Michael Andretti

  IndyCar racing champion Michael Andretti will be at Giant Food in Parkville on Thursday to talk with shoppers and sign autographs. Andretti, CEO of Andretti Sports Marketing, the promoter of the Grand Prix of Baltimore, will be at the store at 7709 Harford Road from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Andretti's son, Marco Andretti, will be driving the No. 26 Dr. Pepper TEN car during the IZOD IndyCar Series race on Sunday. Landover-based Giant is a sponsor of this weekend's 2012 Grand Prix of Baltimore presented by SRT. The three-day event in the streets of downtown Baltimore kicks off on Friday.

Race On rescued the second Grand Prix of Baltimore because it hired Andretti Sports Marketing, a world-class firm carrying a legendary name that specializes in race operations. Andretti brought instant credibility and organization to the event, but it did little to resuscitate ties with a local business community left skeptical by all the problems in the first year. Next year, the firm will take a lesser role in the Labor Day weekend event, focusing mostly on race-day operations.

With the Grand Prix of Baltimore two weeks away, the race's promoter and owner of three cars competing in the IndyCar Series this year, Michael Andretti, was in town recently and sat down for a conversation that ranged from the upcoming event through the streets of the city to current issues in racing. When it comes to Baltimore, Andretti is still learning about the city, but he did offer insight into how Andretti Sports Marketing has cut thousands of dollars from last year's expenses.

The Grand Prix of Baltimore was IndyCar points leader Will Power's chance to wrap up his first title on a street course, the kind of race track that is his forte. He couldn't do it. Now he has to go to Fontana, Calif., to a 500-mile race on an oval. The mere thought of it is enough to make Michael Andretti, who owns the car driven by Power's main foe, Ryan Hunter-Reay, just a little bit cocky. "We're going to win this thing," Andretti said as soon as Sunday's Grand Prix was over and his driver, Hunter-Reay, had won the Baltimore race and closed within 17 points of Power.

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Michael Andretti is a hard man to nai down. After all, it's pretty difficult catching up to someone who is rocketing down a straightaway at 220 mph.However, race fans seeking his autograph better take note: Make a concerted effort to get it sometime this year.You may not get the opportunity next year.The 28-year-old son of racing legend Mario Andretti plans to take a course once charted by his father, embarking on a career in Formula One racing, perhaps as early as the 1992 season.

CLEVELAND -- The pass was less daring but just as effective yesterday, as Michael Andretti got past Emerson Fittipaldi and went on to a victory in the Cleveland Grand Prix.Andretti, who picked up his second win in a row and third of the season, made a heart-thumping move between Fittipaldi and Rick Mears two weeks ago at Portland, Ore. He got away with it and won the race.This time, it took the second-generation Indy-car star until the 53rd of 85 laps on the 2.37-mile, 10-turn temporary road circuit to get to the front for good.

DENVER -- Michael Andretti and Bobby Rahal played showdown and Andretti pulled an ace to win the pole for today's Texaco-Havoline Grand Prix a little more than one minute before the end of yesterday's qualifying session.Andretti set a track qualifying record with his lap of 79.631 mph, breaking the mark of 78.964 set by Teo Fabi last year in the inaugural event in the streets of downtown Denver.Rahal went into the second of two days of time trials holding the provisional pole by virtue of a 78.747 mph lap he threw at thefield Friday.

PHOENIX -- Michael Andretti surprised himself and spoiled a great effort by Bobby Rahal, as the defending IndyCar champion won the pole position for today's Valvoline 200 with a record-setting performance.Rahal, a former series champion and second to Andretti in the 1991 PPG Cup points battle, set the target, turning a record-shattering lap of 171.618 mph yesterday as the first qualifier on the one-mile Phoenix International Raceway oval.That broke the mark of 168.334 set last April by Rick Mears, who had won four consecutive Phoenix poles and swept all five oval track poles in 1991.

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Michael Andretti kept plugging until it all came together yesterday, hanging onto the pole position for today's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.The defending IndyCar PPG Cup champion, who won the provisional pole Friday on a street circuit that this year is shorter and faster than previous years, turned a lap of 106.894 mph with only about four minutes remaining in yesterday's session to grab his second straight pole and 10th in the past 20 events.Danny Sullivan, a former CART series champion who struggled through a frustrating year in 1991 with the now-departed Alfa Romeo engine program, took the outside spot on the front row with a last-minute lap of 106.191 before slamming nose-first into a tire wall.

DETROIT -- Emerson Fittipaldi came away with his first victory of the season yesterday in the Detroit Grand Prix, a race featuring an incident involving Mario and Michael Andretti and a safety truck that caused a stoppage of nearly an hour.The Brazilian, who also won here in 1989 on the way to the CART driving championship, held off a determined effort by series point leader Bobby Rahal over the final dozen laps on the tight 2.5-mile, 17-turn circuit winding through the streets of downtown Detroit.

When rain began to fall as forecast in Sunday's Grand Prix of Baltimore, Ryan Hunter-Reay's car owner Michael Andretti had a game plan. Andretti's bold decision to stick with the treadless slicks used on a dry track - combined with perhaps an even bolder move by Hunter-Reay to seize the lead on a restart with five laps to go - allowed the driver to pick up his fourth IZOD IndyCar Series victory of the season and keep alive his hopes for a series...

Michael Andretti, wearing his promoter's hat, stopped for a chat in the Baltimore Convention Center on Thursday afternoon. The IndyCar owner, who has taken on the job of organizing the Grand Prix of Baltimore this weekend through his company Andretti Sports Marketing, looked relaxed. "We're as ready as we've ever been for any event that we've ever done," he said when asked about preparations for the weekend festivities that kick off Friday morning when the gates open at 7:30 a.m. "The track is on schedule.

  IndyCar racing champion Michael Andretti will be at Giant Food in Parkville on Thursday to talk with shoppers and sign autographs. Andretti, CEO of Andretti Sports Marketing, the promoter of the Grand Prix of Baltimore, will be at the store at 7709 Harford Road from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Andretti's son, Marco Andretti, will be driving the No. 26 Dr. Pepper TEN car during the IZOD IndyCar Series race on Sunday. Landover-based Giant is a sponsor of this weekend's 2012 Grand Prix of Baltimore presented by SRT. The three-day event in the streets of downtown Baltimore kicks off on Friday.

With the Grand Prix of Baltimore two weeks away, the race's promoter and owner of three cars competing in the IndyCar Series this year, Michael Andretti, was in town recently and sat down for a conversation that ranged from the upcoming event through the streets of the city to current issues in racing. When it comes to Baltimore, Andretti is still learning about the city, but he did offer insight into how Andretti Sports Marketing has cut thousands of dollars from last year's expenses.

Ten months ago, IZOD IndyCar Series owner and promoter Michael Andretti and his chief marketing officer John Lopes stood beside the then-Baltimore Grand Prix course and marveled at the crowd and the energy filling the space around them. "This would be a great event to be part of one day," Andretti said to Lopes. Now, Andretti and his sports management company, Andretti Sports Marketing, are less than eight weeks from opening the gates on the new Grand Prix of Baltimore with Race On LLC, headed by partners J.P. Grant and Greg O'Neill.

Before glossy race cars careen around downtown streets over Labor Day weekend, another high-speed race must be run. The team promoting Baltimore's Grand Prix - a group announced by city officials this week after the collapse of two other race organizers - has less than four months to hawk sponsorships, market the event, sell tickets and set up the racecourse and grandstands. Sports marketing experts say Race On, the new organizers that include racing champion Michael Andretti, must make those tasks their top priorities and also reassure racing fans that the event is on despite months of setbacks.

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. -- Teammates Bobby Rahal and Al Unser Jr. swept the front-row positions for today's Texaco-Havoline 200 and applied some pressure to Indy-car points leader Michael Andretti.Rahal's record-setting lap of 134.466 mph Friday held up yesterday in the final round of qualifying, giving the two-time CART PPG Cup champion his 15th career pole, first since a race in Nazareth, Pa., in October. More importantly, it gave him one more point in the championship battle.That cut Andretti's lead over Rahal to 176-172 and gave both Rahal and Unser, the defending series winner, a nice boost.

When he was growing up in Towson, JF Thormann could not, in his wildest fantasies, have imagined a day when downtown Baltimore would be turned into a IndyCar racetrack. He did, however, frequently spend his afternoons and evenings pretending there was a Grand Prix racetrack in the parking lot of Goucher College, where his father was a professor. "I'm not sure my father knows that," Thormann said with a sheepish chuckle. "But I used to practice there a lot. I also burned up a lot of road around the Loch Raven Reservoir.

He's written a book - "99 Things Teens Wish They Knew Before Turning 16" - dealing with serious subjects like bullying, sex and peer pressure. He's spoken to the Minnesota state legislature, inspiring it to pass legislation against texting while driving, and developed a cell phone application to fight texting behind the wheel. He's appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America, CNN and numerous other news and entertainment shows. And by age 16, "he's been on more programs than I have," his car owner, Michael Andretti, said.