Qualifying : Not Only Does Mario Win Pole, He Owns It

Since the first Long Beach Grand Prix in 1975, when cars raced along Ocean Boulevard and then dipped down steep Linden Avenue before sweeping along Shoreline Drive in front of the Queen Mary, there have been many changes.

The cars don’t run along Ocean Boulevard any more. The entire course is down on the flatland across from the marina, and there is a Hyatt Regency hotel in the middle of the track where the cars race through the garage.

But one thing has not changed.

Mario Andretti, as he did for the first race in 1975, is still winning the pole.

His Friday speed of 90.931 m.p.h. would have been good enough for him to be fastest qualifier for today’s $700,000 race, but just for good measure the 47-year-old grandfather went out Saturday and posted a 91.249 m.p.h. lap.

Mario also won the pole in 1984 and 1985. Both times he won the race.

The major question surrounding today’s race--95 laps around an 11-turn, 1.67-mile road circuit--is the reliability of the new Ilmor Chevrolet engine. The third and fourth fastest qualifiers, Emerson Fittipaldi and Kevin Cogan, in Pat Patrick-owned Marches, are also using the Chevy engine.

Alongside Andretti on the front row will be Roberto Guerrero, driving for the newly organized Vince Granatelli team. He qualified at 89.995.

Andretti was asked what will happen if the relatively untested Chevrolets fail to last.

“That’s where I come in,” piped up Guerrero before Andretti could answer. Guerrero is in a conventional Cosworth-powered March.

This was Guerrero’s second strong showing although the young Columbian who lives in San Juan Capistrano has yet to win an Indy car race. In the 1986 season finale at Miami, Guerrero won the pole and led 111 of the 112-lap race before running out of fuel.

Andretti, who switched from the reliable Ford Cosworth to the Chevrolet during the off-season, said that if the car runs all day the way it ran Saturday, “it would be a godsend, but I’m optimistic we can translate this edge to the race.”

Fittipaldi, the Brazilian veteran who raced Andretti in Formula One when both were winning world championships a decade ago, had his own ideas of what to do.

“I think if Mario keeps this advantage on full tanks, I will go home,” he said. “The gap of a second is too much. I don’t accept it. He is going like a rocket.”

It took Andretti 65.886 seconds to negotiate the Long Beach circuit in his tomato-red Hanna Auto Wash Lola. Guerrero took 66.806. That margin, if extended over the 95 laps, would find Andretti more about a lap and a half ahead at the race’s end.

Andretti received $5,000 from Marlboro for winning the pole and became the first entry in the end-of-season all-star race in Miami for Indy car pole winners and race winners.

“We knew that this was part of the incentive for being on the pole,” Andretti said. “It’s a nice icing on the cake for me today.”

Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr., the two second generation drivers who waged such a tense battle last year before Andretti won, will start side-by-side today on the second row.

Neither was pleased.

For a few moments during qualifying, Michael was second quickest and temporarily was positioned on the front row with his father. That was before Guerrero, Fittipaldi and Cogan got in their hot laps.

“The track is good, but the car isn’t quite there yet,” Andretti said. “I’m having to oversteer into the corners and understeer coming out. It’s better than yesterday and hopefully it will be better tomorrow.”

Unser Jr. was more to the point.

“I’m not happy with where I am right now,” he said. “I wouldn’t be happy unless I was on the pole.”

Cogan had a strange reason for improving his speed.

“I was struggling with the car and it wasn’t handling good when I tagged the wall,” he said. “It improved the handling.

“Seriously, after hitting the wall the handling was exactly what I was looking for and I went out and went a second and a half faster.”

Grand Prix Notes

This was Mario Andretti’s 22nd career Indy car road course pole position. Dan Gurney, who finished sixth in Saturday’s pro-celebrity race, is next with 10 road course poles. . . . It was the third time an Ilmor Chevy engine had been in the pole-winning car. Rick Mears qualified it on the pole last season at Sanair and Michigan. Today’s Grand Prix will start at 2 p.m. . . . The Valvoline-sponsored Bosch/Volkswagen Super Vee race will start at 10:40 a.m. . . . Paul Radisich, from New Zealand, won the Super Vee pole in Bill Simpson’s Ralt at 81.682 m.p.h., a tick ahead of Bakersfield’s Scott Atchison, who did 81.190 in another Ralt.