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A.J. Foyt
Drivers of all disciplines. It was another era.
Richard Petty
In 1966 Mario Andretti drove 14 different car in 51 races. He won 14 races in four different cars. Few drivers in their entire careers have raced such a wide range of cars. With drivers like Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Jackie Ickx, Jim Clark and Dan Gurney, testing their skills in Nascar and many other racing series, it truly was the golden era of multi-purpose drivers.
Mario Andretti on the banking in the #11
Andretti was just 26 at the time and he still had a distinctive touch of native Italian in his voice.
His English might not have been so good, but there was no doubt about his driving talent.
"If there ever has been a natural, it's Mario," said Wilson. "Everyone could see it."
Wilson, a hall of famer as an engine-builder/ mechanic/crew chief, and now serving as a consultant to JeriCo Transmissions, chuckled at the recollection.
Cale Yarborough
"I had built a bunch of engines for the '67 Daytona 500," he recalls. "I had engines for Fred Lorenzen and Dick Hutcherson.
"At the last minute Ford sent word down from Detroit that they wanted a little bit of tunnel port adjustments for the cars of Freddie and Mario. I made the changes and they looked good on the dyno.
"I loaded the engines on a tractor-trailer and drove through the night from Charlotte to Daytona Beach. After I got there we put the engine assigned to Mario on the dyno again. It durn near immediately lost the cam bearings.
"I had to totally disassemble that engine and redo everything. I drove through the night back to Charlotte to put it back together, then returned to Daytona the next day.
"We got the engine in for practice, and it performed really well.
"Plus, the great old chassis specialist and crew chief Jake Elder and Ralph Moody were working together to get the car set up like Mario wanted it.
"It was radical, what Mario suggested, but they went along with him. Mario knew what he was doing. No one could run with him. For his style, he had the perfect race car, and he ran the wheels off of it. He made a statement that day. He was the class of the field."
Mario didn't like a car with the understeering characteristics preferred by the NASCAR drivers. He flew in the face of accepted practice by setting up his Ford with an extremely soft anti-roll bar. The smallest one in the kit actually.
Richard Petty
"None of the them would dare run a very light bar because they were afraid the car would get too loose," Mario says. "We put the smallest bar they had on my car. " In fact, I think we had to get it made. We put it on and the car hooked up like crazy. Donnie Allison and some of the other NASCAR regulars told us to throw away that little bar, but it worked for me."
Donnie Allison
After qualifying an unspectacular 12th, Mario took the lead for the first time on the 21st lap of the 200 scheduled and right away it became obvious to everyone in the packed grandstands that he would be hard to beat. It wasn't what the southern crowd had hoped to see.
Bob Moore, a former Charlotte Observer racing reporter, was sure of it. If Mario Andretti didn't wreck on the current lap, he surely would the next.
Bob's assessment was shared widely across the press box at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 26, 1967, as the Daytona 500 roared on.
"Mario's car was sideways through every turn," Moore recalled this week. "It didn't seem possible that he could keep holding it lap after lap."
This view also held in the pit of the storied Holman & Moody team that was fielding the Ford driven Indy-car star Andretti, an interloper in the NASCAR Series.
"We thought he was a wreck waiting to happen," remembers Waddell Wilson, a Holman & Moody team member who had built the engine powering Andretti's No. 11 Ford. "I have been going to races for more than 50 years, and I have never seen a driving performance like Mario put on that day 40 years ago.
Mario's racing line used all the track, diving down to an apex and letting the car slide, tail out, up the banking on the exit of the corners. The NASCAR drivers thought he was crazy. Chris Economaki remembers it well; "Mario put his left front wheel practically on the apron going into the corner and the right rear wheel almost brushing the wall on the exit. He was powering clear across the track, twice a lap. It was incredible! Nobody would run with him. They said, 'Look at him. He is going to lose it. He'll never make it for 200 laps,' but he did it, comfortably in the end."
David Pearson
David Pearson was the only driver who was able to match Mario's pace, but even he found it difficult to draft Mario because of Mario's unique line. Just after the halfway point, Pearson suffered a blown engine, leaving Mario on his own.
Mario's teammate was NASCAR regular Fred Lorenzen, whose speed and movie-star good looks brought a glamorous new style to the circuit. Lorenzen appeared to be the man Ford officials and most people in the grandstands would like to see win that day. This became apparent during Mario's final pit stop.
Lee Roy Yarborough
Mario says, "I was leading and came into the pits first, Lorenzen came in and pulled into his pit stall right in front of me. I sat there up in the air and my crew didn't release my jack until he had acccelerated totally clear of the pits! It was never really confirmed and I can't point fingers, but they made sure Lorenzen went out first from the last stops."
By the time Mario hit the ground he was seven seconds behind. He quickly caught and passed Lorenzen for the lead on lap 168. Passing him was one thing but getting away was another. "Lorenzen was the master of the draft," Mario says, "He latched onto me and it took a little while to figure out a way to break away from him." With twelve laps to go, Mario and Lorenzen came upon Tiny Lund's car. Lund waved Mario by on the outside, instead Mariodove to the bottom of the track and passed Lund on the inside. Lorenzen went high and lost contact with Mario and that finished any chance he had of a last lap slingshot pass.
When a caution flag came out with 2 laps left, Mario held a half lap lead. "Oh, that caution helped out," conceded Andretti, "I was just about out of gas. I pedaled around the final five miles. The way the race unfolded, having to catch and pass Lorenzen, really helps to put a premium on my performance."
Bobby Issac
"Mario is too gracious," said Waddel Wilson. "That Daytona 500 was his as long as he could keep from going completely sideways in the turns, which didn't seem possible and still amazes me to this day."
Finally, he spoke with the deepest sincerity:
"It's 40 years later, half of our lifetimes, and I have won several Daytona 500s. None was more enjoyable than that one in '67 with Mario Andretti. I will remember it forever.
"He's as good a person as I have ever worked with in my life, bar none."
In my opinion, the 1967 "Daytona 500" was among the finest races of Mario Andretti's career. He was sensational. Once the 1967 Daytona race sorted itself out, there was no question about who was fastest. I read an article in a recent issue of Racer magazine by David Phillips in which Mario Andretti recalled winning at Daytona in February 1967. Mario told Phillips he had Richard Petty, Fred Lorenzen and the other NASCAR regulars "handled" in that race. Andretti had everybody "handled" in that race.
Mario Andretti
Sources - Mario Andretti A Driving Passion, By Gordon Kirby, http://www.bjwor.com/020113.html , http://www.thatsraci...in/16419451.htm , http://www.autoracin...arioTribute.htm , http://rides.webshot...555246466XlOCiN , Wikipedia
