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Much has been written this week about Colton Herta being the sure-fire, can’t-miss start for the NTT IndyCar Series. We might want to pump the brakes on that a little bit. I’m not saying that because I have doubts about the talented eighteen year-old kid, who becomes a nineteen year-old kid on Saturday. I say that because regardless of his upcoming birthday, he is still a kid.

That’s a ton of pressure to pile on the shoulders of a teenager, regardless of how mature he is. When I think back to when I was a nineteen year-old, it’s a wonder I survived – much less was able to function as a semi-adult. All I thought about were girls and beer, and not necessarily in that order. Eighteen was the legal drinking age in Tennessee back then. The way we abused that privilege is the reason it was raised to twenty-one a few years later – we couldn’t handle it.

Is winning as a teenage rookie in the NTT IndyCar Series a blessing or a curse? Recent history would suggest the latter. It’s popular to say that Graham Rahal won his first-ever IndyCar race at the age of nineteen, but that’s ignoring the fact that he drove an entire season in Champ Car the previous year as an eighteen year-old. Still, he won a race as a teenager and unrealistic expectations were thrust upon him, partially because his father was a successful driver. It was assumed the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.

Rahal’s win as a teenager came in the second race of the 2008 season, but it was his IndyCar debut. He was touted as “a can’t miss star of the future”, but Rahal drove in another 124 races before collecting his second win – an epic race at Fontana in 2015. Graham Rahal is now thirty. He has a total of six IndyCar wins on his resume, along with three poles. He has had a solid career and is considered one of the better drivers in the paddock; but so far his career has not reached the “can’t miss” star status that was hoisted upon him by the bandwagon jumpers.

Two years before Rahal won as a teenager, Marco Andretti was a rookie that came within a last ditch-effort from Sam Hornish of winning the Indianapolis 500 as a nineteen year-old. Later that summer at Sonoma, Andretti did collect his first win as a teenager. His name and the fact that he was driving in top-notch equipment caused everyone to anoint the shy Andretti as a younger version of his famous father and grandfather. Marco earned his second victory at Iowa in 2011. Eight years later in his fourteenth IndyCar season, he is still chasing his third.

Scoring a win in a rookie season does not guarantee success. In fact, some of the biggest names in IndyCar history went winless in their rookie campaigns. AJ Foyt was a rookie in 1957, but didn’t earn his first victory until 1960 – the year of his first championship. His nemesis, Mario Andretti, also went winless in his rookie season of 1964. It was the same for his son, Michael, twenty years later.

Other notable names who had winless rookie seasons, but went on to IndyCar stardom include Bobby Unser, Al Unser, Jr., Paul Tracy, Dario Franchitti, Rick Mears, Tony Kanaan, Will Power, Helio Castroneves, Johnny Rutherford, Rodger Ward, Sam Hornish and Greg Moore. If you’ll notice, out of the fifteen drivers I just mentioned that had winless rookie seasons – twelve of them went on to win the Indianapolis 500, and eight of them won it multiple times.

Besides the aforementioned Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti, other drivers that won as a rookie went on to have solid to disappointing careers – such as Jimmy Davies, Teo Fabi and Tomas Scheckter.

But that’s not to say that being a winner in your first season brings a curse to your career, either. Not everyone who wins in their first IndyCar season fails to fulfill the expectations that come with early success. Some of the drivers that won as a rookie went on to have legendary careers; such as Scott Dixon, Danny Sullivan (who actually drove in two races prior to his full rookie year in 1984), Al Unser, Sébastien Bourdais, Juan Montoya (who won seven races as a rookie in 1998 – a record), Ryan Hunter-Reay, Nigel Mansell (does he really count?) and Gordon Johncock.

So what can we decipher from all of this? Not a thing. Winning as a rookie doesn’t guarantee success, nor does it curse your career. It means you’ve got a win to your credit and that’s about it.

But I wish people would not place such high expectations on Colton Herta. Winning his first race after starting only three races is a remarkable accomplishment. The fact that he is eighteen makes it even more remarkable. Standing atop a podium at that age is heady stuff. Most teenagers wouldn’t have the mental capacity to handle that. I say that because I think I was a fairly typical teenager and I couldn’t have. And when I say typical, the translation of that is knucklehead.

The worst thing about heaping expectations on a young driver after they have won a race, is that if he or she fails to replicate those results soon – those that were anointing them as the next big thing are the first ones to turn on them.

Although I’ve said some unkind things abut Marco Andretti’s driving career in the past, I cannot begin to imagine how miserable it is to be Marco, the racer. Now, Marco the person lives a very good life. He has a beautiful young wife, he is wealthy, seemingly well-liked among his peers and lives a life that most of us only dream about.

But Marco, the racer, was born into a family where his grandfather is a living racing  legend. Marco’s father, Michael, followed his father into racing and became quite an accomplished championship driver in his own right. Marco has chosen to become a third-generation driver in the family business and is perceived as a flop. He appears to be adored within his own family, but you know deep down that it has to eat him alive inside that he has failed to live up to that famous family name. I keep hoping that the light bulb will go off and Marco will eventually have that break-though season; but heading into his fourteenth season, that is beginning to look unlikely.

Colton Herta doesn’t have that big of a legacy to live up to as Marco or Graham Rahal. His father, Bryan, never won the Indianapolis 500 or an IndyCar Championship; but he was a good driver and has four wins to his credit.

But throughout this past week, articles, tweets and Facebook posts have all been written that proclaim Herta as the star of the future. Without going back and reading the post I wrote after his win on Sunday, I’m sure I was guilty of the same. I hope everyone is right, and I’d like to see Herta win more races this season as the start of an outstanding career.

But let’s all take a step back and ease up on young Herta and not place the weight of the world on these young shoulders. Let’s ease up on these lofty and practically unattainable expectations. Remember, he’s just a kid. Let’s let him be one.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on March 29, 2019 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.