Michael Andretti, once among the most bitter CART hard-liners against the Indy Racing League, has saved the IRL from disaster and given it its last best hope: Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti on the same team, starting next year.
There isn’t a marketing director or publicist anywhere in motor racing, from NASCAR to Formula One, who wouldn’t covet that tandem.
First, rather than send his son off to the schooling formulas of Europe to prepare for F1–which is where the Andretti family heart lies–Michael brought Marco, at 19, to the IRL. Marco responded by nearly winning this year’s Indianapolis 500, losing in the final eye-blink to Sam Hornish Jr. in the most breathtaking Indy finish ever.
Then this week, Andretti Green Racing, of which Michael is chief executive officer, signed Patrick, 24, to a contract that should keep her in the IRL for at least the next few years.
The IRL may never know how close to the precipice it came. Sources say Patrick had one NASCAR Nextel Cup offer on the table and another up in the air over whether she would go through a season of Busch Series training to make the transition.
But Andretti, the old CART radical who four years ago made peace with the IRL as the only viable option left, even at the price of considerable friction with his father Mario, saved the day–and perhaps the very existence of American open-wheel racing.
If Patrick had departed, so much of the IRL’s public appeal would have evaporated that Marco Andretti couldn’t have saved it single-handedly. That would have sealed his eventual defection to Formula One.
Neither sudden star has won a race yet. But to know Michael Andretti is to be certain that his every effort will be toward making sure both young drivers win races, and one or the other wins a championship, next season.
He will lift the burdensome word “potential” from both drivers’ shoulders.
When Patrick’s father/agent, T.J., was shopping the NASCAR garages at Chicagoland Speedway a few weeks ago, it was clear he considered the thriving stock-car league the best place for his daughter in the long term.
“All the arrows point here,” he said.
Convincing her of that was another matter, he explained–and I tried to explain in the story that detonated such a stir.
She is daunted by the grueling, 38-weekend Nextel Cup schedule, more than twice as long as the IRL’s. And since her childhood, she has dreamed of winning the Indy 500. She clings to that, regardless of the terrible erosion of the race to the point that only she in 2005, and Marco Andretti this year, could put the enfeebled event back in the headlines.
Dreams aside, the Patricks were clearly at their wits’ end with Rahal Letterman Racing, which after introducing Danica to the world was taking her nowhere. They were open to suggestions.
More Top Picks Best Indoor Gyms For Toddlers
T.J. simply was seeking a good, competitive, well-paying ride–and a real chance to win–for his daughter. The NASCAR garages are rife with such teams. The IRL has only three–Penske, Ganassi and Andretti Green.
The NASCAR teams, and even NASCAR’s hierarchy itself, were caught unaware by the possibility of Patrick coming in. They, of course, were delighted. They had to suppress their own euphoria over the notion of Patrick defecting, right on the heels of F1’s Juan Pablo Montoya.
Then Michael Andretti offered her a chance to win. Not only had he sent Marco out to a near victory in the Indy 500 this year, but in 2005, when Patrick almost won the race, she lost to an Andretti Green car driven by Dan Wheldon.
With Danica and Marco ready to win, the IRL next year will have its best 1-2 drawing card ever. This from the precipice of having no pizazz or charisma at all left to sell. If the league survives, or indeed flourishes with this new chance, then IRL founder Tony George will be forever indebted to Michael Andretti.
But if history is an indicator, the IRL could find a way blow this opportunity, just as it let Tony Stewart get away to NASCAR in 1999 and just as it has allowed young open-wheel talent to move steadily to NASCAR, from Ryan Newman to Casey Mears to Kasey Kahne.
Be assured that the lines of communication between the Patricks and NASCAR, and between the Andrettis and Formula One, remain open.
This is the IRL’s last–but best–chance.
———-