Iconic Racing Champion Mario Andretti is on Chit Chat Cafe Live Sept 29 9pmEST/6pmPST Click Listen Live http://www.artistfirst.com/chitchat.htm

No one anywhere ever drove a race car better than Mario Andretti. He won the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, the Formula One World Championship and the Pikes Peak Hillclimb. He won the National Championship four times and was a three-time winner at Sebring. Mario took the checkered flag 111 times during his career – a career that stretched five decades. He is a racing icon, considered by many to be the greatest race car driver in the history of the sport. Today he is a successful businessman off the track with Andretti Winery in Napa Valley.


Mario Andretti, born in Montona, Italy, on February 28, 1940, just three months before Italy went into World War II. At the end, the Andretti family became refugees from Communism, spending several years in a camp at Tuscani. Mario became interested in racing n 1954 when he saw the great Ascari compete in the Italian Grand Prix. The following year his family emigrated to the United States, making their new home in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

When Mario started racing on dirt ovals around Nazareth in 1959 in an old Hudson, he was racing and competing against his twin brother, Aldo...in the same car. Unfortunately, an accident put a premature end to Aldo's career. Mario continued to race, and became a champion racer winning races in sports cars, sprint cars, stock cars...on drag strips, ovals, dirt and pavement tracks.

Join us tonight on Chit Chat Cafe Live 9pmEST/6pmPST http://www.artistfirst.com/chitchat.htm Click "Listen Live"