A racing car is an animal with a thousand adjustments.
— Mario Andretti
Every NASCAR driver watches Formula One in the morning; they are well informed.
The United States is the only country where a driver can have a successful career - either in stock cars or IndyCar - and he won't need a passport.
You dream what you're supposed to do.
At Andretti Winery, I'm not the winemaker.
I've driven just about every kind of car there is.
If a neighbor is killed in a car accident, do you sell your car and stop driving?
In NASCAR, you can do a lot of banging around and get pretty serious and even get yourself upside down. All of those things can happen - and then you give an interview two seconds later.
Age doesn't affect driving - how do you like that?
The banked oval tracks are obsolete tracks for Indy cars.
You do a period of go-karting until you're at the age of qualifying for a ride in a 'school-kart,' then you qualify for driving school. And several of the driving schools have a competition series for their own students.
I don't have any feeling of accomplishment about anything unless there's a lot of risk to it.
The day of parochialism in sports is over. The world is too small for what people like to call 'the good old days.' Fans want the best, wherever they come from.
From a prestige standpoint, the U.S. needs to host Formula 1. And I think Formula 1, they know they need the U.S. as well. So many companies that are global are based in the United States support Formula 1.
I wish we could be 100% shielded from danger, but nothing is in life.
Whatever the changes, from one era to the next, Pocono has maintained its character and significance to me, and it always will. My family shares this sentiment.
I wanted to have a career that would last a hundred years if possible.
Motor racing is like one big family, ultimately, and when you come back to it, that's really what it feels like.
In the U.S., we really have fallen short of road-racing facilities that have kept up with the times, unfortunately, but it's a fact.
You should never get away from where the real foundation of Formula One has been, which is Europe. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the expansion to countries like Asia, China, Malaysia.
If you're so afraid of failure, you will never succeed. You have to take chances.
I've always said, 'I didn't have a Plan B in life.' I was in pursuit of my dream from the very beginning. It's all about desire and passion. At all costs.
A father-son relationship is strong, like no other teammates. You could be straightforward with one another.
If you weren't on Chris Economaki's radar screen, you probably weren't on anybody's.
I still have the competitive spirit, which is good.
The man upstairs is pushing the buttons, and if your name happens to be on that button, well, thank you.
All of the courses that run through real streets are very demanding. There is no room for error, no shoulders to lean on. If you go off the road, you're into somebody's shop-window or front porch.
When you start thinking you may get hurt, it's time to get out of racing.
I don't remember as a kid wanting to do or be anything else but drive something, be a race driver.
It makes great conversation to discuss what's wrong with open-wheel racing today.
Can the U.S. support two Formula 1 races? I think so.
Staging Formula One is incredibly expensive.
Not all teammates tell the truth.
Whenever you're aggressive, you're at the edge of mistakes.
I love all motor sports at the top level.
I don't want to go out there and do something 3,000 other people can do.
There is so much more demand for Formula One than it can supply. You have governments investing in circuits all over the world, and the private sector sometimes has a tough time competing with that.
I think it's counterproductive in many ways to pretend to know things you don't. You surround yourself with people who are the real experts.
I always say that every win has something that is special.
I look at myself as the luckiest man alive.
Tom Carnegie will never be replaced.
My wife loves football, but I think she's resigned to the fact that I'll never make it there.
At Indy, we are the NASA of the production-car world, and that's clearly why manufacturers are involved - it's such a good testbed.
There's something special about racing in real streets. The 'artificial' circuits have a certain sameness to them. But every race conducted on real streets has a character of its own - Barcelona, Monaco, and now Long Beach.
Anybody who can drive and doesn't come out of it a rich man is a fool.
Foreign players is what makes golf so popular now.
If the Indy Racing League didn't have the Indianapolis 500, do you think it would have lasted more than six months? No chance.
With tennis, you can go pick up a racket, take a lesson, and understand how much talent and skill it takes to be as good as the top pros. Same with golf: pick up a club. But not many can go out and get in a race car and experience a drive at over 200 miles an hour.
The most important thing at Daytona is, are you going to have friends willing to work with you during the race as far as drafting? You've got to have friends out there. You can't do it alone. You form those relationships as the race moves along.
When a car's ahead of you, as long as you can see it, you get a tow, just like the draft in NASCAR. Even if it's a long ways down the track, it punches a hole in the air that has to help. When you're running alone, you can feel the difference, and it shows on the clock, too.
