Robinson Needs Miracle to Win GT Title

The bottom line is Chip Robinson must win. There’s no way around it, just as there is no easy way around the 1.62-mile road racing course at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

Robinson and the International Motor Sports Assn. have come to where the turf meets the surf for the fourth Camel Grand Prix of Greater San Diego, the last stop on the 15-city tour.

To win the title, Robinson, who trails Nissan teammate Geoff Brabham, must win his third Grand Touring Prototype race of the year and Brabham, the two-time defending GT champion and winner of five races this season, must finish out of the top 10. A race victory is worth 20 points and Robinson, the 1987 GT champion, trails by 19, 188-169. They are the only two who can win the championship for the turbo-charged GTPs.

“(The GT championship) means a tremendous amount to me and my career,” Robinson said. “I can’t begin to say how much. Geoff has won the championship for two years for Nissan. I think the momentum has been with him, and for me to win would be a pretty dramatic upset.”

He paused, then said, “I’d like that.”

Robinson, 36, has won twice this season, at Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Miami, and finished second six times.

But Sunday, in the 1 hour, 45 minute feature race that begins at 2:05 p.m., second place won’t be good enough.

“This is a very competitive series and the only thing you can do is go out and run hard the whole day,” Robinson said. “There are some great drivers out here--my teammate Geoff, Juan Manuel Fangio II, Davy Jones--you can’t give those guys an inch. You give up a little bit and it’s so hard to get it back.”

Besides Brabham, Fangio and Jones, the race features GT Series non-regulars John Andretti, Martin Brundle and Al Unser Jr., who is coming off six Indy-car victories this season and competing at Del Mar for the first time. Unser figures to make his presence known to Robinson.

Though Unser will make it interesting, much attention will be directed toward Robinson, Brabham and the quest for the $150,000 that goes to the GT championship winner.

For the second year in a row, they have won the manufacturer’s championship for Kas Kastner’s Nissan team. And for the second year in a row, they are running one-two entering the season finale. Last year, Robinson led Brabham by four points, 219-215, but broke a driveshaft on the 59th lap and finished 17th. Brabham finished second and took the money.

But Robinson’s chances of returning the favor are practically nil. It would take a virtual miracle. And he knows it.

“I hate to be this brazen about it, and in a lot of ways I feel like it is, but it’s a little like the U.S. hockey team beating the Russians in the Olympics,” Robinson said. “Whoever thought that that would happen?”

Not Brabham, whose worst finish this year is fifth.

“The odds are in my favor, there’s no question about it,” Brabham said. “That’s the way I like it, too.”

Brabham, 38, said the Chevrolet-powered Spices are better suited to the race, and it will be tough for either member of the Nissan team to reach Victory Lane.

“But,” he said, “(Robinson) will throw caution to the wind and try to win. I’m glad I’m not in that position and glad that he is.”

It didn’t have to be that way.

Had IMSA scored its races this season the way it will in 1991--with the driver who starts the race being the only one who can earn GT championship points--Brabham might be chasing Robinson.

At the season’s sixth race, the Camel Grand Prix of the Heartland in Topeka, Kan., Nissan unveiled its 1990 GTP, the NPT-90, and handed it over to Brabham and teammate Derek Daly to get it up to racing specifications. The plan called for Daly to begin the races with Brabham relieving. But, whenever the new prototype experienced problems with Daly driving, Nissan put Brabham in Robinson’s car, a durable 1988 prototype, the GTP-88, so both Brabham and Robinson could earn points.

Twice that happened, at Topeka, where Robinson and Brabham each earned 15 points for second place, and at Lime Rock, Conn., where they both earned 12 points for third. At Miami in February, before Nissan debuted its new prototype, Brabham co-drove with Robinson and they won, each earning 20 points. The other GTP-88, with Daly, finished 10th.

“That was the insurance policy,” Brabham said. “If I was going to be scheduled to ride the new car, I wasn’t going to start. If you start a car and it doesn’t finish, you don’t get the points. That’s why I never started.

“There’s no question Chip has had a better run from a mechanical point of view. I’ve had quite a few little problems.”

Among them:

--Electrical problems at Watkins Glen, where the NPT-90 was not raced.

--Throttle and oil cooler problems at Portland in July, when it did not finish.

--Split an intercooler near the end of the race in San Antonio, but finished third.

The only way Brabham won’t crack the top 10 is if his ride breaks down. It’s happened in the past. But can it happen again?

“Absolutely,” Robinson said. “Absolutely. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. I’m real confident that way. My car has been very reliable and I have all the faith in the world in my crew guys.

“You hate to say it, but (a breakdown) is what it’s going to take for me to win the championship.”

Brabham: “The problem race-car drivers have is that a lot of things happen that are totally out of their control. If my car broke, there’s nothing I can do about that. You don’t hear about Ivan Lendl not winning Wimbledon because the strings of his racket broke. If that happens, it just happens.”

Brabham will be careful not to push his GTP too much, though. To wrap up the GT championship in Tampa, all he needed to do was finish one spot behind Robinson. Instead, he tried to win the race. During a squall with about 10 laps to go, his aggressiveness cost him. He hit a fence, went from first place to fifth and Robinson moved from fifth to second.

“I’m going to be less aggressive than Chip will be,” said Brabham, who must complete 70% of the race to score points. “I imagine he’ll be going for it. I’ll hang close until I feel safe and score my points, then mount a late-race charge. I must go into this race thinking the championship is No. 1.”

Auto Racing Notes

Chip Robinson was the pole-sitter at Del Mar in 1987, when he drove Al Holbert’s Porsche 962, but completed only 10 laps and finished 23rd. In 1988, a few weeks after Holbert’s death in an airplane crash, Robinson did not compete at Del Mar out of respect for the five-time GT champion and all-time race winner. Last year, with the four-point lead over Geoff Brabham, a broken driveshaft stuck him in 17th place and cost him the GT championship. . . . Some of the drivers participated in a local bowling tournament Thursday to raise funds for the local Big Brothers/Big Sisters chapter. Chip Robinson is a national spokesman . . . The GT championship is the only one that hasn’t been decided. Tomas Lopez, in a Buick Spice, has already secured the Camel Lights title and Buick has won the manufacturer’s championship. . . . Dorsey Schroeder has clinched the GTO championship in a Lincoln Mercury Cougar and Mercury has won the manufacturer’s title. Schroeder, who crashed last week in a race in St. Petersburg, Fla., is expected to compete this weekend. If not, he will be replaced by teammate Max Jones on the Roush Racing team . . . The GTU champion is Lance Stewart in a Mazda MX-6, Mazda winning manufacturer’s honors.