Marco Andretti Retires After 20 Years of Racing
- Robby Noonan
- Oct 29
- 2 min read
Marco Andretti retires after over 20 years of competing in open-wheel racing. Let's break down on what was a career that spanned most of our childhoods.
Sorry Millennial race fans like myself! Another piece of our childhood will no longer be on the grid at the Indianapolis 500 starting next year. And sorry to say also, we aren't getting any younger and the guard is changing in the sport of auto racing. Faster than a hot lap around Iowa Speedway, the young generation is coming in, and the drivers of our youth are closing a chapter in their lives.
Marco did not have the outstanding career like his grandfather Mario, and father Michael. However, anyone who puts on a firesuit and helmet gets the utter most respect out of me. Not many of us can say we can accept the risk of going 240+ mph into turn 1 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Even fewer can say they raced the old IRL cars at the 1.5 mile "bowls" (as Robin Miller once said). In Marco's rookie days, if you had a moment's laps, you caused a 10 car incident at Chicagoland and someone wouldn't come back to race the next week. Thankfully, the IndyCar Series and the engineers are much smarter than when we were in 2006.
But the point is, the men and women who pilot racecars are a different breed. Marco was no exception. I seem to remember watching the 2007 Indy 500. While everyone dived into the swimming pool, I was glued to the TV at my friend's house. Before the second rainstorm came, Marco was upside down and then, the skies opened up. And who cannot forget his rookie year, coming so close to winning the 500. The 13 year old kid in me was rooting for him. That was only my 3rd IndyCar race period. 2014...another good one! I was in turn 3 screaming for Helio but I completely ignored (at the time) Marco's 3rd place run.
2013 was a year we all sleep on with Marco's speed. I was so focused and in tears over Tony Kanaan winning, but I fail to realize that had that race stayed green, Carlos Munoz and Marco would've taken the fight to him. It's another one of those alternate universe thoughts I have on my long commute home from the office.
Most of our childhood consisted of watching an IndyCar race on a dinosaur TV (HD TV wasn't a thing for most of us) and we watched stars like Helio Castroneves, TK, and Marco Andretti. We aren't getting younger, so please, keep our inner youth alive by binge watching the IndyCar YouTube channel. That channel is a gold mine! See you in the paddock as a retired racecar driver Marco!
Check out photos of Marco from the following albums:
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