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A Dream
finish for Mario Andretti and his family were within four laps
of a family dream finish in Sunday’s Indy 500. At the final
restart, with 4 laps to go, Mario’s son Michael, who has never
won the famed Memorial Day 500 mile race, was leading the pack
to the start/finish line. Only 2 positions back was his
son Marco. The Andretti pit seemed to be ready to celebrate,
but Mario had the look of someone who had been out on the track,
and knew anything could happen in the final four laps.
A lap
after the restart, Marco had completed a pass to move to second
place and the family dream was set with father and son
positioned 1st and 2nd.
Another
lap, and the younger Andretti passed his father to take the
lead, and seemed to be speeding away from the pack. The family
dream finish was still in place, only with the generations
reversed.
Then Sam
Hornish Jr struck. He passed Michael Andretti and moved to
second place. He then caught up to Marco, and threatened to
pass him as well. With a lap to go, he made his move, only to
be blocked, and began to lose ground, falling several car
lengths back. It looked like Marco would cruise to victory in
only his first Indy 500.
But
Hornish Jr caught up to the youngest Andretti again in the final
turn, and with an amazing move to the bottom of the track,
passed Andretti at the last instant, crossing the yard of bricks
at the finish line a mere .06 seconds in front.
Hornish
Jr’s run to the front came following an earlier penalty when a
pit road mistake resulted in him leaving his pit box with a part
of the fuel hose still connected to his car. The penalty put
him nearly a full lap down, but the next caution allowed him to
close the gap on the leaders. And the rest, as they say, is
history.
And the
result is the continuing frustration of the Andretti family.
Marco wasn’t happy with second place.
“Man, I don't want to wait for next year,” he said. “It's a
bummer. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, I mean -- second place is
nothing.”
His father Michael was also disappointed in their 2nd
and 3rd place finishes. “It's a heartbreak, another
one,” he said. “But, in a couple of days, I'll probably sit
back and think, ‘Oh Wow!’ I thought he had won. It was a
fairytale, a dream.”
If the
race had ended a lap or two earlier, before Sam Hornish Jr
entered the picture, it would have been even more of a dream. |
