Mario Andretti Twice Revived Interest With Formula One, Indy Car Victories

By SHAV GLICK

April 15, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The first--and only--American to win a Formula One world championship race in the United States was Mario Andretti. He did it at Long Beach in 1977.

The first driver to win an Indy car race on the streets of Long Beach was Mario Andretti. In 1984.

And the person most responsible for the establishment and future success of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach was--Mario Andretti.

In 1977, the third year of the race and the second with Formula One, the Grand Prix was teetering on the brink of collapse. There were huge debts to be paid, more than $500,000, and although crowds were respectable, the race was not gaining much in the way of national interest.

Then Andretti won with a dramatic late-race pass of Jody Scheckter after a tense three-way battle that also involved world champion Niki Lauda.

When Andretti climbed out of his black and gold Lotus-Ford and said to the world, “Winning a Grand Prix in my own country means more to me than winning the Indianapolis 500,” Americans and the media took note.

“It was huge, really huge,” says Chris Pook, founder of the Long Beach race, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary Sunday. “1977 was a pivotal year for us. Our backs were to the wall. I would say we were no better than even money to survive.

“Then Mario, Lauda and Scheckter put on a great race that electrified the print media and television. When Mario took the lead and won in the final three laps, it put a stamp of legitimacy to the event as a round of the world championship.

“Not in Europe, or South America or Asia, where Formula One already ranked up there with soccer as an international attraction, but more in the eyes of Americans.”

It was not just Andretti’s winning, it was the way he did it.

Andretti tells how it happened:

“Niki Lauda got a little hung up [at the start] and I didn’t get off as well as I wanted, so Jody sort of steamed up between us going down the first turn off Ocean Boulevard.

“Niki and I are side by side, going to see who would be the last to out-brake the other when I looked down at my right mirror and I see [Carlos] Reutemann coming like he isn’t going to stop until he gets to San Diego. Sure enough, he locked up all four and never even tried to make the corner.

“Somehow Lauda managed to get behind him, but I had to slow way down and tuck in behind Niki. If I hadn’t happened to look, Reutemann would have T-boned me for sure and I would have ended on the first turn.”

Andretti managed to out-brake Lauda at the 180-degree hairpin turn at the end of Shoreline Drive where the circuit turned back toward Pine Avenue.

For lap after lap, the three--Scheckter in a Wolf-Ford, Andretti in his Lotus and Lauda in a Ferrari--raced nose to tail around the 11-turn, 2.02-mile course. With three to go, Andretti decided to force the issue, squeezing inside Scheckter on the same corner he had passed Lauda 77 laps earlier.

“Right up to that moment, Jody had never given me much of a chance to pass,” Andretti recalled. “I tried to make a couple of passes at him going onto Shoreline, but he wouldn’t give up. I just had to persevere and gut it out.”

When it turned out that Scheckter had a slowly deflating tire, he could not challenge Andretti in the final laps and on the last lap, Lauda moved into second.

“You talk about going from the bottom of the barrel to the height of euphoria, that’s where we were,” recalled Pook. “There were days that week I didn’t think we would see a third year, let alone a 25th. It was a brutal year but it turned out to have an incredibly wonderful ending.”

The victory also served to stimulate Andretti’s bid to bring the world championship to the United States, something only Phil Hill in 1961 had done. Andretti had won in Japan late in 1976 and winning in Long Beach in the fourth race of 1977 gave Colin Chapman’s Lotus team a boost that carried into 1978, Andretti’s F1 championship season.

“Mario and Lotus weren’t the only ones who got a lift from winning in Long Beach,” Pook said. “It made our phones ring off the hook before the ’78 race and it made our sponsor’s phones ring. And it woke up the media.

“Stories about Mario became popular and every time one was written, there was a word or two about Long Beach. Formula One had been little more than a footnote in U.S. sports sections, and never on Page 1 until Mario’s win and his remark about how much it meant to him.”

At the 1978 race, Andretti made a more personal contribution to Long Beach and the race.

A.J. Pritzker, president of Hyatt Hotels, was in town as the guest of then-city manager John Devers to study the possibility of building a hotel in the city.

Pritzker told Devers he had one request. He wanted to ride around the race circuit with Andretti. It was only a few minutes before qualifying, but Pook quickly arranged for Andretti to take the visitor for a ride in the pace car.

“Mario, being the perfect ambassador, quickly understood why Pritzker was here so what was supposed to be one lap turned into three or four while Mario was telling him about Long Beach and what a great place it was,” Pook said.

“When Pritzker got out of the car, he looked at Devers and said, ‘If you have the guts to run a race here, I’ve got enough guts to build you a hotel.’ ”

The Hyatt became the first major structure in the rebuilding of Long Beach, the first hotel in the downtown area. Today, there is a string of hotels along Ocean Boulevard, where at one time there were only seedy bars and beer joints, a tattoo parlor, the Pussy Cat theater and a travel agency.

Shoreline Village, the Convention Center, the downtown marina and the Long Beach Plaza followed the Hyatt.

Andretti, who finished second to Reutemann in the 1978 race, went on to win his Formula One championship and Long Beach crowds continued to grow.

The euphoria of gaining Formula One acceptance soon wore off, however, as the exorbitant cost of bringing the international spectacle from Europe outweighed its promise.

Pook and the Grand Prix Assn. switched to Indy cars for the 1984 race.

“We owe a lot to Formula One, but there are two vital factors to remember,” Pook said. “It costs about one-fourth as much to put on an Indy car race, and equally important is the rebirth of the Indy car series.”

Attendance fell off, from 82,000 on an F1 race day to 56,000 for the first Indy car race.

Enter Mario Andretti again.

Back in the CART series, driving a Lola-Cosworth for Carl Haas and Paul Newman, Andretti won the pole and led all 112 laps to become the first two-time Long Beach champion and the first to win both in Formula One and CART.

The race became an Andretti parade--Mario winning again in 1985, his son Michael in 1986 and Mario again in 1987. With their victories came total acceptance, the attendance rebounding to 80,000 in 1987.

“I like to think that the Grand Prix helped Long Beach to pretty much change its image,” said Mario Andretti. “I remember when we first came here it was not a place where you would want to settle down. When we wanted to go to a nice restaurant we had to go to Newport Beach or toward Los Angeles.

“The Queen Mary was where we had to stay. Now there are fine restaurants, great hotels and a marvelous atmosphere. I think Chris Pook deserves much of the credit for the renaissance of the city.

“Chris and Dan Gurney got the thing going. I just hopped on the bandwagon. I hope I had something to do with it. I truly enjoy the ambience today. Long Beach is the best. I tell everyone that.

“I’m sure my winning stirred up some interest, but Long Beach stirs up a lot of memories for the Andretti family. I won there four times and it’s where Michael won his first Indy car race, so it becomes more meaningful.

“To win anywhere is good, but Long Beach happened to be where things happened for us.”

Andretti and Gurney will be co-grand marshals of the 25th anniversary race.

THE RACES

Toyota Pro-Celebrity Race

Saturday, 2:15 p.m.

Kool Toyota Atlantic Race

Saturday, 4 p.m.

Indy Lights Race

Sunday, 10:20 a.m.

Long Beach Grand Prix

Sunday, 1 p.m.

Trans Am Race