In one of these, in 1959, Aldo crashed and was seriously injured and never raced again. Mario and Aldo were 18 when they began racing, at the wheel of a self-prepared Hudson Hornet they shared in stock car events. For the boys this meant seeking ways to become involved in motorsport, which around their new home town of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, mainly took the form of relatively unsophisticated machinery competing on dangerous dirt track ovals. In the same year as Ascari's death the Andretti family emigrated to America in search of a better way of life. It was the latter who became Mario's idol and though he was distraught when Italy's great champion was killed at Monza in 1955, Ascari remained his inspiration and role model. But what really captured Mario's imagination was a visit to the 1954 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where he was transfixed by the sights and sounds of the exotic Lancia, Maserati and Ferrari Formula One cars and held spellbound by the heroic exploits of such drivers as Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari. With his brother he cycled from home to watch in wonder that portion near Lucca of the famous Mille Miglia road race that sent sports cars hurtling a thousand miles through the Italian landscape. When the war ended and their part of Italy was handed over to the Communists and became part of what was then Yugoslavia, the Andrettis moved to Lucca, where young Mario first became aware of the sport that was to become his all-consuming passion. The brothers' first seven years were spent in a camp for displaced persons, where the Andretti family endured exceedingly crowded conditions and severe food shortages. Mario and his twin brother Aldo were born on February 28, 1940, with World War II raging all around their birthplace of Montona, a town near the Italian port city of Trieste. His insistence on racing in his adopted homeland meant he came late to realising his boyhood ambition of becoming Formula One World Champion.Īfter it became his way of life he always said he was born to race, yet the circumstances in his formative years forced Mario Andretti to take an exceedingly circuitous route to get where he wanted to go. Few drivers loved their racing more, and few suited stardom as much as the congenial man whose unforced charm was as natural as the talent that brought him so much success in so many types of racing. He did so in a job he would have done in anonymity and for nothing.
Mario Andretti personified the American Dream, an immigrant who came to the land of the free and the home of the brave and achieved considerable fame and fortune.
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