I remember where I was that glorious day. Andretti finally got his day in the sun; from there he went on to have a great career in F-1 racing and is today an immortal in auto racing and a great ambassador for the sport
Was sitting behind pits maybe twenty rows up,nine yrs old with my dad. There was nothing more exciting than to see open wheel cars back in their hayday when these guy's were gladiators
Shlushe 10 I’ve been to almost every Indy Car race at Iowa Speedway...the engines don’t sound any better in person. I’ll take a Cosworth, Buick, Offy and even a stock block Chevy any day over what we currently have.
Wide World of Sports, can't believe I had forgotten about that. Glad Mario and Andy won that race since the cards appeared to have been stacked against them.
This was a great race that ended very well, but, remember the odds. The car that Mario was driving to victory in 1969 did in fact finish last in the 1968 Indy 500.
What made Indy 500 so special was it's "test track" mentality. New engine designs, new car chassis... always trying new things every year. I wasn't even born yet... 71'. We started going to Indy around 82'. It was still similar with lots of new cars and engines, just a variety of machines out there. They eventually ruined Indy going to spec cars... never was the same.
It bugged me back then, it bugs me now. Repeatedly saying "his Automobile". Would it hurt to call them a racecar? I lived just off Bethany home Rd. in Phoenix, behind Clint Brawners shop. He was awfully good to an 18 year old kid. I treasure those memories. This was a wonderful victory because it was done in a back up car. In the winner's circle when Andy was asked if he worried a lot during the race replied, "I'm still worried".
"A los que consideran la guerra cómo una mera peripecia de la historia, les invito a que pierdan una sólo por ver. No reniego de mis orígenes, pero a Italia no le debo absolutamente nada. Tenía quince años cuando llegué a Estados Unidos con toda la tribu. El día más feliz de mi vida fue cuando me hice ciudadano americano en 1964" Mario Gabriel Andretti (1940- ) Ex piloto estadounidense de Fórmula 1 y Fórmula Indy nacido en Italia. Campeón Mundial de Fórmula 1 en 1978. Saludos desde Venezuela.
Who is the driver with the full face helmet at 18:04? Seconds later with a black one is Dan Gurney who was one of its inventors. And the third driver with full-face (a white one) at 19:10 is Denny Hulme.
It took quite a bit of searching, but it's LeeRoy Yarbrough. The helmet design and what we see of the car don't match any of the "official qualifying" photos, but while looking at photos of the race I found this race:blog.ims.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/LeeroyYarbrough6.jpg The Confederate flag was added to his helmet and the "wings" were painted red (instead of their original black), sometime between qualifying and race day.
And yet, despite all the seemed to go wrong before the race, things lined up for Andretti to win, even before the race began. The first big break he got was that Al Unser, who really wound up being Andretti's strongest challenger during the 1969 season, broke his leg in a motorcycle crash in the infield before qualifying and had to be replaced in the Vel's-Parnelli Jones entry by Bud Tinglestad, who was never a factor in the Indianapolis 500. Then of course, during the race, despite having his own issues, all of his major challengers had problems, one by one, allowing Andretti to do something he almost never did, which was to nurse his car to the finish. If he had been pressed, his car would never have made it, but with no competition after the problems that A.J. Foyt, Lloyd Ruby, and Joe Leonard had, he essentially coasted to the win, and even then, he made it difficult on himself by nearly hitting the wall and then hitting chief mechanic Clint Brawner leaving the pits after his final stop.
So ironic that after trying for 23 years to win the race with one innovative car after another, Andy G. finally won it with a backup car that he had virtually nothing to do with creating.
This was really two separate races.The first half was a terrific race with Foyt,Andretti,McCluskey,Dallenbach,Ruby,and Leonard all running closely together.The second half was a cakewalk for Andretti as everyone else had dropped out.
Ruby always seemed to be jinxed at that track. This was his best chance to win. Ironic that Leonard got black-flagged for leaking water, but they wouldn't black-flag Parnelli Jones in '63 when he was blowing oil all over the track. Considering what had happened to Granatelli the previous 3 years, no wonder he didn't dare say a thing at that point.
I'm not sure that was Ruby's best chance to win the Indianapolis 500. His best chance to win came three years earlier, when he dominated the second half of the race after Jim Clark's two spins, only to have a cam housing stud break 50 laps from victory. He also had a good chance to win in '68, but a coil broke late in that race, and while his crew did get him back out fast enough to finish fifth, that was another chance lost. Given how his cars always broke down on him, who's to say that his wouldn't have broke anyway, even if he hadn't ripped the side of his car out when he left the pits too early on that fateful pit stop.
Great to see Mario get his only victory at Indi and to think of some of the others who never won one (Ruby comes to mind) And Granatelli reminds me of FAT CLEMENZA from the Godfather😁😁😁
It's amazing to see how amateurish everything seems compared to today's standard. ABC did a really awful job covering the Indy races. Really mickey mouse.
I think "amateurish" is an unfair characterization for a couple of reasons. The first has to do with the technology of the era. Remember that we're looking at something nearly half a century old. There simply weren't the available facilities that we have today-they weren't going to be able to bring 100 cameras to IMS, and on-screen graphics had to be incredibly simple. That's just two of the technical issues. The other problem was the limits put on ABC by the Speedway itself. Tony Hulman was an old-school race promoter. He lived and died by the gate, and he was convinced that letting ABC televise any part of it live would hurt attendance. The only way to see the race live was to a) go there, or b) pay to attend a closed-circuit broadcast (for which Hulman got a sizable cut). It wasn't until the 1970s that ABC could even show a tape-delayed and edited version of the race on the day it ran. Before that, they showed it as part of Wide World of Sports, which meant they had about an hour of air time to cover the entire month-practice, qualifying, and the race itself on the weekend _after_ the race. That changes the way you cover things.
With what ABC had and the limited knowledge of racing in general they put together a decent package for Wide World of Sports. My one major critic would be they don't say how many laps run/left.
Sports still had a very club atmosphere outside of maybe baseball back then, alot of these people built their cars in their garages back similar to a supermodified today. What im saying is its probably not all abc but the production value of the entire event by USAC probably similar to what youd seein mos professional sports back in the day.
Not really! It was shot in film... and the cameras of the late 60’s just were limited to their capabilities. Today 4K video, wireless uplinks and 100 or more cameras to cover such an event. In car cameras track cameras. And schools teaching cinematography/videography back then the schooling was very limited.
![1969 Indianapolis 500 [ESPN Classic Broadcast Version] (Full Race)](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
