Pedal to the Metal: The Inspiring Journey of Adam Andretti

I am excited for my virtual road trip today . My guest is Adam Andretti . He is the son of the late Aldo Andretti , who was the twin brother of Mario Andretti . He's a racer himself , comes from a racing family , of course , and I'm just looking forward to learning a little bit more about him on this trip . Welcome to the show , adam .

I'm his youngest son , but that also makes me Mario's nephew , michael's cousin , john's little brother , marco's second cousin , jared's uncle . There's a lot of us that participate in the racing game and enjoy the sport like we do and are blessed by it . I've been blessed to be racing since I was 15 years of age . I continue to race professionally .

I'm 44 years old and I continue to race professionally in the Trans Am series and play around a little bit in the U-Sat dirt midgets and at Chili Bowl and a few select events throughout the year . And I'm typical Andretti I'd like to drive anything I can get my hands on and put my feet on the pedals of .

Our topics , like any other family or world events , politics try and solve the world all at once and then , if we have time for we talk about racing .

I , malcolm Arreo , said to me this summer that the longevity of his career he feels came from his ability to decompress , that he separated himself , he took time to relax and to get away from it . Stayed in hotels , didn't stay at the motor home , at the racetrack , you know , stayed outside the racetrack so he could get a break from it .

And he , he said , I mean he goes . I I think that that's why I had the longevity and enjoyed it for as long as I did is because I was able to separate and have a life .

So my oldest sister , carolyn , when I was turning 16 , she had just come fresh out of law school and and actually had bought a BMW five series from my brother John . It was his wife Nancy's car .

So when she bought that she and I you know the timing was just right she gave me her car , which was about as sweet as you can imagine from an older sister , and that car was a Plymouth Sundance turbo .

Yeah , I had five , you know , five speed manual gearbox , so a three pedal car which you know you would expect the Andretti to start out with something like that and it was a bright red and a typical Andretti . I I jumped up the boost and played with things and and made more power out of it and but it was a fun little car .

You know nothing special , but it was . It was mine and it was it was .

It was something I had always enjoyed when , when I was riding with my sister Carolyn throughout those years and she had it and for her to , you know , hand it over to me and and you know we , we did some things like put a Momo steering wheel on it and high performance tires , and you know my dad and I , we we had fun making the car something that a

teenage Andretti would really enjoy .

It was , um , it was pretty special because , you know , at that time we're like Trying to figure out what we're gonna do for a car , and as a 16 year old , you're like I don't want to spend any money , I just want a car . And yeah , you know . So it was , it was , it was a wonderful , wonderful gift .

You know , the first three were surprised . And then my sister , mary Joe , 12 years later , was a surprise and my mom and dad not wanting her to be raised as an only child . They , they tried for four years to have me , you know , and my mom was in her mid 30s at the time and they weren't in the 70s .

They weren't exactly motivating a woman in their mid 30s to to get pregnant . My mom was like , yeah , I'm a healthy , I'm a healthy young woman , I'm gonna try this out . So here I am , you know , I'm the result of that . So , my brother , yeah , you got a kick out of because you're the only one that they meant to have .

So we would go out to Pennsylvania every year for Christmas , you know , to spend with family , with not only my , my uncle Mario and that side of the family , but also the grandparents . Both , both my mom's parents and my dad's parents lived in Pennsylvania . So you know , it was just a pilgrimage every year .

One year , because of my sister's work schedule , she couldn't really leave when mom and dad were leaving . So we , mom and dad , agreed that if I would ride with her that they would let her , you know , come out on , you know , later . So her and I saddled up and she had a . She had a Christel LeBaron . Okay and I don't know if you remember those .

I do yeah , she had a Christel LeBaron and we saddled up in that thing , and so I'm 15 and she's 19 years old and we're we're getting ready to bolt , you know , a third of the way across country here to Pennsylvania , from Indianapolis , and , and you know , we laughed . Oh , we laughed hard .

We still laugh about it , because at one point I think we drove for like 40 or 50 miles with the distance till empty on the , on the , on the computer , on the computer screen there , that the distance till empty was at zero . Okay , we were out of gas . We couldn't find a , we couldn't find a gas station .

So for like 40 miles and and we're laughing like trying to make the best of it I told her . I said you got to go a little slower so that we don't burn as much fuel . And so she's slow with the hazards on and people are flying by us on the highway and we're just waving like , yeah , we're out of gas . You know we're , we're , we're out of gas .

You know , stop if you see us because we're out of gas . And and but yeah , you know , we had a just an awesome 10-hour trip , safe and sound , in the Pennsylvania and and but yeah , that was , that was one of my more more memorable Road trips , I'd say .

So the right come , the fuel light comes on with two and a half gallons left . That's a , that is a Mandate , that's an international mandate . So with two and a half gallons left you'll have a fuel light come on through that .

I mean , I was able to give us a pretty good , educated guess with that knowledge to know Because the car also gave us our miles per gallon to know how many miles we could actually go with the thing on zero . So it was one of those things where it went to zero as well , with the fuel light came on and that was two and a half gallons .

So it was like a zero was hey , getting your attention , you better find something because you're you're basically about to be on fumes . But that car was like , if I remember correctly , that car was in the high 20s for fuel economies .

With two and a half gallons left , we had about , you know , 60 miles roughly , and I think we did like 40 or 50 before we found a gas station .

your childhood with that , because when you smell it today it's just , it brings joy to you , to me , for me it does . And then , four years old , I remember my brother John specifically . He won the USAC regional midget championship . I just remember every night , even on the rough nights , him coming back and there was just enjoyment in the job .

When you're four years old , you don't know that you're an Andretti , you don't even care that you're an Andretti . I was just so enamored by the speed of the sport and how happy it made my brother who was doing it . From that moment on , that's all I could ever think about . That's all I ever thought about in school , daydreaming .

No matter what has gone on in my life , it's racing has been central and I haven't always been able to race . I got kind of started relatively late and , as far as racers go , I was 15 years old when I first started racing . That's not when I first started driving .

My dad taught me to drive as early as age nine , but at that point my brother , john's career was really taking off . Weekends were kind of used up following that career . So for us to go racing it really wasn't an option Until I got older and John's career had planted itself and he was cemented in and no longer did he .

That support system that is so helpful was no longer of severe necessities . Then the opportunity came for me to get to go race . I've never looked back , even in the down years where I couldn't find employment driving race cars . I was able to work in the automotive industry , coaching people that have just bought exotic cars .

I want to learn how to drive them , coaching people that are able to become race car drivers and teaching them the basics and then taking them to the next level , advancing them and seeing if they get to a point that they can be licensed to race at a high level . So through all that I kept myself in the circle . I was always at race tracks .

Even if I didn't have a ride , I was always at race tracks . I was always driving something . I was always doing something to work on my craft and in the last 10 years I've been blessed in the Trans Am series . I found a wonderful home there . It was always a goal of mine to get to Trans Am .

I'm a six foot tall and dready which , if anyone knows anything about my family , that may be an average height for an American man . It's not an average height for an Italian American man in this family . So at six feet tall , when I was a teenager all my family was like you're not going to fit in an Indy car , because it was like that's .

Where we all wanted to go was Indy car racing , indy 500 . And I said you better think about the Trans Am series or Peterbilt trucks or something . So Tommy Kendall , super tall , super fast , and he was kicking their butt in Trans Am at the time .

Trans Am became a serious target not only for that reason , but it's literally the only professional form of motorsport or of car racing that no one in my family had ever done .

But with the Trans Am series I've been able to make my own name for it in there and it's a wonderful paddock . It's an awesome group of people and they've treated me my wife just incredibly well . All of my family my mom had died when they were here and they would come to the races and the way they would get treated it's just real special to me .

So it's been a wonderful home there and I look forward to ending my career in the Trans Am series someday .

Because once the bug bites you it's really kind of hard to not itch the bite . And so when you get these people and the bug has bit them and they start , then you're on their radar as a driver because they know that you don't have a drive . So that's really kind of how a lot of it worked out for me In the Trans Am series was ECC Motorsports .

Aj Henriksen was a good friend of mine and I had actually met him through my wife because my wife was really close friends with who he was dating at the time . So I got to meet him and then he started road racing . He had always done nothing but arca racing and they started road racing in Trans Am . I told him .

I said you know , when you go these race tracks , call me . I said because I'll coach you over the phone . You tell me where you're struggling and even over the phone I'll be able to help you . So a couple of the races . I did that . We helped them out a bunch . He was so impressed by that .

He brought me out for a test and I'll never forget we're testing and I said what kind of lap time would you like to see out of me by the end of day ?

And he told me he goes , if you get here by the end of day I'll be really impressed and like , fifth lap in , I turned that lap time and it was underneath that lap time the rest of the time and at a track I'd never been to . It was a club track called Audubon up in Chicago .

I literally had never been there and it was my first day there and I'm already running super competitive speeds . His dad and him . He's like do you want to go Trans Amracy , I go . You have no idea how bad I like to do

that . We went off in one rookie of the year and almost won the championship the first year out in 2014 . And 2015, . We took the championship down to the wire again . I think we finished second , only like five points behind on that .

So we had really competitive years , won a lot of races , broke a lot of track records , sat on a lot of poles , and that's really how all that triggered was from coaching was simply by keeping myself , as you said , keeping my foot in the door by being a coach , you know , and it takes a lot of swallowing your own pride , cause all we want to do is race .

So if it's not a drive , it seems like it takes you further away from your dream , and I couldn't encourage others more . You know , just I know so many wonderful talented drivers out there that that's how they've gotten their break is by coaching .

And then the next weekend Mario won and went out and won the race . So just cool story .

They're exciting to watch , cause if they're not winning they're up to some sort of shenanigans spinning or crashing or whatever you know keeping it exciting . But yeah , they , that's either one or crash . But yeah , so the coin toss . What's funny about that is Mario actually won the coin toss , but it rained out the first week .

He flipped multiple times down the back straightaway and broke his helmet off his head and put him in a , put him , you know , in a three day long coma it was . It was a pretty bad deal . You know that he went through there , took him kind of a almost a year to recover fully from that . You know even my mom's stories .

She would tell of the atrophy and the small amount of time that he was hospitalized . You know that he came to pick her up on a date he couldn't even barely work the clutch car to drive it , and that's how , that's how weak he was after after that accident . But he bounced back and and , and and raced for the next nine years , you know .

And then in 1969 , the accident you're speaking of in Des Moines , iowa , you know the sprint car racing back in those days was it was incredibly dangerous . They had a 30% survival rate . I don't , I don't think there's any modern job out there today that has a 30% survival rate and that's what they were dealing with . So it was a .

It was extremely dangerous and the reason they didn't have protection right they had no roll cages , they had open face helmets . He was , he caught a rut and it broke the front axle , dug in and he started barrel rolling across along the catch fence and the poles that hold up the catch fence were striking him in the face .

He , he shattered 13 bones in his face and that was that's what ended his career . He , he retired at that point in 1970 and went into him and Mario had the firestone store here in Speedway Indiana and then when they sold that , he opened up associated sales , which was a distribution center here in Indianapolis .

And then he got out of that in the early 80s and bought a machine shop and had the machine shop for 20 some odd years up until you know he was , until he , you know , was ready to to fall out of the business world and and relax .

So it was always one of those things where you know , when you're first taught it , you , like you know , first told others that there's , there's , there's a trailhead to the Appalachian Trail . Like what's the Appalachian Trail ? You know what's the big deal about that ?

And then , and then you hear you know , and , and so as as a kid , it always struck me as something that that I would , I would love to go out and accomplish . It would be a a definitely incredible feat for me to to get to do that , but that'd be my bucket list items .

If you could take a road trip today with anyone going anywhere , what would you drive ? Where would you go ? What would you talk about ?

I like to grab all three of those , cause once you lose someone close to you , you realize how many questions that you have on answers . I would grab all three of those and put them in a . Put them in the in a . Um oh gosh , got to find a hot rod , right .

So , yeah , we get that Cadillac Escalade V with all that power and we go ourselves for a good long road trip . So I could get some . You know , get those those questions that you know you think that they're always going to be there , and then there's a crazy questions or questions that I never even thought of until they're gone and but yeah , it's , it's .

It's funny how that works . But I always encourage . You know , I was , I was we , we made , um , uh , what . My wife and I spent the last seven years living with mom and dad and and helping out you know we could , and things like that and and we did that so that we could enjoy those times and that we would have no regrets when they were gone .

So it wasn't about time and that's , and that's what I can't . I can't stress to people enough is it's never enough time . You know , it's never enough time . Even if you spend every day with each other , it's never enough time . It's when they're gone , it's when you're going to come up with those questions .

It's important to enjoy the loved ones you have and and make the time for them and and always say yes when they need you .

I'm really glad you said that , because I really encourage young people today that have their parents living or their grandparents living . You need to set them down and you you reference the questions you know . I don't even know who my dad's first girlfriend was .

Maybe it was my mom , I don't know , I don't even know how I met Right and , uh , I just always I have some regrets there and , like you said , I always thought , well , there'll be tomorrow , there'll be tomorrow and I'll do it tomorrow . And of course , tomorrow didn't come .

And I tell you there's been a couple of questions that I did have that my uncle Mario could answer Right Cause he was , he was a part of that life .

Their grandparents are so excited to share things about their life stories and I mean you can literally you can get any grandparent to sit there and talk to you for hours because they have so much knowledge , they have so much world knowledge , so much life knowledge . It's just , it's invaluable , absolutely .

If you're willing to put in the work , you're willing to put in the effort and you have that drive and determination that this sport is one of those sports that will not turn their back on .

Anyone that has that I I highly encourage and and I've had , you know , young individuals that I've helped mentor , that you know I said go knock on doors , you know I mean they , they want to be a driver , that's great , but go knock on doors and get your foot in the door to race team sweeping the floors , working on the race cars working , because when you're

the whole package , it may , it makes a difference . Also , that gives you the connections and things like that and stuff can happen from that and I've had proud reports come back to me of young men , young girls that that have been very successful with those little tips .

But , honest to goodness , you just keep yourself in the mix , keep yourself in the circle , don't ever give up . Work hard and be at the races . You know , out of sight , out of mind , if you're not there , you can't be there for an opportunity , and the hardest thing as a racer is to be a spectator .

But it also shows anybody who's got , anybody who owns cars , race cars that are looking for drivers , if , if you're not there to capitalize on the opportunity , then somebody else is going to get it . Those are the biggest things is work hard , work hard at it and be at the racetrack those two factors you can't go wrong .

Does that mean that it's going to guarantee you ? No , it doesn't guarantee you anything . Life has no guarantees . But it does give you your best shot , I think .

It was a lot of fun for me and I really appreciate you reaching out and what you need to have and I'm humbled that you wanted me to have you on the show .

So you get to hear yeah , you get to hear my voice as a commentator if you don't get to see me out there driving . So that's also been fun for me . That's an opportunity that came through the Trans Am series as well and I've thoroughly enjoyed that .

That's like watching a race with a friend of yours and you just get to talk about it and it's quite enjoyable . But yeah , you can find us there . I compete . I drive in the big machine , baca Flight Coolers TA2 series . I drive the number 41 Ultimate Headers Chevrolet Camaro for Ultimate Headers Racing and we love it .

With TA2 , if you don't know , it is one of the most competitive series in America , if not the world . We have 40 plus car counts and the field is 20 deep . There's 20 cars that can win any given weekend and those two key talents that I talked about earlier , brent Cruz and Connor Zillich , have on it .

I mentioned throughout the show , but this is where the talent is really coming through is the big machine Baca Flight Coolers TA2 series . So tune in . We'd love to have you Come to the races , because the best part about our races is general mission ticket is full access to paddocks and pit area and all those places .

You can meet the drivers , you can meet the teams , you can get close to the race car , smell the fumes , the heat from the exhaust pipes and all that good stuff . And then also , please , support Check it Free , andretti . That's a foundation that is most founded .

While my brother was still alive , my sister-in-law , nancy , his widow , has taken the bull by the horns and runs the foundation . It is to support colorectal cancer . It's to ideally it's to provide colonoscopies for those individuals that either are at risk and can't afford it or the insurance won't cover it .

Check it Free , andretti will come in and they will pay for that Rather pricey procedure to have done , to give you the peace of mind and to give your family the peace of mind , because it's all about early screening and early detection , and we can't encourage you enough to go check it for whoever you're going to check it for , but check it for somebody .

They should be in a museum and they're not . They're out there with all those provenance and competing for trophies and stuff . So it's quite an experience there . And then , obviously , the Trans-Am series . All the modern cars are the Trans-Am series , f4 , fra , form of the regional Americas , so the open wheel cars .

And then the international GT , which is Portra's and Ferrari's and Lamborghini's and Audi and all those wonderful GT3 cars . It is probably the most eclectic motorsports weekend and I mean I'm gonna tell you it's not a budget killer either . It's certainly could fit into any family budget out there . So I highly encourage come on by because they're great .

They're great racing . Where do you live at , dan ?