Mears Is Up Early, Fools Field : Auto racing: Morning test pays off with easy Indy car victory in Phoenix.

Rick Mears’ caution paid off when he led the last 132 miles of the Autoworks 200 at Phoenix International Raceway Sunday.

Mears and the crew of his Pennzoil Penske Chevrolet were up at 5 a.m.--eight hours before the first Indy Car race of the year--to test the car’s engine on the runway at the nearby Goodyear Airport. Mears heard a potential problem in the engine during the final lap of Saturday’s late practice, so team owner Roger Penske called for the early morning test.

“It might have been my imagination, but at the end of practice I didn’t like the note I was hearing,” Mears said. “There wasn’t any way to explain it, but it just didn’t sound the same as it had at the start of the session.

“So we figured, what the heck, why take a chance? Let’s change (the engine). Then we had to test it at full boost to see how it ran.”

Mears made several passes down the runway, satisfied himself that the new engine was sound, and waited for the race to start.

Such tactics are vintage Penske, who stunned Indianapolis 500 old-timers in 1972 by taking his car from the track and practicing pit stops on a nearby shopping mall parking lot. The practice paid off several days later when the late Mark Donohue won the first of Penske’s eight victories there.

More recently, after running out of time during the scheduled practice session for a Long Beach Grand Prix, Penske took his cars to the parking lot of his Cadillac agency in Downey and practiced under the lights until midnight.

Once the race started, the closest thing Mears had to a problem was when Dominic Dobson looped his Lola-Cosworth in front of him going through the first turn on the 24th lap. The rear of Dobson’s car smacked the wall as Mears swept past on the bottom of the track.

Dobson was not hurt, but the car will be sent to England for repairs before the Toyota Grand Prix in Long Beach in two weeks.

“I don’t know what happened,” Dobson said. “The car just suddenly got loose and let go, all of a sudden.”

The only other incident during the 1-hour 35-minute race around the one-mile oval came when Roberto Guerrero hit the wall on lap 145 at almost the same spot where Dobson had hit earlier.

Mears, who set a qualifying record of 168.169 m.p.h. Saturday, averaged 126.291 m.p.h. for the 200-lap race. His speed was slowed by four caution flags for 32 laps. He won $88,708.

“Little Al (Unser) pulled me a little on the start, so I decided I’d just try to stay close enough that I wouldn’t get caught in traffic,” Mears said. “I wanted to see what the car would do, where it would take me, before I started to make a strong move.

“I couldn’t run as high up on the track as I did last year because of the changes in the rules, especially in traffic. When I was running alone in clean air I didn’t feel any trouble, but once I got in amongst other cars, I had to work a lot harder.”

Last year, when cars were permitted more downforce, which enables them to go faster through the corners, Mears won by more than a lap. This year, his margin was only 7.25 seconds, but that doesn’t tell his superiority. Before a late yellow flag bunched up the field behind Mears, he had nearly a mile lead over Bobby Rahal and Unser.

Rahal and Unser, the two Galles-Kraco teammates, were the only other drivers on the same lap with Mears. They were also the only other ones who led the race. Unser led for the first 26 laps and Rahal led for 62 laps, taking over when Unser pitted and surrendering the front when Mears took charge.

“I think this showed that Galles-Kraco can run a two-car team,” Unser said. “Right now, we’re ahead in the standings, but more than that, this is the culmination of a new team concept. Bobby and I have been friends for a long time, but now we’re together and it’s been my most enjoyable winter, working with Bobby. I think you’ll see us both in the winner circle before long.”

Mario Andretti and defending Indy car champion Emerson Fittipaldi finished fourth and fifth, respectively, and Eddie Cheever drove to seventh place in the first oval race of his career after driving for 10 years in Formula One.

“This is a lot more difficult that I thought, turning left all day,” Cheever said to car owner Chip Ganassi. “I’m very pleased to have passed my first test on an oval. It is very difficult physically, but I learned more in this race that I did during all the winter testing.”

Ganassi, who parted company with Pat Patrick after their Indy car championship season last year as co-owners of Fittipaldi’s car, was equally pleased.

“I had a lot of people look at me funny when I first told them I was getting Eddie to drive my car without any experience in Indy cars, especially on ovals, but I hired a pro, and he did a professional job,” Ganassi said.

The busiest man was starter Nick Fornoro, who nearly wore out his arm waving the blue and yellow “move over” flag at the lapped cars. Dean Hall was still running at the finish although he was 23 laps behind.

CART officials did pull the plug on Randy Lewis, however, for running too slow in Frank Arciero’s Buick.

“We knew we were going slow, but the car had a bad shock,” Arciero said. “We found it, and we could have fixed it, but CART wouldn’t let us back out. It’s not fair. If they stopped every car going slow, they’d have had most of them stopped.”

Kirk Russell, CART director of operations, said Lewis’ car was removed from competition because of its handling difficulties.

“Contrasted with the closing speeds of the other competitors, it made the car a navigation obstacle,” he said.

Mears could understand that. Three years ago, Mears was dominating the Phoenix race when he tried to pass Lewis for the fourth time and was knocked out of the race by the “navigation obstacle.”

A. J. Foyt, who dropped out of the Daytona 500 earlier this year when he said the glue in his helmet was making him nauseous, had another short day in the opening race of his 33rd season in Indy cars. When Foyt, 55, pitted on the 28th lap, an oil fire began in the rear of his Chevrolet-powered Lola and he had to be pulled from the cockpit.

“Something happened during the pit stop, and we burned some oil lines,” Foyt said. “We really don’t know what caused it, but before that the car was running phenomenal.”

Mears’ victory was the 27th of his Indy car career, moving him into a tie with Johnny Rutherford for fifth place. Foyt is the leader with 67, followed by Mario Andretti with 51, Al Unser Sr. with 39 and Bobby Unser with 35.