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His name is Marco Andretti, although simply Marco will do for now. And alongside Danica Patrick, last year’s story of the Indianapolis 500, Just Call Him Marco is now ready to take open-wheel racing, a largely irrelevant sport this past decade, to places it hasn’t known in many years.

No, Marco didn’t win Sunday’s Indianapolis 500. That honor went to Sam Hornish, Jr., who is an excellent and moving story any other day of the year. This day, though, it was all about the Andrettis, all about Papa Michael and Marco The Kid, just like last year was all about Danica while the winner, Dan Wheldon, was reduced to a sidebar.

The Indy Racing League has a woman.

Now, it’s got its teenage heartthrob.

Can’t you see him on the cover of Tiger Beat?

After more than a decade of wandering aimlessly around the landscape of the American sports consciousness, open-wheel racing is slowly developing star power. The 1996 IRL-CART split tore a hole through the heart of the sport, and it has never completely recovered. But last year there was Danica. This year, Marco.

Next, if there’s reunification — and there’s been more reunification talk this month than ever before — open-wheel racing might be able to take a run at NASCAR.

“I almost won this thing,’’ Marco said shortly after Hornish  beat the youngest Andretti by 63 1000ths of a second, the second closest finish in the 90-year history of the race. “I don’t want to wait until next year. I wish it was today.’’

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After a day when Marco finished second and Michael finished third, there was a lot of talk about the continuation of the so-called Andretti Curse. And it’s true, the Andretti family has had its unfair share of heartache at the speedway, most notably Michael, who has led more laps without winning the Indy 500 than any driver in history. This, though, didn’t quite rate as another chapter in the Andretti’s litany of woe.

Imagine: a father comes out of a retirement and a son comes out of puberty and the two of them stage a mano-a-mano duel down the straight-aways of racing’s greatest stage.

“I’m just so proud,’’ said Mario Andretti, Michael’s father and Marco’s grandfather. “I’m so proud. I think this race last three days. It was so awesome to watch these guys. I’m so proud of them. We just love to drive. We love race cars. We just love to do it. We were born to do it, I think.’’

Clearly, Marco, a member of one of racing’s royal families, won the genetic lottery. He had a strong month of May, but come race day, nobody expected him to be a contender. A rookie? A 19-year-old? It would be an accomplishment if he kept his car out of the wall.

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But he did what Indy 500 veterans do: He hung around. That’s the secret at this venue. Hang around, limit mistakes, hope for a couple of breaks and be there at the end. And so, there he was, right there at the front with his father, writing the most outlandish script imaginable.

Father versus son. Son versus father.

“In a few days, we’ll get over the disappointment of the loss and we’ll look at the real story of really what happened,’’ Michael said. “I think that’s when it’s all going to sink in. I mean, it was a storybook finish, you know? People are going to remember that (the Andretti vs. Andretti finish) even more than Hornish winning the race. What are the odds of a father-son (pair) coming down to that?’’

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