Motor Racing : Drivers Got Faster and Richer in 1986; Expect More of the Same in ’87

One of the most successful years in motor racing--both financially and competitively--has come to a close with prospects on all fronts for more of the same in 1987.

Indy cars and Winston Cup stock cars, the twin pillars of American racing, both recorded record seasons for attendance and payoffs.

Bobby Rahal, Indianapolis 500 winner, became the first Indy car driver to top $1 million in a season when his earnings for 17 races reached $1,488,049. And for the first time in stock car racing history, three drivers exceeded the $1-million mark in 29 races. NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt won $1,768,880, Darrell Waltrip $1,099,735 and Bill Elliott $1,049,000.

Success does not necessarily mean sitting still, however.

Rahal, who won five races besides the 500 while driving a March chassis, will switch to a newly designed Lola. It sells for $164,000, and computer printouts indicate that it will accommodate a top speed of 235 m.p.h., if Rahal can find a place to stretch it out.

Rick Mears gave him something to shoot at when he set an Indianapolis one-lap record of 217.581 m.p.h. in a Cosworth-powered March and later established a North American closed-course record of 233.934 at Michigan International Speedway using Roger Penske’s new turbocharged Ilmor Chevrolet engine.

Despite his blazing speed, however, Mears, a two-time Indy 500 winner, failed to win a race for the first time since he joined the Indy car circuit in 1978.

Waltrip, after six years and three Winston Cup championships with Junior Johnson’s team, is leaving to join the expanding forces of Rick Hendrick, a North Carolina automobile dealer who already owns cars driven by Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine and Tim Richmond, who won seven races last season.

In the NASCAR point structure, where finishing can be almost as important as winning, Earnhardt won five races to three for runner-up Waltrip and seven for third-place finisher Richmond. The battle between Earnhardt and Waltrip, which started early in the season with an accident at Richmond in the second race that knocked out the four leading cars, went down to the 28th race before Earnhardt claimed his second title.

“Darrell and I fought like the dickens all year, but when I won he was the first to congratulate me,” Earnhardt said. “Like everybody else in NASCAR, he’s a pro, period.”

An interesting note to the NASCAR season is that teammates Bobby Allison, 49, and Bobby Hillin Jr., 22, became the oldest and youngest drivers to win a major stock car race.

The Indy car season was even closer as Rahal fought off young Michael Andretti and won the championship by eight points in the final race at Tamiami Park in Miami. The season race was almost as close as the Indy 500, where Rahal’s winning margin over Kevin Cogan of 1.4 seconds was one of the narrowest in history.

The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will open the CART/PPG Indy car season April 5. The 15-race season will have a new oval race Sept. 20 at Nazareth, Pa., where Penske and one of his drivers, Danny Sullivan, have bought the old track, renamed it Pennsylvania International Raceway and paved it to meet the standards of today’s 200-m.p.h. machinery.

Closer to home, Riverside International Raceway had one of the largest turnouts in its 29-year history for the Winston Western 500, giving track operators enough faith to keep the venerable old road racing facility open for another year before the bulldozers covert it into something else, like a shopping center.

Officials hope to break ground on a new track, most likely in Perris, a few miles south of the existing track, with an opening race in mid-1988.

Scheduled for its last running at Riverside, whatever happens to the track, is the Los Angeles Times-sponsored International Motor Sports Assn. race April 26. In 1988, the powerful prototype sports cars of IMSA are programed to race over a temporary circuit in downtown Los Angeles.

The event will have a new race director as Will Kern takes over today as director of special events at The Times, replacing Glenn Davis, who has retired.

IMSA rules makers tried to stem the steady parade of Porsches to the winner’s circle last year, but for the second straight time, Al Holbert and his Porsche 962, with cockpit help from Derek Bell, took the IMSA championship. This year, there will be newer rules with the same objective, but Holbert and his fellow Porsche drivers will most likely overcome again.

Ascot Park, which conducted 165 racing events in 1986 at its two stadiums, had its biggest financial year since 1982. Cary Agajanian, the track’s president, has been nominated for the national promoter-of-the-year award, which his father, the late J.C., received in 1977.

“There were several reasons we had a banner year,” Ascot Vice President Ben Foote said. “We had two World of Outlaws sprint car programs and we did a big week when we followed three nights of the winged sprint cars with the California Racing Assn. wingless cars in October. Our South Bay Speedway track, which was in its second season, was quite successful, especially with the U.S. vs. World Speedway match races.”

Ascot, which ran sprint cars, stock cars, dirt track motorcycles, midgets, motocross, speedway cycles, karts, bicycle motocross, mud bogs and tractor pulls, will open Feb. 21-22 with two days of the World of Outlaws, the season-opener for the nation’s largest and richest dirt track series. Steve Kinser earned an Outlaws-record $340,760 last year in winning his seventh championship.

One of motor racing’s newest events, Mickey Thompson’s Off-Road Grand Prix series, will open the 1987 season with two Saturday night programs, Jan. 10 at Anaheim Stadium and Jan. 17 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

Al Unser Jr., winner of the International Race of Champions last year, will make his stadium off-road debut driving a Jeep Comanche in the Grand National Sport Truck class.

National Hot Rod Assn. drag racing, which had an 11% increase in attendance last season despite starting off with a wet and rainy Winternationals, will open its season Jan. 19-Feb. 1 at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona with hopes of better weather for its 27th Winternationals.

Don (Snake) Prudhomme, one of drag racing’s legendary figures and a four-time funny car champion, will return after a year’s absence to drive a Pontiac Trans-Am funny car. Prudhomme, 45, sat out the 1986 season for lack of a sponsor.

Reflecting on his unplanned vacation, Prudhomme said: “I enjoyed the first couple of months but after that it was agonizing to listen to the radio about who was doing what at the races. It got really old just sitting there.”