Early Career
Marco was born to Sandra and eventual IndyCar champion Michael Andretti. Marco's grandfather Mario is a racing legend, he raced professionally for 4 decades and had success in the United States and all over the globe in various categories of racing. Other Andretti family members also have had success in various categories of racing.
Andretti won eight races in the 2003 Barber Formula Dodge Eastern Championship, and was champion in the Barber National and Southern class the following year.
Still barely out of high school, he raced in the Star Mazda series in 2005 and also made six starts in the Indy Pro Series. He won three times (at St. Petersburg, Liberty Challenge, and Sonoma) and finished 10th in points despite only starting half the races.
Motorsports journalist Gordon Kirby suggested at the Champ Car finale in Mexico City that the youngest Andretti would be replacing Dan Wheldon in his #26 Jim Beam Dallara-Honda for 2006 with Michael Andretti coming out of retirement to run a fifth car for his Andretti Green Racing team at the Indianapolis 500. Though a novel proposition to some, it was later confirmed in a December 15 press conference that he would move up to the Indy Racing League full time as the youngest driver in series history and would trade sponsors (New York Stock Exchange and Motorola) with Dario Franchitti as Andretti was not old enough to run an alcohol-sponsored car.
Read more about this topic: Marco Andretti
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“The shift from the perception of the child as innocent to the perception of the child as competent has greatly increased the demands on contemporary children for maturity, for participating in competitive sports, for early academic achievement, and for protecting themselves against adults who might do them harm. While children might be able to cope with any one of those demands taken singly, taken together they often exceed children’s adaptive capacity.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)