SONOMA, Calif. -- Michael Andretti knew his son Marco had inherited the family's gift for driving at an early age.
'He was very good at driving golf carts,' said Michael Andretti of one of his son's first driving experiences. 'He had to stand and push the throttle and steer. He couldn't sit on a chair, on the seat. On his first day of school, we were waiting at the end of our driveway. We had a golf cart there. The school bus comes there, pulls up. He turns around, and he's gone with the golf cart, crying, saying he's not going to school. I'm running after him, trying to catch him. He's driving it so fast. I knew at that point. He was probably 5.'
Fourteen years and several powerful racing vehicles later, Marco Andretti joined his famous father and grandfather as a winner of a major open-wheel race.
At 19 years, five months and 14 days, Andretti became the youngest driver to win a major open-wheel race, and he accomplished the feat at a pace far quicker than his father or grandfather – Michael Andretti was 23 years, 6 months and 7 days old when won at Long Beach in 1986, while Mario Andretti was 25 when he won the Hoosier Grand Prix in 1965.
'I couldn't be happier because we fulfilled all the goals that we set at the beginning of the year,' said Marco Andretti, who clinched the season-long Bombardier Rookie of the Year Award with the win. 'Rookie of the Year at Indy, the series. We got our win, you know. So definitely it's the best feeling all year for sure.
That the victory came at Infineon Raceway was even more special for the third-generation driver. Marco won the Indy Pro Series event at the track in 2005 and posted other top finishes in other developmental series.
Marco Andretti became the first teenager to win a major open-wheel event on Aug. 27 when he won the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Infineon Raceway. Here's how the milestone compares to other young athlete accomplishment:
Tiger Woods was two months shy of his 21st birthday when he won his first PGA tournament, the Las Vegas Open in 1996.
Pele was 17 when he made his World Cup debut for Brazil in 1958, he scored three goals in a semifinal win over France and two more in Brazil's championship win over Sweden.
Competing in only his third decathlon, Bob Mathias, 17, won the 1948 Olympic gold medal.
Wayne Gretzky was 17 when he turned pro at 17 with the Indianapolis Racers of the WHA. In 1980, now with the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL, Gretzky won the Hart Trophy as MVP as a 19-year-old.
Bob Feller was still a 17-year-old high school student when he debuted for the Cleveland Indians in 1936. He struck out 15 in his first major-league start and later tied the record of 17 K's in one game. He went 5-3 that summer before returning to Iowa for his senior year of high school.
Boris Becker became the youngest player ever to win the men's Wimbledon singles title, achieving the feat at age 17 in 1985. Then he repeated in 1986. He also competed on Germany's Davis Cup team as a teenager.
Tracy Austin, 16, became the youngest champion in U.S. Open history in 1979, and Austin would become, in 1980, the youngest sports millionaire ever, and would win another U.S. Open title in 1981. But accumulated injuries forced her to retire in 1983, and nothing much came of an attempted comeback a decade later.
In 1977, 17-year-old Steve Cauthen won $6.1 million in purses, more than any other jockey in history, and was named the Associated Press male athlete of the year and SI's Sportsman of the Year. He rode Affirmed to a Triple Crown in 1978, becoming, at 18, the youngest jockey in history to accomplish that feat.
Dwight Gooden was 19 and straight out of Class A ball when he stormed through the National League with the New York Mets in 1984. Gooden went 17-9 with a 2.60 ERA and led the NL with a rookie-record 260 strikeouts (in 218 innings). Gooden finished second in the NL Cy Young voting to Rick Sutcliffe.
