The Dark Side Of Adrian Fernandez's IndyCar Career 

1996 at Mid-Ohio, i was a kid, and spotted Adrian heading back to his trailer. I was a good 200 ft away or so - but he spotted me, stopped and waved me over. Met him, got an autograph and a photo that is still up at my parent's house. This wasn't a scheduled media or obligatory fan meet-n-greet. He could've just waved and went on about his day, but he chose to spend 5 minutes giving a kid a core memory. Rooted for him ever since, and its awful how often his career crossed paths with tragedy

There is no 'dark history' only a few sad events which could happen to anyone. Adrian was always a very nice guy.

Paul Tracy, Jacques Villeneuve and Greg Moore made racing bigger than Ravine in Canada. When Greg passed it was hard to keep watching and only just recently have I got back into F1. RIP Greg Moore 🇨🇦

I still well up when I see tributes to Greg. He was a hero to me as a Canadian kid who loved racing, especially CART. Thanks for the inspiration Greg, you were taken too soon.

Fernandez might honestly have one of the most uncanny careers in American open wheel racing history. Winning his first race under the shadow of Jeff Krosnoff's death, then another win after Moore's fatal crash, and the 1998 US 500 spectator deaths. Not to even mention his direct role in the 1996 US 500 debacle and going so fast around TMS that they cancelled the entire event. Him having so much direct involvement in some of the saddest and controversial moments in CART/IndyCar history is very unusual.

I had the opportunity to travel from Mexico to the California Speedway for the Marlboro 500 - 1999 race. They announced in the PA System that Greg Moore passed away little before the race was over. We saw Greg Moore pass 14 cars on the outside the first 8 or 9 laps, he was driving like a madman because he started 28th. He was 14th at the time of the accident. Very likely lost control of the car when the track started to get dirty on the early marbles of the race. I was 15 yo and it was horrible. But at the same time Adrian won and we saw it. My dad and I did not know how to feel. Thanks for this very good video. Been following CART and Indycar since 1996.

Finally someone covered this. It's always bugged me how unlucky he was.

Unfortunately was also involved in an infamous botched start of the first stages of the Indycar split. The US 500 ran on the same day right after the Indy 500 first under the IRL banner. He just didn’t have things work out for him that’s the way of life works sometimes.

Always been an Adrian Fernandez fan. I sure do miss the CART series.

Just wanna say thanks for not doing the crash-porn. You make excellent videos, and I never knew about AF. Keep up the great work!

I met him multiple times as a kid in the 90s. He was always kind and gracious. And I was with my dad seated in turn 1 at Michigan in 1998. We didn’t know how devastating that crash was until we got to the car and heard about it on the radio. 💔

I watched every one of these events happen in real time on ABC Indy coverage. I never really thought about it back them, how three tragic incidents all centered around one driver and two of them being wins for him. Very strange.

I was at that race at California motor speedway. I was so traumatized by the whole thing I didn’t even remember who won until this video.

One of my favorite drivers, all love to him.

Excellent video. I was at the Molson Indy Toronto in 1996. The accident happened going into turn 3 and I believe I was watching from around turn 6 or 7. Only saw the accident on replay on the video boards around the track. Knew it was bad enough to red flag the race with all the debris, but we had no idea Krosnoff had died until hours later when we were back home. It would be a different thing today, you would know right away, but in 96 most of us didn't have a cell phone, and there was certainly no Twitter. Was glad we didn't know at the time.

Fernandez had a late start in the 2004 IRL season, missing round 1 but ended up with a top 10 finish at Indy and winning 3 more races later on. Thought he was putting himself in contention for the championship back in the day, a very fierce and talented driver

He did a race with the karting team I raced with when I was a kid. He was a very quiet, humble dude!

Reading Marshall Pruitt's acount of the day in his series on Krosnoff, which is a fantastically written if hard to read piece, and reading Zanardi's book it's scary to think Zanardi could have been in the Arciero/Wells car in 96 and Krosnoff in the Ganassi team if things had been just a bit different. Nobody told Fernandez (or Cal Wells for that matter going by the article) just how bad it really was though, there was so, so much wrong with the incident and aftermath however EDIT: Oh and for Mid Ohio 1998, that's the race where Mikey went for a wild, wild ride as well. Fontana 99 is still hard to watch too, and the controversy with how CART handled it did not go down well at all, as per Paul Page on the Dinner with Racers podcast, CART were wanting to throw a yellow to lower the flags, then backed out of that, Paul was not happy with how CART handled it. Also it is stated Wally Dallenbach, Sr or CART as a whole kept the news of Moore's death from the drivers until after the race as well

Adrian is my favorite Driver. I don’t know him, but he seems to be a humble man.

Beloved figure with a dark cloud over him. I hope he doesn't have sleepless nights over these moments

Great stuff D90!

I always loved watching Adrian Fernandez. I have no idea what he's doing now but he was such a stand up guy when he was racing in CART. The Greg Moore accident was so tragic. I remember watching that race live. It was so instantly obvious that he had no chance. I would have loved to see where his career would have gone.

I just found this channel and I love it! Thanks for the content!

Adrian Fernandez. The greatest Mexican of all time. And the best driver from Mexico. Apart from Pedro Rodriguez and Ricardo Rodriguez.

You need to do a video on the 2000 CART race in Fontana. Not only did it involve a championship battle...it also saw a rain delay and only 5 drivers finish with 5th place out of the race and 6th place still running.

Was at the ‘99 race in Fontana. During the race they lowered the flags. It was a devastating race to be at.

I always loved the Tecate car as a kid but I never knew the driver until I got back into racing 20 years later.

The Final Destination 4 opening crash was inspired by Michigan 1998 and Le Mans 1955

I was at Michigan and saw the wheel assembly clear the fence. I knew instantly there would be fatalities.

The man was a gentleman. Was a huge fan of him.

Seriously a totally classy guy. Good video. Saw him at the Spring Training in 2001 with his tall supermodel wife who towered over him and said to myself, "That's a confident MF..." Big fan

Welcome back King

THANKS ❤

Yay new DEMISE!!!!

I remember all those races/wins for Sr. Fernandez .He was a good racer. The talent was stacked back then. I miss Paul Page too.

Well, "the dark side" had me guessing in some other directions, but it is indeed an odd series of events which seem tragically linked. RIP to all involved.

Eddie Lawson (Galles Racing Delco-Remy car that slowed as it approached the end of the corner) would retire immediately after this. Reportedly he was traumatized when he approached it and call it a career

I remember him from how he celebrates a race victory right after Krosnoff died and for the US500 pre start crash

AF raced in IRL and WON, my father and I saw him in person WIN !

AF WON 3 of 5 IRL races, Great !

Adrian Fernandez was a great driver. If he'd ever got hold of a Penske or Ganassi, he could have been a championship contender.

Dude needs 3 to 4 buisness years to upload a video. Bro in that time i could died. But well done tho but only a little bit because you take months to upload a video dude. Like its kinda sad because you are an goated indy creater but everytime it feels like a year passed untill we get goated content again😤😭

i'm not trying to be disrespectful, i honestly don't know. the drivers praying comment kind of made me think of it. i know in nascar they have what they call (or used to have anyways not sure post covid) the mro (motorracing outreach) that provided religious services for teams, drivers, and i assume crews that desired them plus providing church on race weekend for the teams. i'm not sure what's going on now but you heard many a wife say in the 90's and 2000's (hubby) goes to the drivers meeting, i go to where chapel will be and grab our seats. the reason i'm not sure if they still do this is because listening to some of the prerace stuff on radio it almost sounds like alot of places they go right from drivers meeting to the track intros. maybe the flipflopped it for some reason or they dont' do church any more i don't know. anyways back to my question. did mro provide such for indy car? i know there was talk at one time of offering it, or they were trying to get one started but never heard if they did. and indy car guys never talked about it near as much as the nascar guys did if they ever got it. i'm assuming that in instances like 99 with moore, and even earlier ones, there's probably a trackk chaplain, plus who ever thdoes the invocation that assuming they stuck around to watch the race (and why wouldn't you), would either volunteer their services or try to help in any way they can. i just don't' know. if indy car doesn't have a progam similar to mro, i'm sure if they got together with the nascar boys someone could help them get in contact with people to see about setting it up. heck call me pay my expenses each week i'll fly in. i think if you're going to race that fast you'd better be sure where you stand with the Good Lord above. of course i'm also gurious now that i think about this, whether or not golf has anything? i mean i don't know if they want it or if it's even offered but i mean most of the pro's are somewhere competing nearly every weekend of the year. and like most sports they might not ask, but if it was offered i'm sure they'd go if offered.

I can’t unhear how often RU-vidrs say “would.”

The Tecate Girls were a treat for the eyes. Sex appeal has been removed from racing for political agendas.

GJ/TY

Imo he would have won the 04 title had he run the first two races.

dan wheldon and greg moore kind had the same last year of their life there first race of the year they won and obviously there last was of the year ended their lives

The best Mexican driver until Sérgio Pérez .

A fantastic driver, with horrible luck.

Thanks for not showing the carnage. I saw the broadcasts real time for both those races. And Dale Earnhardt and Justin Wilson. I was off at an air show when Dan Wheldon happened; I've made it a point not to see the footage.

Nothing “dark” happened to him though. Clickbait title.

Best racing Indycar has ever seen in the world 500?!?!

Adrian could dress up as the Grim Reaper for Halloween.

35k children dying per day of starvation is a tragedy, while all of what happened in this video...merely unfortunate.