“We had questioned the running gear, the hubs and stuff on it,” McGee said.

It was just as McGee and Brawner had suspected all along. 2 STP car slammed in the wall, it burst into flames, pieces of it scattering across the track. Though Andretti dominated the speed charts in the Lotus during practice, two days before time trials, he suffered a horrific crash in Turn 4.Īs the bright red No. McGee and Brawner’s doubts would prove warranted. If you wanted to win Indy, you don’t come here with a car with zero miles on it.” We knew it was fast, but we knew it would never finish. “We didn’t like the car,” said McGee, Brawner’s protege, who would be with Andretti for 17 of his 29 years in Indy cars. “We tested it at Hanford and went back to England, and they had to make about 200 changes. That’s because the Lotus was also all kinds of unreliable. Unfortunately, Clint Brawner and Jim McGee - his co-chief mechanics - loathed it. Though Andretti and his team had already won a race at Hanford in the Hawk, Andretti adored the Lotus. The crashīefore the Brawner Hawk ever crossed the finish line, there was Colin Chapman's Lotus 64, a four-wheel drive Ford built to run at the Indianapolis 500. Recently, The Indianapolis Star had a chance to chat with Andretti as well as a couple of members of that race-winning team to reflect on how the legends of the race-winning Brawner Hawk, the Granatelli kiss and all the rest came to pass. And, of course, the heartbreak he and the Andretti clan have suffered at Indianapolis in the years since have become the stuff of legend.īut 1969, that was a special year, a special race filled with some of the most memorable moments in 500 history. He finished last in 1968, and in the years following his sensational rookie debut in 1965, he was plagued by just about every misfortune a driver could experience at the speedway. On May 30, 1969, the track chose him.Īndretti did not enjoy much good fortune at Indianapolis Motor Speedway before then - or after. INDIANAPOLIS - Fifty years later, Mario Andretti calls his lone Indianapolis 500 victory fate. Watch Video: Mario Andretti relives his sole Indy 500 win 50 years later

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