Long Beach Grand Prix Notebook : Rahal Is Still Steaming Over Crash at Phoenix

There is a simmering feud between 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal and 38-year-old rookie Bernard Jourdain of Mexico City after their collision in the CART opener at Phoenix last week.

The television coverage didn’t show the incident, only Rahal--usually mild-mannered--rushing over to accost Jourdain in his car immediately afterward.

“I was lapping him for the fourth time and he wouldn’t give me any room (to pass),” Rahal said Friday. “All of a sudden I could see him starting to race me, going deeper and deeper into the corners. Finally, he just turned into (turn) three and lost it. I tried to evade him and he came back up into me.”

Jourdain’s version: “He wasn’t fast enough to pass me at that instant because he was on my back, like he said, for four laps, and all the other guys like the Andrettis were passing me every time they were catching me.

“After three or four laps, yeah, I start again to race because he could have passed. I am here to race. All of a sudden I lose the car and I hit the wall.

“I think that he’s so used to pass easy the other (slow) drivers that he was (frustrated) because he couldn’t pass me. Sometimes it happens, even to the best drivers.”

Rahal said after Friday: “I see he’s already crashed here, so the guy’s a squirrel.”

A family affair: Long Beach’s Max Jones, 34, has raced all over the country in IMSA and SCCA competition and has seen every Long Beach Grand Prix since the event started in 1975.

He runs a car repair business--Datsun Alley--17 blocks from the street circuit and says: “When the cars are running you can hear ‘em from there.”

But he has never raced in his hometown--hadn’t even driven around the track--until practice started Friday for today’s Escort Trans-Am race.

“I’d come down and walk through the garages, look at the cars,” Jones said. “I always wanted to run here, real bad, but I had never had the money to buy a ride.”

Now he doesn’t need it. For the last three years Jones has been the teammate of La Canada’s Tom Kendall--last year in Chevrolet team Berettas when Kendall won his third straight IMSA GTU title, with Jones third. This year they have stepped up to Trans-Am in beefed-up Berettas, which brought them to Long Beach.

Both drivers insist that the team stuff stops when the green flag drops.

“We’ve never had team orders,” Jones said.

The only exceptions, Jones said, are situations in which one driver’s car isn’t competitive or one could hurt the other’s points standing without benefiting himself.

In a race last season, Jones said: “I was running right behind Tom, one-two, but I had lost my throttle return spring and had to lift the throttle with my toe. It was tough driving like that, so I told my crew (on the radio), ‘Tell Tom I’m not gonna challenge him.’ ”

Kendall’s father Chuck also will be driving in today’s race. Three of his crew are from Jones’ shop.

“He gave me some team orders at home,” Tom said. “He told Max he was gonna let him by but he wasn’t gonna let me by.”

Add Tom Kendall: He said he was pulled over for speeding by the California Highway Patrol recently.

“It struck me later that Saturday I’ll be going 160, 170 (m.p.h.) down Shoreline Drive, and they’ll be standing there holding the crowds back,” Kendall said.

Who’s who or who’s that?: Comedian Jay Leno, noting a lineup for today’s Pro/Celebrity Race that includes Walter Payton, actors Danny Glover, Kelsey Grammer, Ricky Schroeder, Brian Wimmer and himself:

“If we’re a half-hour from Hollywood and this is the best we can do for celebrities . . . good thing this race isn’t in New Jersey.”

Trans-Am: Irv Hoerr of Peoria, Ill., driving an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, led the qualifying for today’s race at 77.864 m.p.h.

Hoerr also started near the front last year but was taken out by actor Paul Newman in the first turn of the first lap, losing a lap and much of his bodywork.

“I was totally blind-sided,” Hoerr said Friday of the ’88 incident. “I had no idea he was there.”

Hoerr came back to place second behind Paul Gentilozzi of Lansing, Mich., the second-fastest qualifier Friday at 77.815 in an Olds. Newman isn’t competing this year.

The five fastest cars were locked into their qualifying spots, but the others can improve their positions to sixth in this morning’s final session. Kendall stood seventh at 76.377, Jones 10th at 75.631.

Third-fastest qualifier Dorsey Schroeder of St. Louis (Mustang, 77.741) said, “The guys with proven cars were fastest.”