Who but Mario?

[John Merriman]

Okay, I see that the great Mario Andretti just turned 79 on 28 February. In one of the articles I read, it was said that he is one of only two drivers to win races in F1, IndyCars, Nascar and WSC. I've been racking ( wracking? ) my brain to think of the other one. I thought maybe Montoya but I don't think he ever won a Winston Cup race.

So....okay you motorhead, data, statistic freaks out there !!!! Who was it?

[Jnovak]

Gurney?

[provamo]

NEVER won a WSC race.....................................but he won FIA Endurance races

[EricP]

Mansell?

[John Merriman]

YES !!!! I think GURNEY the correct choice. Geeez......24 Hours of LeMans qualifies !!

Mansell certainly never won a NASCAR race......

Interesting....Since Mario and Dan sit atop my Top Ten US Road Racing Drivers list

Gurney
Andretti
Foyt
P Hill
Ginther
Jim Hall
Penske
Shelby
Pruett
P. Jones
Al Holbert
L. Ruby
Al Unser
Bobby Unser
Revson
Bondurant
Haywood
Donohue
Follmer
Gregory
Fitch

[John Nesbitt]

Okay, I see that the great Mario Andretti just turned 79 on 28 February. In one of the articles I read, it was said that he is one of only two drivers to win races in F1, IndyCars, Nascar and WSC. I've been racking ( wracking? ) my brain to think of the other one. I thought maybe Montoya but I don't think he ever won a Winston Cup race.

So....okay you motorhead, data, statistic freaks out there !!!! Who was it?

JP Montoya

[John Merriman]

Well......I see Montoya won two road course races - Sonoma and Watkins Glen. So could there be TWO other drivers with the required combination of wins? to match mario?

[Lynn]

JP also won an Xfinity series race

[EricP]

YES !!!! I think GURNEY the correct choice. Geeez......24 Hours of LeMans qualifies !!

Mansell certainly never won a NASCAR race......

Interesting....Since Mario and Dan sit atop my Top Ten US Road Racing Drivers list

Gurney
Andretti
Foyt
P Hill
Ginther
Jim Hall
Penske
Shelby
Pruett
P. Jones
Al Holbert
L. Ruby
Al Unser
Bobby Unser
Revson
Bondurant
Haywood
Donohue
Follmer
Gregory
Fitch

Duh, right. I read too fast and missed the NASCAR part.

[John Nesbitt]

Well......I see Montoya won two road course races - Sonoma and Watkins Glen. So could there be TWO other drivers with the required combination of wins? to match mario?

Danica?

[TimH]

Danica?

[provamo]

a quite under-rated Formula ! pilot.........................probably finished second more times than Amon

[dalz]

JP also won an Xfinity series race

He also got robbed of a Brickyard 400 with a phantom pit speed violation that couldn't be confirmed anywhere.

[t walgamuth]

He also got robbed of a Brickyard 400 with a phantom pit speed violation that couldn't be confirmed anywhere.

Juan Pablo was good. His dad was also an Architect so that gets extra points in my book!

[t walgamuth]

He also got robbed of a Brickyard 400 with a phantom pit speed violation that couldn't be confirmed anywhere.

<br>
<br>Juan Pablo was good.

His dad was also an Architect so that gets extra points in my book!

[E1pix]

The Indy 500 counted for World Championship points for quite some time, possibly well into the '60s.

If so, that'd add Foyt to the list.

Beyond, lest we forget dirt, endurance, Can-Am, F5000, and everyday chance of death, Montoya was no Mario. Nor Foyt.

[E1pix]

Whoops, double post, sun in eyes. :-)

[t walgamuth]

The Indy 500 counted for World Championship points for quite some time, possibly well into the '60s.

If so, that'd add Foyt to the list.

Beyond, lest we forget dirt, endurance, Can-Am, F5000, and everyday chance of death, Montoya was no Mario. Nor Foyt.

True enough. But, they all had to run in the time they lived.

[E1pix]

Yep, true enough... and not a slight on Montoya, world-class shoe.

The guys that could win on dirt, and ovals, and especially then on road courses, were a different breed nearly impossible to compare now. I wasn't a Tony Stewart fan early on, but have come to see him as today's version, and would love to see more like him again.

Perhaps the difference is you simply couldn't afford mistakes then, so to follow the edge in so many disciplines took a helluva lot of courage. In-cars were rare but to watch trees whipping by at close to 200 says a lot about the ramifications of error.

I golfed with Price Cobb in the mid-'90s. He told of the day they trimmed the Jag in 1990 just to see what it could run down the Mulsanne. He'd gone 256, and thought in the moment that it was no different than the 956s he'd raced -- then looked out the side window, and it WAS different. He suddenly realized just how fast he was going and in telling the story you could almost feel his hair stand up.

I know mine did.

[t walgamuth]

Yep, true enough... and not a slight on Montoya, world-class shoe.

The guys that could win on dirt, and ovals, and especially then on road courses, were a different breed nearly impossible to compare now. I wasn't a Tony Stewart fan early on, but have come to see him as today's version, and would love to see more like him again.

Perhaps the difference is you simply couldn't afford mistakes then, so to follow the edge in so many disciplines took a helluva lot of courage. In-cars were rare but to watch trees whipping by at close to 200 says a lot about the ramifications of error.

I golfed with Price Cobb in the mid-'90s. He told of the day they trimmed the Jag in 1990 just to see what it could run down the Mulsanne. He'd gone 256, and thought in the moment that it was no different than the 956s he'd raced -- then looked out the side window, and it WAS different. He suddenly realized just how fast he was going and in telling the story you could almost feel his hair stand up.

I know mine did.

Hah! I thought you were going to say he looked out the window and realized he was upside down. That was and is an amazing course.

[E1pix]

Haha, nope.

LeMans winner, Lemon golfer. That was fine as we had lotsa time to chat while we looked for his lost Top-Flites.

I think he scored in the 130s, made fun of us the whole time for "getting no value for our golfing dollar."

So though he scored big on green courses, Damn, was he ever fast on gray ones.

[tppj]

Kyle Larson, (#42 Cup Car) is pretty gifted. He is both confident and dominant on dirt. There are obviously many areas he has not ventured, but he strikes me as having some of that old timer "I'll drive anything" persona.

[dalz]

You'd think with the resume George Follmer has he'd be more well known--Can-Am champ, Trans-Am champ, USRRC (now IMSA) champ, Indy car race winner, IROC race winner, NASCAR Cup polesitter (best finish of 5th), F1 and Le Mans podium finisher. The guy obviously was one of the best.

[Bardahl77]

Follmer gets extra credit in my book for having the cojones to drive the AVS Shadow Mark 1. I figured he's take it out, run a lap, come back into the pits and punch Don Nichols in the knee.

[E1pix]

I think Elford did just that!

"Let George Do It." See, he's not forgotten.

Agree, Follmer was great. He won Can-Am at 35 and that F1 podium at 37, imagine if he'd started F1 at 25...

I ran into him for the first time since about 1980 at the RA vintage race in '01. That was the 35th anniversary of Can--Am and I think 60-some cars ran Thursday. Many never came out again, some intending to, others not. But Follmer won that race in a M8F and nobody but that wicked Shadow-Turbo of Juan Gonzalez ever got close to Ol' George. It was pretty clear he'd only allowed it, at will.


We've deviated from the thread, but I'm loving it.

While we're on that, or off it, Donohue and Revson were also really something (else).

And it's a damned shame Jeff Gordon chose circles over a bit of the right.

[t walgamuth]

Current practices in Nascar mostly won't allow their drivers to go run more dangerous sports. Perhaps with the decline in Nascar that will loosen up.

I agree that Gordon would have excelled in other series if given the chance.

I always loved Follmer back in the day! He took no prisoners on the track. I imagine a lot of driving opportunities were denied him because of his age. Everybody probably said, yeah he is fast now but in another year he will be slow.....

I remember back when the shadows were new. They were electrifying in their radical appearance. The physical design and the graphics were different too.

[t walgamuth]

I just read Donahue book. A great read. He put in the hours on the track testing. Those unfair advantages did not come for free. I kept thinking when he was traveling here and there that it must have been a tremendous strain on his marriage. Then he mentioned he was getting a divorce. He retired then came back to do F1. The track he was killed on (Hockenheim?) had trees growing right up to the track with no guardrails. Perhaps he was more willing to take the chance because he was single again.

[dalz]

Donahue...The track he was killed on (Hockenheim?) had trees growing right up to the track with guardrails. Perhaps he was more willing to take the chance because he was single again.

It was at the original Osterreichring circuit in Austria. I believe the damage was done when he struck a billboard post.

[t walgamuth]

It was at the original Osterreichring circuit in Austria. I believe the damage was done when he struck a billboard post.

meant no guardrail

[Lynn]

When Donohue was killed it was a common practice at F1 venues to use catch fencing strung on wooden poles. One of the poles sheared off and struck Donahue on the head when he went off course.

[E1pix]

That's still sad to think about.

Mark was awesome, I probably had him sign 15 programs over the years and he was a genuinely nice guy.

As I recall, he was fine at first, had a headache at dinner, and excused himself to go to bed -- and never woke up. Aneurism.

Edit: Great video about Mark, Roger, and the Can-Am killer. You guys will love this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uO-70EQ8mPA

[Lynn]

The day following the accident, Donohue went the hospital in Graz with a severe headache. I remember that he returned to the track then lapsed into a coma and died after brain surgery at the Graz hospital. Of course this was a long time ago, so I could be remembering incorrectly.

Much of the so called "Unfair Advantage" was blatant cheating. The acid dipped Camaro was 250 pounds underweight. When the SCCA threatened disqualification, Penske responded by threatening to have GM withdraw support for Trans-Am. The next year Penske took the acid dipped car and a legal car to Sebring for the 12 Hours. By this time, the rules had been changed to weigh the cars before qualifying in addition to after the race. The acid dipped car was not sent to tech. Penske had the legal car inspected as both #15 and #16. #16 was the light weight car.

[E1pix]

Thanks for the correction, research confirms you're right.

I'd heard about the acid-dipped Camaro, but not the Sebring bit. Very disappointing, changes my thoughts a little for despising cheaters.

[Lynn]

The original acid dipped car had to race with a vinyl roof because they left it in the vat too long and put holes in the roof.

[E1pix]

Yep. I have the Donohue book by Michael Argetsinger (RIP, Bud) and it talks about that.

I think back to my trackside childhood, and could have never guessed how far racing has fallen since.

Us guys had it made.

[R. Pare]

I'd heard about the acid-dipped Camaro, but not the Sebring bit. Very disappointing, changes my thoughts a little for despising cheaters.

hell, everybody cheated back then- too much money coming from the manufacturers to NOT cheat. Very much a part of racing back then.

[E1pix]

I knew far too many legit teams to agree with that.

Track performance irrelevant, Cheaters are Losers. Only other cheaters defend it (not implying you here).

Nothing's better than being legal and beating their useless asses.