The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum kicked off the month of May this week by officially opening the Mario Andretti tribute exhibition. The Museum is honoring the 1969 Indianapolis 500 winner Mario Andretti and his illustrious racing career with the exhibit, “Mario Andretti: ICON” that opened on the 1st of May. Andretti is still the only driver in history to have won the Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500 and the Formula 1 World Championship…. at the moment anyway! “Look out Mario, Fernando is right behind you!”
We were putting together a story that involved Mario for a client and came across this great picture of a young looking Mario with a very glamorous looking young British model by the name of Sally Stokes. At the time, Sally was the girlfriend of Formula 1 World Champion Jimmy Clark and would go on to meet and marry Dutch race driver Ed Swart. The photo was taken sometime shortly after June 5th 1965 in Wabash, Indiana, where, in company with Mario Andretti, Indy’s Rookie of the Year, Sally helped Jim and Mario select sharp new outfits from Dick Miller, of “Dick’s Menswear.”
And just a few weeks ago Mario met Sally again at the RRDC dinner in Long Beach. There for the ‘Evening with David Hobbs’ celebration that took place during the Long Beach GP weekend, Sally took the opportunity to tell Mario about the book that is being written about her husband Ed. President of the publishing company Coterie Press who are publishing the book, William Taylor, was there to work on final details of the book with Ed and Sally.
