Mario - 500

Born in February 1940, Mario Andretti is one of the most successful Americans ever to step into a racing car. In fact, he’s won so many titles, including F1, IndyCar, the Indy 500, World Sportscar and NASCAR championships, it would be easier to say what he hasn’t won.

 

Obviously, this sort of talent doesn’t just happen overnight, you need to start early and Mario did.  When he was just two, his mother said he and his twin brother Aldo would take the lids off kitchen pots and run around the kitchen shouting vroom, vroom! At the age of five, he graduated from lids to hand built wooden cars. But it was when he fired up a real car for the first time while working in a garage, that he was hooked for life. Mario's goal from then on was to race in single-seater open wheel cars.

 

In '64, Mario made his Indy Car debut and finished eleventh overall. It was at his first Indy 500 in '65 that he met Colin Chapman, taking the opportunity to tell him of his ambition to compete in Formula One. "When you're ready..." the owner of the Lotus F1 team told him, “...call me." 

 

With a Daytona 500 win in '67 under his belt, Mario made the call to Chapman in '68 and took pole in his first ever Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. On lap 6, the nose and right wing on Andretti’s car collapsed. The bumpy surface and the Lotus’s reputation for being notoriously fragile was never going to be a match made in heaven. However, he battled on until lap 13 when his pit crew taped the car back together again. The tape held for another 20 laps before finally coming unstuck.

 

In '69, as well as competing in a handful of Formula One races, Mario also contested his 5th Indy 500. Having sustained facial burns following a crash in practice, Mario finally conquered the brickyard & celebrated in Victory Lane with the traditional bottle of milk.

 

Having raced for a few different Formula One teams in the early 70's, Mario rejoined Lotus in '77, going on to win the championship for them the following year.

 

After 111 career wins and 85 Indy and F1 poles, Mario finally hung up his helmet at the age of 54 in 1994. Not bad for someone who started his career with pot lids!
 

GPtee designs are printed on:

EarthPositive® - Climate Neutral® T-shirts.
100% Organic Cotton Jersey 155 g / 4.6 oz.
100% Organic Product in accordance with the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), produced from Indian Cotton, and certified by the Control Union and Soil Association Certifications.
90% reduced Carbon Footprint (CO2e) according to the BSI PAS2050 and certified by the Carbon Trust.
ETHICAL TRADE AND JUSTICE FOR WORKERS.
Audited by the Fair Wear Foundation.

 

The inks we use:

 

We only use water-based inks to print our tees. Free from the PVC or phthalates toxic ingredients found in Plastisol inks, water-based inks aren't only kinder to the environment, they give our designs a softer, more natural feel. Because, unlike Plastisol inks, water-based inks actually blend into the fabric as opposed to sitting on the top.

Formulated free from lead and other heavy metals, the inks we use have passed the Oeko-Tex Class 1 standard with 60% to spare. That means they don’t contain ozone-depleting chemicals such as CFC's and HCFC's, aromatic hydrocarbons or any volatile solvents. Basically, all the bad stuff. What's more, when it comes to cleaning our screens, we don't need to use solvents - just good old fashioned plain water.

So why doesn't everyone print with water-based inks? Well, quite simply, it can be a massive pain in the derrière.
You see, unlike Plastisol inks, which can be left on a screen for hours and hours without drying out, water-based inks have to be worked with quickly as they have a tendency to dry out before you can say “Mansell is slowing it down, taking it easy. Oh no he isn't! It's a lap record” (good old Murray) and clog the screen you're printing your design through.