The Andretti Curse: 1969 and 56 Years of Indy 500 Heartbreak

In 1969, a 29-year-old Mario Andretti drove a backup car with a hastily added radiator to the front of the Indianapolis 500 field and won. That Memorial Day at IMS was the start and the end of one of the strangest stories in American sports.

The Andretti racing family has started the Indy 500 more than 80 times. Mario, his sons Michael and Jeff, his nephew John, his grandson Marco. They have led over 1,200 laps. They have finished second three times. They have qualified on the pole. They have crashed, run out of fuel, lost engines, lost gearboxes, and lost races on the final lap. In 56 years since 1969, no Andretti has won the Indianapolis 500 again.

This is the story of the only Andretti win, and the curse that came with it.

Why this matters

The Andretti name is not just woven into IndyCar history. It is woven into Indiana history. Mario raced at IMS for 30 years across multiple decades. Michael ran 16 Indy 500s. Marco ran 19. The team that bears the family name, now called Andretti Global, has won this race five times as an organization. The Andrettis have spent more time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway than nearly any racing family in history.

For a state that takes its racing personally, an Andretti winning Indy is a story about more than one family. So is an Andretti losing it. Heading into the 110th Running on Sunday, May 24, 2026, it has been 57 years since the only one that counted.

May 30, 1969

The 53rd Indianapolis 500 was run on a Friday. Memorial Day fell on a Friday that year, and the race was scheduled around it. A.J. Foyt sat on pole looking to become the race's first four-time winner. Mario Andretti sat second on the front row, but he wasn't supposed to be there at all.

Andretti showed up that May with a radical new four-wheel-drive Lotus, the kind of car that was supposed to be the future. He'd been trading practice laps with Foyt at over 170 mph, both drivers chasing what would have been historic numbers in 1969. Two days before qualifying, Andretti hit the wall in Turn 4. The Lotus burst into flames. Andretti's face was badly burned.

The team had a day and a half to prep his backup, a two-year-old Brawner Hawk that wasn't supposed to ever see the front straightaway. They stripped it down, freshened it up, and Andretti put it on the front row, qualifying just under 170 mph. The next day, when the front row gathered for the official photo, Mario's burns were so visible that he asked his identical twin brother Aldo to stand in for him. The famous front-row qualifying photo from 1969 doesn't actually show Mario Andretti. It shows his twin.

The race

On race day, Foyt led early. Mario stalked behind. Around lap 60, Foyt's Coyote-Ford developed a broken manifold and a long pit stop dropped him several laps down. He'd never lead again that day, eventually finishing eighth.

That left Lloyd Ruby in front. Ruby was a Texas driver with a long, hard-luck reputation at Indianapolis, and at lap 105 the streak got worse. As his crew refueled the car, Ruby pulled out of the pit box too early with the fuel hose still attached. The hose ripped a hole in the side of the fuel tank. All the fuel poured out onto the pit lane. Ruby was out.

Andretti inherited the lead. He never gave it back. He led 116 laps total, drove much of the second half nursing an overheating engine and a slipping clutch, and crossed the finish line nearly two minutes ahead of Dan Gurney. The fire suit he wore was not designed for the heat of the cockpit. By the time he climbed out in victory lane, his back was blistered.

Team owner Andy Granatelli had spent years chasing this win. His infamous turbine cars had nearly won in 1967 and 1968 before mechanical failures ended both runs. When Andretti pulled into victory lane, Granatelli leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek. The photo became one of the most famous images in motorsport.

Andretti was the first naturalized American citizen to win the Indianapolis 500. The actual car is now displayed at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. A replica appears occasionally at the IMS Museum in Speedway, Indiana.

The curse begins

The story of why an Andretti has not won since varies depending on who tells it. The most cited version, popularized by longtime IndyCar writer Robin Miller, says the curse started in 1970, when Mario, Granatelli, and chief mechanic Clint Brawner had a falling-out. Granatelli and Brawner split. Andretti sided with Granatelli. Brawner's wife Kay reportedly cast a hex on the family. According to the lore, no Andretti would ever win at Indianapolis again.

The math has held up in a way that makes you understand why people believe in curses. Mario himself ran 24 more Indy 500s after 1969 and never won. He led laps in race after race without taking a checkered flag. He dropped out while leading multiple times.

The 1981 race may be the most painful chapter outside of his family's later runs. Bobby Unser took the checkered flag. The morning after, USAC officials penalized Unser for passing under a yellow flag and declared Mario the winner. Mario took photos with the Borg-Warner Trophy. He attended the victory banquet. Then, four and a half months later, on October 8, 1981, USAC's appeals board reversed the call on a 2-1 vote. Bobby Unser got the win back. Mario got nothing. He never won the Indy 500 in any form ever again.

Michael Andretti's heartbreaks

If Mario's story was bad luck, Michael's was something close to cruelty.

Michael Andretti is statistically one of the greatest IndyCar drivers in history. He won 42 Champ Car races, the most in the CART era. He won the 1991 IndyCar championship. At Indianapolis, he ran 16 races and led 431 laps, the most laps anyone has ever led at the 500 without winning. His 1991 race ended with him losing to Rick Mears in the final laps after the two traded outside passes in Turn 1. In 1992, he dominated, leading four-fifths of the race, before his fuel pump failed with 11 laps to go. He led at the 500 in 1989, 1995, and 2003 and dropped out each time.

The 2006 race may be the most painful chapter the curse ever wrote.

Marco's 0.0635 seconds

Marco Andretti was a 19-year-old rookie in 2006. His father Michael came out of retirement specifically to race alongside him. With three laps to go, after a yellow-flag pit shuffle, Michael was running first and Marco was running second. The Andretti family was about to score a 1-2 finish at Indy with father and son at the front.

Then Marco passed Michael for the lead.

The crowd was on its feet. Father and son trading positions for an Indy 500 win, in front of Mario watching from pit lane. With one lap to go, Marco had a comfortable lead.

Sam Hornish Jr. caught him at the start/finish line. The pass came on the front straight, just a few hundred feet from the bricks. Hornish won by 0.0635 seconds, the second-closest finish in Indianapolis 500 history. Marco finished second. Michael finished third. The first last-lap pass to win the Indy 500 happened to the Andrettis.

Marco Andretti would race the 500 for 19 more years and never come closer.

The end of the line

In October 2025, Marco Andretti announced his retirement from professional racing. He had run 253 IndyCar starts, 19 Indy 500s, and won twice in 20 years. His final 500, in May 2025, ended on lap four when Jack Harvey collided with him in Turn 1 and put him into the outside wall. Mario and Michael watched from pit lane.

Marco kept perspective in his retirement statement. He had three third-place finishes and one runner-up at Indianapolis, more podium finishes than his father Michael, and the same number of podiums as his grandfather Mario. He made his peace with the place. The Andretti name still hasn't won there since 1969.

Michael Andretti was bought out of his ownership stake in Andretti Global at the end of 2024. The team continues under new owner Dan Towriss, but for the first time in a generation, there's no Andretti racing at the front of the grid.

Wins as owners, not drivers

Don't take this story to mean the Andretti name has been losing for 56 years. It hasn't. Michael Andretti's team has been one of the most successful organizations in IndyCar history.

Andretti Global has won the Indianapolis 500 five times as an owner: Dan Wheldon in 2005, Dario Franchitti in 2007, Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2014, Alexander Rossi in 2016, and Takuma Sato in 2017. None of them came with an Andretti behind the wheel.

For more on the racing terms behind these last-lap finishes, our guide to Indy 500 racing lingo covers the language used on the broadcast.

Will the curse ever break?

Marco is retired. Michael is no longer in ownership. There won't be an Andretti behind the wheel on May 24, 2026.

Mario, now 86 years old, will still be at the track. He's there every May. So is Michael. The 1969 winning car will be on display at the Smithsonian, a thousand miles east. The replica is at the IMS Museum waiting for visitors during the Month of May activities that build up to the green flag.

The Andretti story at Indianapolis isn't over. Mario has grandsons. Marco has children. There's a chance another generation tries this race. There's also a chance no one in the family ever wins another one.

Whatever you believe about curses, the math is undeniable. One Andretti win in 56 years across more than 80 starts. Mario, Memorial Day 1969, in a backup car with his face still healing from a crash he wasn't supposed to walk away from. That's the only Andretti name on the trophy.

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