Fittipaldi Apologizes For Milk Snub, Donates Money To Charity

INDIANAPOLIS - Two days after Emerson Fittipaldi reached for some orange juice instead of a bottle of milk, the Indianapolis 500 winner released an apology through the American Dairy Association of Indiana.

Fittipaldi said the $5,000 traditionally given to the winner by the dairy association would go to charity. So will the $500 earmarked annually for the winner's chief mechanic.

"I am a Brazilian orange-juice producer, and for many years I have been toasting my racing victories with orange juice," Fittipaldi said yesterday.

"At the Indianapolis 500 this year, I drank the milk after I had a little orange juice. I deeply regret the misunderstanding and inconvenience I caused for the American Dairy Association and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway," he said in the statement.

The milk tradition began after Louis Meyer won the race in 1933 and headed straight for the milk in the icebox in his garage.

A photographer happened to catch Meyer drinking the milk, and the next day, his picture was in the newspaper. The Indiana dairy people thought it was great publicity for their product and talked the Speedway into letting them have a bottle waiting for the winner in Victory Lane.

Fittipaldi and Team Penske received a winner's share of $1,155,304 from a record purse of $7.68 million at Monday night's victory dinner. The added money from the dairy association - $5,000 for the race winner and $500 for the winning car's chief mechanic -

will go to the Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary, an organization made up of wives, mothers and friends of race participants.

The donation to CARA, which supports various charities, apparently settled the milk controversy, but Fittipaldi was still missing a steering wheel. A wheel he uses on short oval tracks, such as Sunday's upcoming race in Milwaukee, apparently was stolen when the car was on display at the victory dinner.