MOTOR RACING / LAGUNA SECA : Mears Becomes Winningest Indy-Car Driver of the ‘80s

In the last Indy-car race of the 1980s, Rick Mears became the winningest driver of the decade by winning the Champion Spark Plug 300 kilometer race Sunday at Laguna Seca Raceway.

The season finale, held before a packed crowd that swarmed over the 2.214-mile hillside course on the Monterey Peninsula, was Mears’ 20th victory in 10 years, one more than Bobby Rahal.

“I feel good about being driver of the decade,” said Mears, 37, of Bakersfield. “I know when Rahal won at Meadowlands to pull even with me, I thought it would be nice to win one more before he did.”

It was also Mears’ first road race victory since 1982 when he won at Riverside International Raceway.

“Outside of trying to win the Indianapolis 500, the most important goal of the year for my crew and myself was to win on a road course,” Mears said. “We have been close before, but this week everything fell into place. When we won the pole (at a record-breaking 110.168 m.p.h.), we had a feeling we could win the race, too.”

Mears won six road races before a crippling injury to his feet in 1984 sidelined him for a season--a setback he has been battling to overcome since returning to full-time racing in 1986.

Mears’ margin over runner-up Mario Andretti, who went winless this year for the first time since 1982, was 1.846 seconds, the narrowest margin of the 15-race Championship Auto Drivers Team season.

Neither Mears nor Andretti felt the closeness of the finish was a true indication of the way the race was run.

Mears: “I ran a consistent pace until the last 10 laps when I started backing down to make sure I didn’t run out of fuel, like what happened at Portland. I wasn’t really concerned, but I had enough cushion to back off, just to be safe. We were helped by the two long yellows (caution periods).”

Andretti: “I knew while I was chasing him that he was not in trouble, but I also knew that things can happen, and if something happened, I wanted to be as close as possible to take advantage of it.”

Mears’ margin over Andretti was as much as nine seconds before he backed off the throttle.

Al Unser Jr., who won $252,000 Saturday in the Marlboro Challenge, finished third and pocketed another $39,500.

Mears won $68,160, which included $5,000 for winning the pole on Friday.

After Unser were Scott Pruett, CART champion Emerson Fittipaldi, Rahal, Michael Andretti and Kevin Cogan--all on the same lap with Mears.

Fittipaldi clinched the championship when he won two weeks ago at Nazareth, Pa., after Mears made a miscue on his final pit stop and left the pits while the fuel vent hose was still connected. The hose was torn from the car and a crewman knocked down, causing Mears to be black-flagged and lose the lead.

The incident gave Fittipaldi, a former two-time world Formula One champion from Brazil, enough points to assure himself the $400,000 championship bonus. Mears will collect $250,000 for second place when PPG Cup payoffs are made at the CART awards ceremony tonight.

“Looking back on it, I know that hurt, but you never know how things would work out,” Mears said. “I know I’m proud we came back and got the maximum 22 points out of Laguna Seca (20 for winning the race and one each for winning the pole and leading the most laps).”

Fittipaldi finished with 196 points to 186 for Mears.

“I think this has been the most competitive season I have ever seen in Indy cars,” said Mario Andretti, who drove his first race in 1964. “This is the last race of the season and we had 35 cars here, 14 of them finished and eight were on the winner’s lap. That’s a great achievement.”

Teo Fabi, the Porsche driver from Italy, sustained a minor concussion and a compression fracture of a vertebrae when he spun into the wall along the north side of Laguna Seca’s picturesque infield lake.

“Fabi was slightly confused, but his vital signs were good and there was no evidence of chest injury,” said Dr. Steven Olney, medical director of the Horton Safety Team.

Fabi was taken to Community Hospital in Monterey where he will be fitted for a neck brace today after remaining overnight for observation.

It was the second setback of the day for Fabi.

Before the race, he and Rahal were fined for incidents that occured during the final lap of Saturday’s 100-mile race.

Rahal was fined for deliberately blocking Fabi as they reached the finish line in a race for third place. Fabi was fined and also placed on probation for the first five races next year for passing Rahal after the finish line and braking abruptly in front of him.

“Teo was placed on probation because he chose to take punitive matters in his own hands on the race track,” CART director of competition Wally Dallenbach said.

Mike Groff of Northridge won the American Racing Series championship when he finished second to Johnny O’Connell of Saratoga, Calif., in the season’s final race. Groff won four of the 12 races to edge Tommy Byrne of Ireland in the series designed to prepare young drivers for Indy cars.

P.J. Jones, son of 1962 Indianapolis winner Parnelli Jones, finished third in the 34-lap race.