the Jaguar factory team in 1988. For four straight years, he competed in the Silk Cut XJR-9. He led the race every time but came up short in each, finishing second in 1991. Then: nothing. Jaguar folded the team. Five years went by before Jones got picked up by Joest Porsche. The team bought Jaguar’s XJR-14s and redid the bodywork on one of them, making it an open-cockpit and flat-bottom car. Engine: Porsche turbo 3.0-liter flat-six. Testing at Circuit Paul Ricard revealed that the machine had what it took to be a winner, and Jones thought maybe this was his time to break through.

On Memorial Day weekend 1996, Jones placed second in one of the closest Indy 500s in history, behind Buddy Lazier (who two months earlier had broken his back in 16 places after a crash in Phoenix). Then Jones took off for Le Mans, where he co-drove with Alexander Wurz of Austria and Manuel Reuter of Germany. The No. 7 Joest Porsche manhandled the competition for most of the 24 hours, and at the end, on his fifth and what would turn out to be his last go at Le Mans, Jones was in the cockpit a lap ahead of the second-place Porsche 911 GT1. And there it was: the checkered flag, waving in the wind. The team completed 354 laps—over 2991 miles.

“When you win a race like Le Mans, you’re ecstatic, but you’re more relieved than anything, ” Jones says today from his home outside South Lake Tahoe. “It’s a team effort and takes everybody’s effort to win. You’re so focused on the race and the strategy and the competition. It’s not until a couple of days later that it sinks in. A few days later, you’re, like, fucking A! We won that thing!”

No American has won it since.

A. In 1986, Davy Jones (holding champagne) found redemption after a huge, potentially career-ending accident mere weeks before. B. With teammate John

Andretti, Jones won the IMSA race at

Watkins Glen. Ten years later, Jones took second place at the Indianapolis 500 and won the 24

Hours of Le Mans. C. Jamie McMurray setting a NASCAR

Cup record that still stands, with a 2002 rookie win at Charlotte Motor Speedway. HEROES ARE MADE when ordinary people are thrust into extraordinary situations. Then— through courage, talent, and some luck—they cement their place in history. That’s the story of Jamie McMurray’s drive at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October 2002.

“I was this guy from Missouri who grew up in a normal family, ” he recalls. Just two years earlier, he was racing a pickup for an underfunded team. At Charlotte, McMurray shocked the NASCAR world by winning in just his second Cup race.

It all started at age eight when he first climbed into a go-kart. McMurray didn’t come from a racing family, making his rise all the more unlikely. He climbed the ranks to the Craftsman Truck Series, then to NASCAR’s second tier, which at that time was the Busch Series. Then came that phone call.

At the Protection One 400 in Kansas on September 29, 2002, Sterling Marlin crashed brutally, and x-rays revealed a cracked vertebra in his neck. Team owner Chip Ganassi called on McMurray to fill in for Marlin. McMurray had never won in the truck or Busch series. He finished 26th in his first Cup race at Talladega. Then the whole circus moved on to Charlotte, where NASCAR fans treat the sport as a religion.

“Charlotte was probably my least favorite track, ” McMurray recalls. In practice, his lap times were close to dead last. He came into the pit, and team manager Tony Glover said, “You weren’t kidding—this is not a good track for you. ”

Throughout practice and qualifying, however, McMurray got himself dialed in. Rain delayed the start, but when the green flag waved, McMurray and his team used brilliant pit strategy and crackling performance to cycle into the lead. “As drivers, you always hear about clean air and how much faster you can run when you’re out in front, ” he says. “When I got out front, I was, like, wow! The car was really fast. I’d never experienced that before. ”

McMurray led 96 of the last 100 laps in the No. 40 Coors Light car. “I remember everything about the last lap, ” he says. Bobby Labonte was tucked close behind in second, so one little mistake could have cost McMurray the race. Team manager Glover said calmly over the radio, “Okay, little buddy, the next one back is the winner. ” The checkered flag waved, and the TV announcer yelled, “Unbelievable!” The scene in Charlotte’s victory lane was insane. McMurray’s father had flown in for the race and got to see it all.

“When I got to victory lane, ” McMurray says, “I put myself in Sterling’s shoes. I knew he was at home with a broken neck. Someone gave me a cellphone, and Sterling was on the phone. He couldn’t have been nicer. He said all the things you would want him to say. ”

McMurray raced his first full year in Cup the following season, winning Rookie of the Year honors. Now McMurray is a TV analyst with Fox. His achievement of winning in only his second Cup race is a record that still stands.

‘Okay, Little Buddy, the Next One Back Is the Winner’

J A M I E M c M U R R AY, 2 0 0 2

‘Oh My God! Oh My God!’

A L E X A N D E R R O S S I , 2 0 1 6

SITTING ON THE GRID at the Brickyard in the No. 98 Andretti Autosport Honda, Californian Alexander Rossi knew that he was unique among the field of 33 drivers set to start the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2016. He grew up a Formula 1 fan, lived and competed for much of his life in Europe, and had never been to an Indy 500.

“I had to be the only one on the grid who had not dreamed of winning this race my whole life, ” he recalls.

It was only months earlier that he lost his ride in F1. As luck would have it, the Andretti Autosport team had a seat for him, so he began his rookie IndyCar season in March at Long Beach. He was 24, and when he arrived in Indianapolis for practice, he had just three races under his belt—only one on an oval and zero on a superspeedway. He qualified 11th at 230.048 mph. Not bad, but there was no expectation among anyone that Rossi could actually win as a rookie.

“I was fortunate to join IndyCar with a toplevel team, ” he says, “so I could make the transition smoothly. ” Getting used to the car on road courses was less stressful because an oversteer or understeer moment might mean a spin or going offtrack. But on an oval, the same thing might mean hitting a wall. “It’s like learning to fly an airplane, ” he says. “You can’t learn by crashing the plane. ”

At the start of the 500, with more than a quarter-million people in attendance, Rossi stuck with the pack, fighting in close combat. But panic ensued in pit stops when the team couldn’t get fuel into the car. Team co-owner Bryan Herta had an idea. They would go off strategy and skip the last planned pit stop, which meant they would have to hit an insanely high fuel-mileage number.

“I didn’t think what we were doing was going to work, ” Rossi says.

Nearing the end, when drivers started pitting for a final fuel stop, Rossi stayed out. He captured the lead, babying the throttle. “We were going to run out of gas on the last lap, ” he says. “It was just a matter of where and how big of a lead that we were going to have when that happened. Could we coast across the finish line and have enough buffer to win?”

Rossi heard over his radio when he entered the final lap: “Half a lap lead! Half a lap lead!” On TV, the announcer yelled, “Can a rookie win the 500 on an economy run? . . . What a story that would be!” When Rossi’s engine started to sputter, he heard over the radio: “Full throttle! Full throttle! . . . Bring it home!” The motor died after Turn 3. Carlos Muñoz was chasing in second as Rossi moved through Turn 4, clutch in so the car could freewheel. He crossed the line four seconds ahead of Muñoz.

“Checkered flag!” Herta yelled over Rossi’s radio. “You just won the Indy 500, baby!” Through the television, fans could hear Rossi saying “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“It was about as close as you could’ve cut it, ” Rossi says, looking back. “They calculated everything perfectly. And that is how a guy who was never supposed to win the Indy 500 won it. ”

A. Indianapolis 500 rookie Alexander

Rossi coasted, out of fuel, across the finish line to win the 100th running of the race.