Racing legends reflect on the 1996 Indianapolis 500's 'dark day'
In one of the weirdest days in American open-wheel racing history, the best drivers made a mess of a new race with a bunch of rookies in the Indy 500.
Editor's note: This story was originally published in 2021. We are republishing it as part of our coverage of the 2026 Indy 500 . INDIANAPOLIS — It takes a lot to rile Mario Andretti.
What the legendary racecar driver lacks in size, he makes up for in passion — but almost always positive. He’s a jokester, a “glass-half-full” kind of guy who sees the goodness in just about everything. Not only does it keep the 81-year-old moving, but it keeps him jumping into two-seater open-wheel cars day after day to give fans the time of their lives at 180 mph .
So imagine what kind of mess could pull the Andretti family patriarch to a race track, fully knowing the mere sight of it is going to fill him with disgust and despair. He chose to spend the anniversary of winning the 1969 Indianapolis 500 away from Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1996, instead going to another race he knew would never live up to the pomp and circumstance of the Memorial Day weekends he’d grown to know and love. Michigan International Speedway wasn’t even second-best.
“It was worse than that,” he said in 2021. “But we’d been left with no choice. We didn’t choose that.
Continue to the original source for the full article.