Indy Diaries: Clark Gable introduces Mario to the Speedway

Tuesday, 10 May 2016


Marshall Pruett
Over 99 runnings, the Indianapolis 500 has become the most famous event in motorsport. That iconic status is built on a bedrock of hundreds of small stories, and to celebrate the centennial race, RACER.com has asked some of the people who are part of Indy's fabric to share a few of those stories with us. Check back with Tampa Racing every day between now and race day for a new 'Indy Diary' entry.
Every race driver can remember the moment they discovered the Indianapolis 500. For most, that first exposure came through radio and TV broadcasts, or sitting in the stands at Turn 4. But for Mario Andretti, the introduction was made via the silver screen at a cinema in Italy ...
"Just last week I was in Lucca in Italy, where I spent eight years of my life in a refugee camp before I came over [to the US]. They did a short film, chronologically, about my life, from there right up to today. There's a movie house inside the town that's still there, still operating. And that's where I got my first glimpse of motor racing in America. They were playing the movie 'To Please a Lady' with Clark [Gable] and [Barbara] Stanwyck, above, and the title in Italy was 'Indianapolis'.
"You know how they have the posters outside the movie? What really drew my attention was 'Indianapolis', because I had never heard that name – I thought it was, like, Indians, and Napoli ... Then I get closer and I see race cars – I see Clark Gable in the midget, and I think, 'Oh, race cars'. So I obviously went to the movie, and that was the first exposure that I got.
"I had no idea about oval racing, dirt track racing and all that. At that time, in 1951, there was no inkling at all about coming to America. That was not part of the thought process; not even from my parents' side. But I thought, 'oh my gosh'. It's interesting. And that's it. And once I came over [to the U.S.] I thought, 'oh, they have dirt tracks'. And three days after I arrived ... I arrived on a Thursday, and I found out that on the Sunday, at Nazareth, at night ... lights, big roar, and Aldo and I just looked at each other, and followed the noise, and that's when we got our first glimpse of Brute modified stock cars. Big wide tires at that time. And we thought, 'oh man, this is America'. That looked do-able.
"Two years later we started building a car. A '48 Hudson. And that's when we started. I started racing in 1959, at age 19, which was illegal at the time. You had to be 21. And I never looked back."