Mears Beats Weather, Foyt Beats the Odds : Indy qualifying: A day after a crash, Bakersfield driver wins pole. He starts next to Texan recovering from his own wreck.

While some of Indy-car racing’s fastest drivers lost out in a cat-and-mouse game with the weather Saturday, reliable Rick Mears came back from a crash a day earlier to steal the pole for the Indianapolis 500, despite a rather disappointing speed of 224.113 m.p.h.

Mears drove a backup Penske-Chevy after his primary car was severely damaged when a wheel nut loosened and he hit the wall during practice Friday. It was the first time in 14 years of racing at Indy that the Bakersfield veteran had as much as spun on the 2 1/2-mile track.

A.J. Foyt, looking nothing like a 56-year-old recovering from painful feet and leg injuries that kept him out of a race car for six months, gave an appreciative crowd of 200,500 a moment to remember when he ran 222.443 m.p.h. to earn a spot on the middle of the front row. Foyt, who has said this will be his last Indy 500, was so taken by his accomplishment that he hinted he might try to make it 35 in a row next year.

Another aging legend, Mario Andretti, 51, filled out the front row for the 75th Indy 500 on May 26 with a 221.818 m.p.h. speed. Twelve drivers qualified and one-third of the field so far is named Andretti.

There is one member of the family on each of the first four rows--Mario on the front, son Michael (220.943) on the second row, nephew John (219.059) on the third and son Jeff (217.632), the only first-day rookie qualifier, on the fourth row.

Missing from the first-day qualifiers are three who had been favorites for the pole: Emerson Fittipaldi, Mears’ teammate and the track record-holder, who had the month’s fastest lap in practice at 226.705; Kevin Cogan, whose 226.677 was second fastest; and defending champion Arie Luyendyk.

Fittipaldi’s run was called off after three laps, even though his speed at the time of 223 m.p.h. would have placed him in the front row. Cogan, who had hoped to put a Buick-powered car on the pole for the first time since 1985, failed to finish his first lap. Luyendyk never turned a lap.

After Mears posted his time at 1 p.m., only Eddie Cheever, Al Unser Jr. and John Andretti qualified during the remaining five hours that the track was open. At first, Fittipaldi, Cogan & Co. chose to wait and watch the sky as the sun played peekaboo with the clouds.

“When the sun is out it pulls the oil up from the asphalt, the track gets slippery and can take three miles an hour off lap times,” said Leo Mehl, director of worldwide racing for Goodyear Tire Co. “No one wanted to take their test when the sun was out.”

Then, when the sun finally went into hiding, it began to drizzle and the waiting game ended in frustration. Even if all the fast cars that failed to qualify Saturday run faster than Mears today or next weekend, no one can start higher than the fifth row in the 500. The position of first-day qualifiers is set.

Penske said he made the decision to call Fittipaldi in.

“There was still over an hour left, and I was afraid Luyendyk or one of the Buicks might beat Rick’s time if the weather turned better. And if they did, I wanted Emmo to have another chance to get the pole,” Penske said. “It just didn’t turn out that way, but we have the pole anyway.”

It was Mears’ sixth pole, breaking his own record. He will collect the PPG Cup award of $100,000 before qualifying resumes today.

But the man most people were talking about when trials ended was Foyt, the first driver to qualify. When he pulled away in his black and red Lola-Chevy, the crowd let out a cheer that could probably be heard all the way to his Houston home.

Driving with the same style that has brought him four Indy 500 victories, four poles and 33 consecutive starts here, Foyt improved his time for each of his four laps.

When reminded that his speed was 79.313 m.p.h. faster than he qualified for the first time in 1958, Foyt grinned and said: “That first year was a hell of a lot harder than it was today. I guarantee you my blood pressure was up a lot more back then.”

A month ago, few of Foyt’s friends thought he would be able to drive here because of the injuries he received in an accident last September at Elkhart Lake, Wis. He canceled plans to drive at Phoenix three weeks ago in what was to have been an Indy tuneup.

“I had mixed emotions when I came here the first day (last Monday) to test myself, because I think I had so much damn pain then that I wasn’t really worried. But then, after the pain was gone a little, I wondered did I really want to run that fast and take a chance of busting my . . . again.

“I ain’t gonna lie to you, I had to talk to myself a little bit the first couple of days.”

There remains the question of whether Foyt can drive 500 miles.

“We gotta cross that bridge when we get there,” he said. “I really feel, from the waist up, there’ll be no problem. I really feel like I can go the distance, or I wouldn’t have qualified the car.

“I’m really not looking at this as my last race. Tony George (Speedway president) said this morning, ’35 looks a lot better than 34.’ Maybe he’s right.”

Having four Andrettis in the May 26 race will be a family record for the 500. Three Whittingtons, Don, Bill and Dale, ran in 1982, and there were three Andrettis last year.

“I’m on cloud nine,” Jeff Andretti said. “I’m happy I was able to help set family history after coming so close last year.”

The youngest of Mario’s sons was bumped from the starting field on the final day of qualifying in 1990 and was next in line for a second chance when the gun sounded ending time trials.

Partial Indianapolis 500 Lineup FIRST ROW

No. Driver (Home), Car-Eng. Speed 3 Rick Mears (Bakersfield), Penske-Chevy 224.113 14 A.J. Foyt (Houston), Lola-Chevy 222.443 6 Mario Andretti (Nazareth, Pa.), Lola-Chevy 221.818

SECOND ROW

No. Driver (Home), Car-Eng. Speed 18 Bobby Rahal (Dublin, Ohio), Lola-Chevy 221.401 10 Michael Andretti (Nazareth, Pa.), Lola-Chevy 220.943 2 Al Unser Jr. (Albuquerque, N.M.), Lola-Chevy 219.823

THIRD ROW

No. Driver (Home), Car-Eng. Speed 4 John Andretti (Indianapolis), Lola-Chevy 219.059 26 Jim Crawford (Scotland), Lola-Buick 218.947 20 Danny Sullivan (Vail, Colo.), Lola-Alfa Romeo 218.343

FOURTH ROW

No. Driver (Home), Car-Eng. Speed 8 Eddie Cheever (Vail, Colo.), Lola-Chevy 218.122 86 *Jeff Andretti (Nazareth, Pa.), Lola-Cosworth 217.632 15 Scott Goodyear (Canada), Lola-Judd 216.751

*--Rookie. Average speed of field--219.930 (33-car qualifying record, 217.437, 1990)