When one Team_Penske legend chose to retire in 1992, he stuck to his decision. But almost 25 years on, the four-time Indy500 winner had a chance to make a little-known comeback ⬇️
Rick Mears announced his retirement in speech at the Team Penske dinner in December 1992, one week after he turned 40. It came at the end of an unusually torrid year for the man who had only the previous season cemented his status at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with a memorable triumph over Michael Andretti to join A.J. Foyt and Al Unser Sr as a four-time Indy 500 winner.
There was a subdued murmur of surprise in the room, and Mears’ voice was already started to waver with emotion as he continued: “As far as tonight goes, I’m officially retired.”Motorsport Images "I think to myself, 'Oh no, this is where I’m probably gonna get in, go slow and then get out of the car screaming for more downforce! I’m gonna be one of those guys'"“So believe me, this has been a tough one. And you know, I am still going to be involved. We've talked about it and definitely I wanted to keep that – to be involved with the team.
“The track had just been repaved, the temperature was just right, our cars that year were good,” he told Autosport a few years ago. “I just knew it would be the perfect time to lay down a really strong new track record. And then one of our guys – I forget which one – hit the wall with a heck of a thump, one of those big accidents where there’s debris spread through the turn, along the next straight and what’s left of the tub is at the next turn.
“So anyway, I show up at the sim with it set to run the Speedway. I speak to Ben [Bretzman, race engineer for Pagenaud at that time, now McLaughlin], and he says that our drivers have left the car where they feel our Indy set-up is OK, the handling’s reasonable. I think to myself, ‘Oh no, this is where I’m probably gonna get in, go slow and then get out of the car screaming for more downforce! I’m gonna be one of those guys.
“Well in the sim, I realised that a lot of that feel had come from G-load in my right shoulder against the chassis, and although in the sim I could feel it as I initially turned in, the sim has no more room to move. So it couldn’t build enough G to simulate the long lateral load you’d be feeling if you were actually at the Speedway. It amazed me how much I missed that immediately, however good the feedback was through the wheel.
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