MICHAEL ANDRETTI

'K' IS FOR KID COMEBACK.

- A.J. Baime

"HE'S OUT OF FUEL!" the TV announcer screamed into his microphone. "[Michael Andretti] is out of fuel, dropping to the inside! And here comes the finish line! Who's gonna win it?!"

Michael Andretti was in the No. 18 March 86C Cosworth, likely with every muscle in his body clenched. He was about to win the 1986 Portland Budweiser/G.I. Joe's 200, over two seconds ahead of his father, Mario, on the last lap, when he ran out of gas coming out of the final turn. His father caught him, and the two cars flew by the checkered flag at almost exactly the same time.

"Unbelievable!" the TV announcer yelled. "Well, it's perhaps the closest and best Indy-car finish in history!"

It turned out Mario beat Michael by about four inches. "That was so disappointing," Michael Andretti says today. "It's funny the way it worked out. That's probably what cost me the championship that year." The "funniest" thing of all? That race, where father beat son by those fateful four inches, went down on Father's Day. Immediately after the finish, the cameras caught Michael's then-wife, Sandy, sobbing in the pit lane, while he stood with his father at the center of a mob of fans and TV cameras.

"Do you want to say anything to your dad right now?" the TV interviewer asked.

Michael turned to Mario and said, "Well, happy Father's Day, Dad."

When asked about it today, Michael can only chuckle. We're sitting in the Andretti Autosport hospitality area in the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, just before qualifying for the 2022 Gallagher Grand Prix on the track's road course. "It's such a cool story, but it was also incredibly frustrating," he says. "When I offered him a happy Father's Day, I wasn't really sincere. It was really upsetting."