Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Fourth Straight Laguna Seca Win Would Give Rahal His Second Title

There are race tracks Bobby Rahal loves, such as Road America at Elkhart Lake, Wis., but on which he never seems to do well. There also are tracks he hates--he would rather not identify them--where he always seems to have success.

Then there is the ideal situation, a track he likes and on which he has remarkable success. That would be Laguna Seca Raceway, the 1.9-mile, nine-turn jewel set in the hills near Monterey.

Rahal has won the last three Indy car races at Laguna Seca, and another win Sunday in the 30th annual Nissan Monterey Grand Prix would clinch his second straight PPG Cup drivers’ championship for Indy cars. In fact, he doesn’t even need to win. All he needs to do is finish no more than two positions behind Michael Andretti, his only challenger, to sew up the $300,000 first prize before the season’s final race Nov. 1 at Miami.

“I really like the circuit,” Rahal said of Laguna Seca. “If you can get the car working well, which we’ve been fortunate to do the last few years, the race goes by so quickly that you barely realize it’s happening. Our whole team has a good feeling about the place. We seem to hit it right on the nose in getting the right set-up for the car. It’s a tough track to pass on, so it’s important to have the car the way you want it.”

Rahal also enjoys having Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and other assorted golf courses close at hand.

“I got my invitation to the Crosby again,” he said, ignoring the official name of the PGA event (AT&T; National Pro-Am) next February on the Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and Spyglass Hill courses. “This time I’m going to be there--no matter what.”

Last year, as the Indianapolis 500 champion as well as the national driving champion, Rahal was invited to play last year, but he had to decline.

“The new Lolas were a week late coming from England last year,” Rahal said. “That was the week I had free for the Crosby. I make my living driving a race car, not driving a golf ball, so I went testing. This year, though, I told (team manager) Steve Horne that I was going to the tournament, and he’ll have to schedule any tests around it.”

Rahal keeps his game in shape on Jack Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village course in Dublin, Ohio, where his home overlooks the 17th fairway.

One unusual factor last year was that Horne’s TrueSports team was making a radical change, switching from the March chassis that won Indy to an untested Lola. That decision, Rahal believes, is the reason for his comfortable position 25 points ahead of Andretti with two races remaining. Last year his winning margin was eight points, also over the younger Andretti, after a tense finale in Miami.

“The Lola is a very well-built car, and it was delivered that way,” Rahal said. “With the March, we had to spend half the year trying to figure out what it took to get it bullet-proof. With the Lola, the reliability has been fabulous, right from the start. Consequently, we’ve been in the hunt nearly every race.

“We’ve been in a position to win more races than last year, but strange things keep happening to keep us from winning. But we’re consistently high finishers.”

Rahal has won two races, consecutively at Portland and the Meadowlands, and has five seconds, two thirds and a fifth in 13 starts.

“With reliability like that, you can take a fifth place and it’s not terminal to your championship hopes,” he said. “I want to wrap it up Sunday, though, and not have to sweat out Miami.”

Rahal has 162 points to 137 for Andretti, who won his third race two weeks ago on the new one-mile oval in Nazareth, Pa., the Andretti clan’s hometown. The maximum number of points a driver can win in one event is 22, getting 20 for winning the race and one each for winning the pole and leading the most laps.

Mario Andretti is the only other front-runner who drives a Lola on the Indy car circuit, although veteran Dick Simon, Derek Daly and Jeff Wood each will have one at Laguna Seca. Twenty-one of the 22 other cars entered are Marches.

The lone outsider is a Porsche, which, if it runs, will be making its debut in Indy car competition after many years of dominating sports car racing. Al Unser, who won the Indy 500 in a Roger Penske-owned March, will drive the Porsche.

Rahal had been rumored as a candidate to drive the Porsche next season, but he ended that talk by signing a new contract with True-Sports.

Rahal drove a Porsche 962 to victory last Sunday in the Columbus Ford Dealers 500, an International Motor Sports Assn. GT race through the streets of Columbus, Ohio. It was Rahal’s third win in five races driving Bruce Leven’s car and he may alter his late October schedule.

“Winning at Columbus moved me up to fourth place in the IMSA standings, so now I may have to drive Leven’s car at Del Mar in the final race to get the points money,” he said. “I’m supposed to be in St. Louis that day, making a personal appearance, but maybe I can make some sort of a switch.”

The Del Mar race is set for Oct. 25 on a temporary course built at the Del Mar fairgrounds.

SUPERMODIFIEDS--Billy Vukovich, grandson of two-time Indy 500 winner Bill Vukovich, has won 12 of 16 United States Auto Club supermodified races this season to run away with the championship, but he will be out for win No. 13 when the season concludes Saturday night with a 40-lap race at Saugus Speedway. Vukovich, in the Spirit of Madera, has also been fast qualifier on 12 occasions, including the last four races. Mike Swanson of Kingsburg, who won last May at Saugus and since has had eight second-place finishes, has the runner-up position clinched, but Bob Bigiogni of Soledad and Bob Tartaglia of Reedley will race for third place Saturday night. They are tied. Also on the season-closing show at Saugus will be the Miller American 100 for NASCAR sportsman drivers.

MIDGETS--Ron (Sleepy) Tripp, who year after year proves himself to be one of the finest midget racing drivers in the world, will be going for his sixth straight main event win Sunday night at Ascot Park when USAC’s Western States series returns to the quarter-mile dirt oval. Tripp, a two-time national champion, is nearing his third regional title in the last five years. He is also approaching another USAC record of seven straight wins in the same division, a feat accomplished by A. J. Foyt in Indy cars in 1964 and by Billy Vukovich in supermodifieds this season. Tripp’s last two wins, at Santa Maria and Raven Raceway in Tucson, enabled him to extend his lead over Rusty Rasmussen, 887 to 857. The USAC three-quarter midget series will continue Friday night at Ventura Raceway and then join the full midgets for Ascot’s Sunday night program.

SPRINT CARS--Mike Sweeney, who led most of the season in the Parnelli Jones Firestone/California Racing Assn. series, lost his ride in Frank Lewis’ sprint car last week but climbed into a car owned by former CRA champion Billy Wilkerson and managed to stay close to defending champion Brad Noffsinger. Sweeney finished eighth, maintaining his position only 16 points behind Noffsinger with seven races remaining, including Saturday night’s main event at Ascot Park. If the pro football strike doesn’t end, Raider quarterback Rusty Hilger will be working in the pits for Greg Wooley of Oklahoma City Saturday night. Wooley was awarded last week’s race when apparent winner Eddie Wirth was penalized two laps for cutting through the infield to pass a lapped car.

MOTORCYCLES--The $356,000 Suzuki GSX-R National Cup season will conclude this weekend at Riverside International Raceway with 64 riders competing in championship-determining races for 750cc and 1100cc motorcycles. Doug Polen, 27, of Denton, Tex., is a heavy favorite to win both races. Last year Polen won the 750cc race and was runner-up in the 1100cc class. Qualifying events will be run Saturday, with 18-lap championship races for both classes Sunday.

MOTOCROSS--The CMC Trans Cal series will be at Baylands Raceway in Fremont Sunday, then will conclude Oct. 18 at Carlsbad Raceway. In the meantime, weekly CMC racing will continue Friday nights at Ascot Park.

SPORTS CARS--The Bob Tullius-prepared Jaguar, which was retired after winning the Grand Prix of Palm Beach last June, is being brought out of retirement by Performance Jaguar of San Diego to race in the Camel GP of Southern California Oct. 25 at Del Mar. The same car also won the Times GP at Riverside last April with Hurley Heywood and John Morton driving.

OFF-ROAD--With Mickey Thompson having canceled his closed-course Gran Prix at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds in Pomona, cars and ATVs will get an opportunity to compete Sunday at Glen Helen OHV Park near San Bernardino.

LAND SPEED RECORD--Juris Mindenbergs, of Redmond, Wash., drove an ’85 Corvette coupe through a flying mile at an FIA-approved world record 256.751 m.p.h. at Bonneville Salt Flats, breaking the 19-year-old mark of 188 m.p.h. set by Mickey Thompson in a Mustang. In the unlimited class, a lack of high-speed tires cost Al Teague of San Gabriel a chance at a record. Teague’s tires began shredding at 370 m.p.h. and he shut off.