Busted Axle Doesn’t Break the Spirit of Second-Place Robinson : Del Mar: Finishing behind teammate Geoff Brabham for the season driving championship doesn’t take luster of Robinson’s best year.

Driving championship or not, Chip Robinson was not about to let an ironic twist of fate ruin an otherwise outstanding year.

Robinson went the entire International Motor Sports Assn. season without a serious engine mishap on his Nissan GTP-ZXT. He finished in the top 10 in all 14 starts.

But when Robinson needed his car most--on the last day of the IMSA season with the Camel GTP driving title on the line--it shafted him, literally.

With Sunday’s two-hour race on the 1.62-mile Del Mar course more than two-thirds over and Robinson in seventh place, a part of his car’s axle, called the halfshaft, broke.

“This track is really rough and we took some real punishment,” Robinson said. “I guess the axle just couldn’t take all the bumps.”

Earlier, on lap 13, Robinson, who began the race in sixth position, was forced to change all four tires.

“The right-front tire went down after some rough turns,” he said.

Holding on to his four-point lead over Nissan teammate Geoff Brabham would have been a difficult task. Brabham was five spots ahead of him, but Robinson’s car troubles ended the suspense.

Still, seven wins in 15 starts and a second place in the drivers’ standings--worth $75,000--isn’t bad for a guy who entered the year with only four career wins.

“I’ve had a great year,” Robinson said. “I have no complaints. I really don’t have any bad feelings about it. We did the best we could.

“When you work with a team that has been as reliable as this team has been all year, how could you complain,” said Robinson, 35, who began his racing career at 17 as an IMSA mechanic.

Brabham finished the year with 230 points for his second consecutive GTP championship, which was worth $150,000. Robinson, who did not score any points Sunday, had 219.

Robinson said there is even some irony in finishing second to his Nissan teammate.

“I’d kind of gotten the lead because of Geoff’s misfortune earlier,” said Robinson, referring to engine problems that forced Brabham out of two earlier races.

Brabham, who finished second in the Grand Prix to Jan Lammers, said Robinson’s retirement definitely changed his perspective on winning the race.

“When Chip went out, I knew all I had to do was finish,” Brabham said. “I kind of lost my aggressiveness, though it still would have been nice to win $80,000.”

Which is what Lammers bagged for winning his second consecutive Del Mar Grand Prix.

Pole sitter Wayne Taylor’s day was fairly similar to Robinson’s, except Taylor did not have a $75,000 check to show for his efforts. Just the $3,000 he collected for gaining the pole and $2,500 for the race.

After 30 minutes of racing, Taylor dropped into second place, 5.7 seconds behind Spice Engineering teammate Bob Earl. Soon after, Taylor began experiencing gear box problems.

Three minutes later, Taylor was forced to hand over the driving responsibilities to his teammate, Scott Atchison, when his arm cramped.

“I thought it would go away, but my arm kept cramping,” Taylor said.”I didn’t want to risk crashing the car so I got out.”

Some 40 minutes later, Atchison dropped out because of valve problems on the Pontiac Spice SE89.