Motor Racing : Drivers Grumble About Daytona Schedule Glut

Daytona International Speedway’s annual midwinter glut of automobile racing, known as Speed Weeks, is becoming more like a squirrel cage than a showcase for the Daytona 500.

The 500, Sunday’s $1.5-million race that kicks off the NASCAR season, is stock car racing’s premier event but it is being cramped by an increasing number of side-show attractions.

In addition to today’s twin 125-mile qualifying heats and the 500 itself, there are five other races scheduled here this week. Two others were run last Sunday.

The grumbling in the garages, especially among the drivers and crews with cars in the 500, is getting louder and more persistent. Even Richard Petty, never one to complain, doesn’t like the trend.

“They’re trying to do too much,” said Petty, who has been racing at Daytona since 1959 and has won the 500 seven times. “There’s so many cars here that there isn’t time for all of ‘em to qualify, much less practice.”

There are 202 cars here that hope to race, or at least attempt to qualify, in the next four days. Seventy-six are entered in today’s two qualifying heats, 12 in Friday’s International Race of Champions, 60 in a race Friday for Charlotte-Daytona Dash cars, and 54 in Saturday’s 300-mile race for NASCAR’s new sportsman series.

“You get a little rain, like we had last Saturday, and a little dew, like we’ve had every morning, and the track’s down so much that we’re all feeling the squeeze,” Petty said. “Most everybody brought new equipment down here and there’s no time to get it sorted out. There’s some guys here who’s first lap is qualifying.”

The Speed Weeks schedule called for cars to be on the track every morning at 9 a.m., but the usual time has been nearer 11 because of the wet surface. That, coupled with Saturday’s day-long rain and intermittent showers several other days, has frayed a lot of nerves.

“There’s tension before every big race, but I’ve never seen it like it is down here this year,” said Darrell Waltrip, the defending national champion who is still searching for what’s ailing his new-look Chevrolet. “There just isn’t enough time to get anything right.”

Waltrip’s first qualifying try last Monday was 199.194 m.p.h., an embarrassing speed for the champion. Later, he posted a more respectable 200.316, but even that only ranks 24th.

In addition to trying to get more speed from the Chevy, Waltrip has to get in some practice time in a Camaro for the IROC and an Olds for the 300-mile race.

“I run the sportsman race because I think every lap helps me for the 500,” he said. “I need all the help I can get.”

Waltrip, who has won three Winston Cup championships and 11 races at Daytona (1985 IROC, 1981 Busch Clash, 1978 modified 200; 1978, 1979, 1982 and 1984 sportsman 300s; and 1976, 1978, 1979 and 1981 qualifying races), has yet to win the Daytona 500.

Worse off than Waltrip today is Cale Yarborough, a four-time winner who qualified his Ford fourth last Saturday, but who must start in the back row in his 125-mile heat. And where he finishes today will determine where he starts Sunday.

Yarborough was streaking through the first turn during practice Tuesday in a six-car draft behind young Bobby Hillin when Hillin’s motor let go. When Yarborough’s Ford hit the oil slick, the car slid along the wall and then shot across the track, ramming into Hillin’s Buick.

The damage was so extensive that both cars were knocked out of the 500. Yarborough will drive his backup Ford today, but because it has not qualified, it must start last. However, if Yarborough fails to finish the 125-mile heat, he will still be placed in Sunday’s 40-car field because of his original 204.151 qualifying speed.

The first 14 finishers in each of today’s races are automatically entered in the 500, plus the front row pair of Bill Elliott and Geoff Bodine. The remaining 10 are selected by their qualifying speeds.

More grumbling is also coming from drivers of General Motors cars who had their front airfoils declared illegal by NASCAR officials.

“It’s a dangerous predicament,” said Bodine, whose 204.545 lap last Saturday assured him a spot on the front row. “There is so much space for air to collect under the front end that it tends to lift the car off the ground. That’s what happened to me in the Clash and I’d hate to see it happen Thursday.”

Bodine was running second, close behind Neil Bonnett, when a gust of air caught his Chevrolet and started it spinning. Fortunately, no one hit Bodine and he managed to keep it off the wall, but the thought of how and why it happened is on all the GM driver’s minds.

The Long Beach Naval Station and the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro have joined the Long Beach Grand Prix Benevolent Assn. for Charity Week preceding the race events April 11-13.

In the last four years, events such as a chili cookoff, ugly dog contest, celebrity golf tournament and 10-kilometer run have raised $139,500 for various area charities, increasing annually from $12,500 in 1982 to $60,000 last year.

A Navy parachute team and the Marine Corps band, which led the Rose Parade last month, will perform throughout Charity Weekend.

The first Grand Prix charity ball, a black-tie affair, is scheduled Wednesday, April 9, at the Commissioned Officers Club of the Naval Station, featuring Les Brown’s band and the Marine band.

The schedule:

Saturday, April 5--10-kilometer run, wine tasting event and wine auction; Sunday, April 6--Ugly dog contest and western festival, featuring chili cookoff; Tuesday, April 8--Celebrity golf tournament at Recreation Park; Wednesday, April 9--Grand Prix Ball at Long Beach Naval Station.

Other news and notes:

SPRINT CARS--Steve Kinser, six-time World of Outlaws champion, and Sammy Swindell, a two-time champion, are both entered in the Copenhagen/Skoal World of Outlaws opener next week at Ascot Park. The Feb. 22-23 daytime races will be the first of the WoO’s $2.7 million, 49-race season for winged sprinters. . . . Entries continue to come in for the opening weekend of California Racing Assn. season, the Mid-Winter Fair March 1-2 at Imperial. Latest to file is five-time CRA champion Jimmy Oskie, a 1969 winner at the fair and winner of 58 lifetime CRA feature wins. The 1985 CRA champion, Eddie Wirth, and runner-up Mike Sweeney, are already entered.

MIDGETS--Rusty Rasmussen was voted most improved driver and Hal Ross rookie of the year in the U.S. Auto Club’s Western State Regional season. Don Sperry was named hard-luck driver. Cary Agajanian received the Jim Blunk Memorial Trophy and Luther Davison the Joe Lynch trophy at the awards banquet where Ron (Sleepy) Tripp collected $1,800 as 1985 champion.

OFF-ROAD--Mickey Thompson’s Off-Road Championship Gran Prix makes its first appearance in the San Diego area when round three of this year’s races is held March 1 at Jack Murphy Stadium. Series regulars, including Steve Millan of Costa Mesa, Roger Mears of Bakersfield and Ivan Stewart of Lakeside, will battle on a special off-road course that will be constructed on the stadium’s playing field and will include jumps, hairpin turns and other challenges usually faced in desert races. Off-road Grand Prix races later in the season will be at the Rose Bowl and the L.A. Coliseum.

INDY CARS--The field for the 70th annual Indianapolis 500 continues to form with the receipt of entries for veterans Kevin Cogan of Redondo Beach, Emerson Fittipaldi, the Brazilian now living in Long Beach, and Scott Brayton of Coldwater, Mich. The 500, to be run May 25, will be televised live for the first time in its history.

POWERBOATS--The 1986 Marathon Boat Racers’ Assn. offshore powerboat racing season gets under way Saturday at Marina del Rey when a fleet of 30 of the fastest offshore racers in the nation compete for the St. Valentine’s Day crown and a jump in the 1986 High Points race. Defending High Points champion Roberta Gill of Montclair, Calif., will face, among others, world champion offshore racer Bob Nordskog of Van Nuys; Paul Lindke of Rough and Ready, Calif. and Rick Bowling of Castro Valley. Racing begins at 10 a.m. The race, which may be run in heavy February seas, will be on a course runs from Marina del Rey to Santa Monica and return.