The John Andretti Easter egg hunt

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emailBy: Marshall Pruett | 12 hours ago

He was the driver with an Easter egg career. John Andretti’s resume is filled with impossible variation where all of the big leagues are covered, but those accomplishments only tell a portion of his incredible story.

It’s in the adventure to include his lesser-known outings, from all manner of racing series, that leads to a delightful hunt for surprises throughout the record books. It also gives us a deeper appreciation for how unique Andretti’s spirit was in our world.

John raced and won in IndyCar for the legendary Jim Hall. And in IMSA, for the BMW factory, and for renowned Porsche entrant Jim Busby while claiming overall victory at the prestigious 24 Hours of Daytona. And Rick Hendrick.

And in NASCAR, for The King, Richard Petty, where he scored a famous win at the dizzying Martinsville. And for another legend, Cale Yarborough, in winning the summer Daytona 400. And for Richard Childress. And the Earnhardt family. And more.

He raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, crossing the finish line sixth overall while sharing a car with his famous uncle Mario and cousin Michael as part of the factory Porsche team. After receiving an invite from former baseball star-turned-team owner Jack Clark, he took on the world’s most insane racing machine – an NHRA Top Fuel dragster – and impressed with incredible reaction times and round wins in a form of the sport that was completely foreign to him.

In IndyCar, Andretti drove for Mario’s heated rival, the peerless A.J. Foyt. And Vince Granatelli. And Hall. And his cousin Michael. And more.

Andretti, BMW, Busby, Childress, Clark, Earnhardt, Foyt, Granatelli, Hall, Hendrick, Petty, Porsche, and Yarborough. It’s a Hall of Fame cast who hired John for his driving prowess, rather than the richness of his surname.

With no disrespect to his father Aldo or famous extended family, John was the different member of the Andretti clan whose last name was everything but a master key. There were occasional invites to take part in special Mario-Michael-and-John opportunities, but those are rarities on his CV. Despite having that famous last name, it did not unlock every door, nor would it guarantee a long and steady career in the sport.

This Andretti lacked the automatic prequalification that Mario and Michael carried into negotiations, and for that alone, I’ve long marveled at all John achieved. He earned those 440 NASCAR starts and 15 Daytona 500s, those 83 IndyCar drives and 12 Indy 500s, nearly 50 sports car starts spanning 1984 through 2012, and all the other crazy outings in between.

Consider these classic John Andretti resume entries: In 1988, he made his Indy 500 debut with Curb Racing and then, weeks later, flew east to France where, at 25 years old, he participated in his first 24 Hours of Le Mans, and just for fun, he added Australia’s great race – the Bathurst 1000 – to his amazing year of firsts after getting a call from Garry Rogers to be his co-driver at Mount Panorama.

The idea of adding one’s name to Indy, Le Mans, and Bathurst, all in the same season, borders on fantasy for most drivers.
‘It’s June, so this must be Le Mans.’ John Andretti’s busy 1988 included being part of an all-Andretti line-up in this Porsche 962 at La Sarthe. Image by Rainer Schlegelmilch

And in another typical John Andretti moment, he arrived at the Sydney airport, ready to tackle the punishing Bathurst circuit, while walking slowly and gingerly on crutches. John suffered an explosive crash at the August 21 Pocono IndyCar race, which forced him to miss the next two IndyCar races due to significant foot and leg injuries.

Team owner Mike Curb, who serves as a co-entrant on Bryan Herta’s cars today, and was part of Dan Wheldon’s second Indy 500 win, recalls Andretti’s Pocono crash as the most violent he’d witnessed prior to Wheldon’s fatal impact at Las Vegas in 2011.

Andretti had almost six weeks to heal before the October 2 event at Mt Panorama, but he cut the recovery period short by returning early for the September 25 home IndyCar race at Nazareth. It set his healing back a fair bit.

Undeterred, Andretti spent the better part of 30 hours on planes to sprint from Pennsylvania to Australia to race the following weekend. Once there, his lower extremities took a new round of battering when a tire blew during the race. It was nowhere near as bad as Pocono, but John went hard into the wall, which left his aching feet tangled in the Holden Commodore’s pedals. New wounds from Bathurst kept him out of the Curb Racing IndyCar seat for the final two races of the year, and afterwards, he also lost his spot on the IndyCar grid.

Andretti would use the offseason to heal and turned up for his first race, now with Busby’s IMSA outfit, and in yet another classic moment, won the effing 24 Hours of Daytona in his first drive for the team.

That’s the irrepressible John Andretti I loved. And we’ve yet to start the proper Easter egg hunt.