Sport: A Circus Kind of Calling

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Just as qualifying trials began for next week's Indianapolis 500, the illustrious class of 1965 lost Gordon Johncock, a two-time winner. His car was ready: it had been running near the front at over 210 m.p.h. But the driver was out of tune and time. "That morning I lay there in bed thinking about everything. All of a sudden I sat up and said, 'That's it for me.' " Mario Andretti, a classmate present later at Johncock's valedictory press conference, called his friend's retirement "clever," an odd word. "I've always thought of race-car drivers as being clever or stupid," Andretti explained. "I'm still trying to figure out which we are."

Twenty years ago, Andretti finished third, Johncock fifth and Al Unser ninth in their first Indy, when a bumper haul of eleven rookies made the field of 33 and five finished in the top ten. "An eternity ago," says Andretti, 45, a compact man with a Roman bearing. "It doesn't seem that long" to Unser, 45, who at first professed to understand Johncock's decision. "No, that's not fair," he amended. "I don't understand it. I haven't done it." This is the usual difficulty in discussing anything about auto racing. No one who hasn't done it can quite understand it.

Sixteen years since his only victory, Andretti will start the 69th Indy 500 from the second row, just behind Pole-Sitter Pancho Carter and just ahead of Unser. Sons Al Unser Jr. and Michael Andretti will follow in the fourth and fifth rows of brilliantly painted cars scattered three abreast across the asphalt track. A circus kind of calling, racing regularly summons more than one generation of the same family, though these are the only fathers and sons who have ever raced together at Indianapolis. In his christening two years ago, Al Jr., 23, brought a smile to the speedway during the closing laps by trying to block the path of Winner Tom Sneva on behalf of Runner-Up Al Sr. Last May, Mario welcomed Michael to the life with a short glance across the row they shared. "I don't have any first memory of my father, the race driver," says Michael, 22, "because that's my whole memory. Ever since people started asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up, there has been only one answer."

"I'm happy but I'm not happy," his father mutters. "I don't like to talk about the downside of racing, but obviously I'm guilty of getting him involved. 'Guilty' may not be the right word. But it's the only one I can think of. In my whole life, I've let myself get really close to just three drivers. They're all dead." One was another of the Indy rookies of 1965, Billy Foster, killed two years later in a stock car. "But on the upside, my son now knows what I do, or he's starting to. All along he's been a passenger on this road. Now he's a driver. He's beginning to see."