Southsider Voice corespondent
Back when my dad operated his Sunoco service station on Madison Avenue, we had an interesting couple of months. One day one of our employees came running into the building after pumping some gas for a customer. He was so excited and said, “I just pumped gas for Mario Andretti.”
The car had driven away, but he was sure that Andretti was driving it. This happened a couple of more times during the next few weeks. We just couldn’t figure out why Andretti was spending so much time on the Southside.
One day when I was on duty that same car came in for gasoline. I introduced myself and explained that my father owned the station. The gentleman behind the wheel shook my hand and introduced himself as Aldo Andretti, Mario’s twin.
Aldo had recently moved to Indianapolis and was living on the Southside. He later opened Andretti Firestone on the Westside.