52 replies to this topic

[H0R]

No idea where to post it - John Andretti has lost his battle against cancer.

 

https://twitter.com/...974702261559296

[FLB]

Oh sh**...

[PayasYouRace]

That’s sad news. Let’s remember that he won the 1991 Australian race and had a long and varied career, and not just that he was Michael’s cousin.

[Afterburner]

Terribly sorry to hear that. 

[Henri Greuter]

45 to go.

 

Janet Guthrie redux.

 

 

 

 

No idea where to post it - John Andretti has lost his battle against cancer.

 

https://twitter.com/...974702261559296

 

 

Oh, that's sad....

I met him personally in 2011, in a time the Andretti team was in trouble. Parttimer John being the only Andretti Autosport car in the fastest 24 that were secure in the field fter Pole Day. All his team mates with full season rides had to qualify again the next day.

Within all turmoil he still made time for me. Lovely man.

 

 

Rest in peace John Andretti ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Red Stick, If you want to use it, in the light of this sad news, can you by chance PM me an email address you use so I can send you a picture of John in the #41 March Porsche for your countdown?

Edited by Henri Greuter, 30 January 2020 - 20:31.

[Risil]

Oh, that's awful news

[Risil]

That’s sad news. Let’s remember that he won the 1991 Australian race and had a long and varied career, and not just that he was Michael’s cousin.

The 1991 Surfers Paradise GP is quite a watch if you can find it on Youtube

[Peat]

Oh, that's sad.

[Henri Greuter]

The 1991 Surfers Paradise GP is quite a watch if you can find it on Youtube

Another highlight for him and the entire Anndretti family:  Milwaukee 1991, Michael winning the race, Mario and John sharing the podium with Michael, the only ever all-Andretti podium within CART, there should have been moer of them....

[PayasYouRace]

The 1991 Surfers Paradise GP is quite a watch if you can find it on Youtube

 

Fortunately, old Indycar races are very easy to find on Youtube.

 

[juicy sushi]

The 1991 Surfers Paradise GP is quite a watch if you can find it on Youtube

Definitely a worthy way to remember the man.  

[B Squared]

Another highlight for him and the entire Anndretti family: Milwaukee 1991, Michael winning the race, Mario and John sharing the podium with Michael, the only ever all-Andretti podium within CART, there should have been moer of them....

I was lucky to work that particular race at station 7 on the inside of turn four. He was a wonderful individual, many cared about him including myself. r i p John Andretti. Many are proud of the way he battled his colon cancer and the awareness he brought to being checked for this.

Edited by B Squared, 30 January 2020 - 21:32.

[red stick]

Oh, that's sad....

I met him personally in 2011, in a time the Andretti team was in trouble. Parttimer John being the only Andretti Autosport car in the fastest 24 that were secure in the field fter Pole Day. All his team mates with full season rides had to qualify again the next day.

Within all turmoil he still made time for me. Lovely man.

 

 

Rest in peace John Andretti ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Red Stick, If you want to use it, in the light of this sad news, can you by chance PM me an email address you use so I can send you a picture of John in the #41 March Porsche for your countdown?

See my PM.  Thanks.

[StraightEdge]

RIP John Andretti

[jonpollak]

Oh golly...
RIP John.
Jp

[Radoye]

RIP John.

[teejay]

I've been Andretti guy since the first day I became an Indycar/CART fan. 

 

RIP John. 

[paulb]

Aw man. RIP John Andretti.

[bargeboard]

Very sad to hear about John. He always seemed like he was about as nice of a guy as you could meet in a competitive sport like auto racing.

[PiperPa42]

Rest in peace John.

[Andrew Hope]

I'm always struck when I read an article about a racer that regarding how much the driver in question had usually achieved. I've known of the name since the mid-1990s, but until reading an article about him today I did not know John Andretti won in the impressive variations of machinery he did. Even some great shows in Top Fuel dragsters.

To some degree the Andretti name is background noise to me, never been a particular fan of any of them, so I tend not to know their accomplishments off by hear. Pleasantly surprised to read about his life.

[teejay]

Can I ask why you are not a fan Andrew? 

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Most of the Andrettis are just not pleasant people.  Mario, Michael, Marco, all of them give off douche vibes from a mile away.

[Henri Greuter]

I was lucky to work that particular race at station 7 on the inside of turn four. He was a wonderful individual, many cared about him including myself. r i p John Andretti. Many are proud of the way he battled his colon cancer and the awareness he brought to being checked for this.

Brian,

I was there that race as well. I did not see that many CART races at all in my life but one of them happened to be this one. One of the reasons as of why I remember this race result so well, other then it being such a weird one for the statistics.
The week before the last ever time we had a four-time winner at Indy, pretty wild week for events with unusual sttistics.
And my `bad luck' Dutch Arie Fan as I am/was: Five ovals that season, Arie won two and was second on the three events I didn't see, I saw both his worst results on the ovals that year....

But I'll remember John Andretti most of all because of the nice chat I had with him in 2011 in stressfull times for him and his team.
Pity that 1990 and 1991 didn't bring more for him, he deserved it. But 1990 was the wrong year to be associated with Porsche

[Henri Greuter]

Most of the Andrettis are just not pleasant people.  Mario, Michael, Marco, all of them give off douche vibes from a mile away.

As for Mario, it depends on when and for what you’re approaching him.

Back in ’89, when I did research for the Novi books I co-wrote with my friend George Peters, we saw Mario standing in front of the door of his IMS Motel room, first floor. We asked him if we could ask a few questions related with the 60s for a project we worked on. Reluctantly he let us come upstairs. He had a fintip in the hand to sign but we told what we worked at and asked him our questions.
We still stood at the gallery in front of the open door and surprisingly, he was very cooperative to talk with us about what we asked him (Perhaps because it wasn’t about this year’s race and the incident he had had a few weeks before in Long Beach with Al Jnr.) George did the talking but I then asked him about his experiences with the 4WD Lotus F1 cars he drove and if they were to compare with the 4WD experiences he had at Indy. Long story short; it started to rain, the wind blew it onto us and we all got soaked. Though Mario did not invite is to come inside for shelter, neither did he cut of the talks to seek shelter, but instead kept talking with us. He then asked me all kind of questions in return, we then got into “Ferrari 1982”. Only after we told him we knew what we wanted to know we broke up, thanking him for his time and cooperation. We had talked with him some 20 or so minutes, more than half of that with rain blowing onto us. He shook our hands and said with enthusiasm how it had been fun for him to think back and talk about some of the almost forgotten exploits of his past.
George, who had met him on more occasions over time told me that he knew for sure that Mario was indeed sincere about what he had said because Mario was as soaking wet as we were, could have avoided that by getting inside and leave us. Instead had kept talking with us with in details and apparently enjoying himself doing so.
BTW, I didn’t dare to try to go for the autograph anymore, despite the fintip he still held. But this experience is one of my Indy ’89 treasures.

[B Squared]

Mario has always been more than decent to me too. Heck, he invited my brother into the Newman-Haas garages at Michigan one year so he could look at and sign a photo of himself at  Watkins Glen in the Lotus 79 in 1978. 

[B Squared]

Racer remembers John A:

https://racer.com/20...tti-dies-at-56/

[messy]

I mainly remember him driving the #43 Petty Enterprises car in NASCAR - and he was pretty damn good too, won a couple big races. 

 

Seems like only yesterday, too. His last full season was as recent as 2009. Very sad. 

[red stick]

Mario, in his post race career as an ambassador for the sport and for, among other entities, Firestone, has been nothing but gracious on the many occasions I have encountered him at races or PR events.

 

Might I suggest that a thread dedicated to the memory of John Andretti is not the best place to debate the personality quirks of other members of the family.  

[ensign14]

Cale Yarborough entered around 400 NASCAR races as an owner.  The only one who ever won for him was John Andretti.  And not on a road course either, a bona fide pukka NASCAR oval race - indeed THE oval.  Pepsi 400 of 1997.

 

The list of winners in IndyCar and NASCAR is quite an elite one.  And John won twice as many NASCAR races as Mario...

[Xpat]

As for Mario, it depends on when and for what you’re approaching him.

Back in ’89, when I did research for the Novi books I co-wrote with my friend George Peters, we saw Mario standing in front of the door of his IMS Motel room, first floor. We asked him if we could ask a few questions related with the 60s for a project we worked on. Reluctantly he let us come upstairs. He had a fintip in the hand to sign but we told what we worked at and asked him our questions.
We still stood at the gallery in front of the open door and surprisingly, he was very cooperative to talk with us about what we asked him (Perhaps because it wasn’t about this year’s race and the incident he had had a few weeks before in Long Beach with Al Jnr.) George did the talking but I then asked him about his experiences with the 4WD Lotus F1 cars he drove and if they were to compare with the 4WD experiences he had at Indy. Long story short; it started to rain, the wind blew it onto us and we all got soaked. Though Mario did not invite is to come inside for shelter, neither did he cut of the talks to seek shelter, but instead kept talking with us. He then asked me all kind of questions in return, we then got into “Ferrari 1982”. Only after we told him we knew what we wanted to know we broke up, thanking him for his time and cooperation. We had talked with him some 20 or so minutes, more than half of that with rain blowing onto us. He shook our hands and said with enthusiasm how it had been fun for him to think back and talk about some of the almost forgotten exploits of his past.
George, who had met him on more occasions over time told me that he knew for sure that Mario was indeed sincere about what he had said because Mario was as soaking wet as we were, could have avoided that by getting inside and leave us. Instead had kept talking with us with in details and apparently enjoying himself doing so.
BTW, I didn’t dare to try to go for the autograph anymore, despite the fintip he still held. But this experience is one of my Indy ’89 treasures.

 

I met John a couple of times at charity events in Indianapolis and he was always very nice and generous with his time.

 

In the mid to late 1970s and very early 80s I had some contact with Mario and Aldo. In my family you were allowed to pick the restaurant we'd go to for your birthday dinner. My younger brother's birthday is in early May and would pick a long since closed place in Mooresville Indiana called Chez Jean. It was part of a roadside motel along SR 67. For maybe 5 or 6 years straight Mario and sometimes Aldo would be in there eating when we'd come in for my brother's birthday dinner (there were three of us brothers at the time between the ages of 6-12). It kind of became a thing that Mario would come over and say hello and wish my brother a happy birthday and chat a bit about the race. I doubt there are many tougher competitors than Mario and I think it sometimes manifests itself in a way that makes people think he is difficult. Our memory of him away from the track is good.

[Henri Greuter]

John may also be remembered for the fact that he was among the first drivers who tried to do the Memorial Day Double, out of the top of my head but NASCAR fans correct me if I'm wrong: 1994.

 

Not so many drivers managed to race in both events.

 

 

Edit: According Wikipedia:  he was the first ever to try the feat in, indeed 1994. Only 3 other drivers also gave it a try, Robby Gorden taking the record with 5 attempts.

Edited by Henri Greuter, 31 January 2020 - 12:26.

[FLB]

John Andretti is also one of the few drivers to have done IndyCars and NHRA, along with Art Malone and Danny Ongais.

[Lotusse7en]

Most of the Andrettis are just not pleasant people.  Mario, Michael, Marco, all of them give off douche vibes from a mile away.

Met Mario at Laguna Seca Historics Aug 2008 ( He was guest personality that year ) certainly no douche behaviour - he and Rahal sitting under a transporter side awning chatting with with a number of onlookers 

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Mario, in his post race career as an ambassador for the sport and for, among other entities, Firestone, has been nothing but gracious on the many occasions I have encountered him at races or PR events.

 

Might I suggest that a thread dedicated to the memory of John Andretti is not the best place to debate the personality quirks of other members of the family.  

To be fair, this thread was not split off when this conversation started.  I agree that this is not the place for it.

[red stick]

To be fair, this thread was not split off when this conversation started.  I agree that this is not the place for it.

That's entirely fair. Just trying to get ahead of the potential snowball effect.

[absinthedude]

RIP John Andretti.....one comparison with his uncle is that he drove professionally and competitively in many different types of car and fields of motorsport. 

[StraightEdge]

John gave good runs in NASCAR with cars that should have been mid-pack the entire season. He gave Cale Yarborough his only NASCAR victory as owner at Daytona years before the cars got too easy to drive once you qualify.

[JHSingo]

Doesn't feel like that long ago that we were hearing about his diagnosis. I had, perhaps rather naively, assumed the lack of updates since then were a sign that his fight was going well - so it's a surprise to hear this.

 

A life well lived, for sure, but equally one that has been cut tragically short too. RIP, sir.

[BuddyHolly]

Cancer again..  damn.   RIP

[Ross Stonefeld]

Why does everything about cancer have to be a fight or a battle or a war or whatever. Like if people just try hard enough it will go away. Ignoring how serious cancer is. Or how varied it is. Or how much treating it in the US system is affected by your ability to attract crowd funding 

[ThadGreen]

Sad news, my thoughts are with his family.

[JacnGille]

Sad news

[racinggeek]

Robin Miller's hearfelt eulogy to John A. is up at Racer.com.

 

And allow me to join the chorus of RIPs. Always admired the fact he, unlike his nephew, fought through the ranks the hard way and was willing to compete in so many different genres.

[krapmeister]

Why does everything about cancer have to be a fight or a battle or a war or whatever. Like if people just try hard enough it will go away. Ignoring how serious cancer is. Or how varied it is. Or how much treating it in the US system is affected by your ability to attract crowd funding

It's not necessarily the cancer itself that you are fighting, it does what it does and hopefully the treatment works. It's the emotional toll that it takes on you - the worry and anxiety that you won't be there for the kids, the way the treatment (usually chemo) makes you feel like sh!t and often worse than what the cancer itself did, how are you going to pay for all this, etc etc. That is the real battle...

[noikeee]

I think it's often worded that way precisely to put it in a positive frame of mind for those suffering from it - to encourage them to go into "try hard to fight it" mindset instead of slumping into sadness etc. I really don't think people frame it that way to "ignore how serious cancer is".

[B Squared]

A lot of you here know that I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer just a month or two before John was. It's a blessing to still be here, trust me it is a bit of a battle both physically and mentally Some of us are lucky enough to survive with the proper treatments and I'm sure more than a bit of luck. My surgery was 3 years ago today and I just got home from a colonoscopy in which they stated no polyps, 100% clean, see you in 2 years. I was sure hoping the same for John.

[Xpat]

[Beri]

A lot of you here know that I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer just a month or two before John was. It's a blessing to still be here, trust me it is a bit of a battle both physically and mentally Some of us are lucky enough to survive with the proper treatments and I'm sure more than a bit of luck. My surgery was 3 years ago today and I just got home from a colonoscopy in which they stated no polyps, 100% clean, see you in 2 years. I was sure hoping the same for John.

I'm happy for you B. Hopefully it will stay this way.

[red stick]

Marshall Pruett has reedited his podcast interview with John Andretti from 2018, where he spoke at length about his long and varied career.

 

https://marshallprue...etti-from-2018/