John Andretti's battle against cancer extends to his family

INDIANAPOLIS — Jarett Andretti was at Kokomo Speedway two weeks ago when a stranger came up and hugged him. 

His initial reaction was confusion. Who are you? What’s happening?

“I’m sorry to hear about your dad,” the man said. 

Andretti loves the support. But it didn’t even click with him in the moment. He was at the racetrack, and he was in race mode. It’s where he goes to clear his mind and forget that his father, John Andretti, is battling Stage 4 colorectal cancer.

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Since John went public with his fight in April, the racing world has been reaching out to both of them and giving its love. They are grateful as they promote the need for others to receive timely colonoscopies, but the father Jarett knows hasn’t really changed. 

John is facing a daunting fight, but he still wants to be a father. He still wants to be a crew chief for Jarett’s sprint car team. He is keeping a strong face for his family. 

He and Jarett talk four or five times a day, and Jarett usually asks how his father is doing. The next 90 percent of the conversation is back to racing.

“In that sense, everything is business as usual,” Jarett said. 

* * *

Nancy Andretti isn’t a dramatic woman. That’s why Jarett was nervous when he heard the way his mother sounded on the phone. 

“Hey, we need to talk about your dad,” she said.

His dad and older sister, Olivia, were also on the conference call. Jarett knew something was wrong.

He listened as he heard the news of his father’s diagnosis and the battles that would soon come. What he remembers next is the blur of the following weeks. 

When it happens to your family, it’s easy to expect things to go according to plan. To expect your father to get a colonoscopy, get tested, find out it’s not cancerous and move on with your life. 

“But obviously it didn’t go like that,” Jarett said.

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Instead, John got the colonoscopy, then had to have surgery, then started chemotherapy. Years in a car couldn't help Jarett keep up with the speed of everything while he was on the road and with his family in North Carolina. 

That’s the part John hates most. He can fight his fight and still promote the #Checkit4Andretti campaign and hardly look like anything is wrong. It’s everyone else he worries about. 

“It's life-changing for me, but it's more so for my family, and that's the part I hate,” John said. “I hate the stress that I put on them for this because this was definitely avoidable.”

But John needs an outlet. He is always living in the world of chemotherapy and people treating him differently, so when he’s speaking with his son, he wants to talk about racing.

Even while the family is in different places, they are communicating in the family group text. They are sending memes around and making fun of each other. It’s normalcy.

“We’re a very tight-knit family, so I think we are all an outlet in that sense,” Jarett said.

* * *

Maybe more than any other sport, racing is a sport of father and sons. In IndyCar alone, there are the Unsers, the Rahals, the Foyts and so many others. The Andrettis are high on that list. 

But John and Jarett are somewhat different. Jarett didn’t dive into racing to be like his father. He was more of a soccer player. He didn’t start getting into the sport until John was ready to come off the road and bought a go-kart for himself. 

Soon, Jarett was using it more than John and the two were back on the road together beginning Jarett’s career. Their relationship became more than the average father-son dynamic. 

“We spent a lot of time together. I mean, we raced together,” Jarett said. “I spent basically every day, all day, ate every meal with him from March until October.”

They built a racing team together. They started Andretti Autosport Short Track with no truck and trailer, no car, nothing, and built it into a team that wins. It wasn’t just father and son. It was driver and crew chief.

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Even now that John isn’t on the road while he is undergoing chemo, they still talk four or five times a day on the phone. Sometimes it’s for 10 minutes. Sometimes it’s for an hour. They are close friends and teammates. 

They are so close that one wonders if Jarett sees moments of weakness from John. John looks strong and confident in each public appearance, but it’s almost hard to believe he maintains that. 

“What you see with him on TV is what you get at home,” Jarett said. “I think that’s the beauty about it. He’s the same person. It’s not somebody putting on an act or somebody that’s doing anything different than what he would be saying to us at home.”

Jarett is taking over as the face of the Race for Riley program John has championed for 20 years. He looks forward to the day his father is healthy again and he can race against him. They have raced together over the years, but never against each other. 

And as Jarett tries to make a name for himself in the racing world, it can be easy to assume he uses his father’s fight as inspiration. He doesn’t view it that way. In Jarett’s 24 years, he’s seen his father become an accomplished driver and seen him dedicate much of his life to charity and family. John has already raised Jarett to be the man he is. Now, we see the results. 

“I don’t think it motivates me more," Jarett said, "because I’ve already been motivated to do everything I can because he’s lived his whole life like that.”