They say the vast US-based Andretti racing empire is cursed with bad luck. It mainly relates to its relative lack of success at the Indianapolis 500, but look also at Mario Andretti’s many unsuccessful attempts to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or the family’s recent efforts to enter Formula 1, and even the least superstitious person could be convinced.
Now, that supposed curse may have just manifested itself in the strangest way yet, in a bizarre incident that befell Marco Andretti, grandson of Mario and son of Michael, who’s spearheading the F1 team effort.
Marco was racing in the NASCAR Truck Series’ XPEL 225 event at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas when the entire rear axle housing detached from his Chevrolet. The incident caused the rear of the truck to bounce up and the entire vehicle to spin, while the now-detached axle, wheels still attached, rolled steadily onto the grass, prompting a red flag to allow both it and the truck to be safely recovered.
The incident was met with confusion and amazement amongst commentators, teams and fans alike, with seemingly nothing like this ever happening before. It’s not entirely clear what caused this failure, although several sources have reported that NASCAR is inspecting the rear axle housing at its R&D centre to try and determine just what went wrong.
Just five races into the 23-race 2024 NASCAR Truck Series, this is remarkably not the first strange component failure to befall the championship this year. During last month’s race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, Chevrolet driver Bayley Currey suddenly had his truck’s roof panel fly off at around 170mph.
Whether or not you really believe in the curse, this is undoubtedly one of the strangest bits of bad luck to befall the Andretti family during a race.