A family crests

So here's what I was thinking, as Marco Andretti dropped the hammer on that beast of a final lap: Thirty-three years are a long time.

And here's what I was also thinking: But so are 14.

Because, listen, if you're gonna tell the unabridged story of the Andrettis at their very own Snakebite Palace, you can't just go back to 1969 or '92 or, yes, '87. You gotta go back to 2006, too.

You gotta go back to when Marco, Michael's son and Mario's grandson, had the Indianapolis 500 in his pocket as a 19-year-old kid, and then the Snakebite Palace bit him as hard as it ever bit dad or granddad. Sam Hornish Jr. caught him a handful of yards from the yard of brick when he couldn't possibly have caught him, and that was the Andrettis at Indy in a nutshell. What the hell else could happen?

Well ... Sunday happened.

Sunday the numbers weren't there for Andretti Autosport the way they'd been all week, and here it came again, Snakebite Palace chomping down hard. Scott Dixon was on the pole when Marco rolled away as the last guy who could catch him, and Dixon was still on the pole by a fingernail as Marco came to the white flag.

The kid-who's-no-longer-a-kid needed an absolutely flawless lap in a devilish wind to catch him. He needed a Mario lap, or maybe a Michael lap.

Damned if he didn't give us one.

There is no greater pressure at Indianapolis than qualifying, and no greater pressure within that to need a perfect final lap to beat someone out. The last lap is usually a taper in a typical qualifying run. It's a a hang-on lap, a maintain lap.

Marco needed it to be a haul-ass lap. And he delivered.

You'll not see a better one at Indy for a goodly stretch, and that's without all the subtext that attended it. Everyone said it was a defining moment in a mostly bleak career, and maybe it was. Maybe at 33 winning the pole for the Indy 500 is the start of Marco Andretti's own legacy, and no one would want to see anything else. The Andrettis are motorsports royalty, and we've got a soft spot for royals despite the hard time we gave them back in 1776.

So an Andretti on the pole for the first time since Mario sat there in 1987 is a big moment, and maybe some comfort food for the soul in this bizarre funhouse-mirror year. The world has gone entirely off its meds in 2020, which is why we were watching Marco do what he did in front of ghosts and echoes in August instead of live humans in May. So it was weird, yesterday was -- but, hey, check it out: An Andretti's on the pole.

And because an Andretti is, you can't help thinking dark thoughts. You can't help thinking this is Indy, the old Snakebite Palace, and so maybe this is just a come-on. Maybe it's just, a setup for yet another kick in the jewels from a place that is as sublimely cruel as it is sublimely wonderful.

Thirty-three years ago, for instance?

Mario won the pole. Mario led 170 of the first 177 laps. And then ...

And then his engine gave it up with 23 laps to run.  And it was just another DNF, just another hobnail boot to the tender bits.

You hope that's not what awaits Marco next Sunday. You hope Indy leaves an Andretti the hell alone for once.

Because yesterday was too magnificent. And, dammit, 2020 needs some magnificence.