MOTOR RACING NOTES : Charlotte Speedway Sees the Light

The new $1.5 million lighting system that is scheduled to illuminate the 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway track for The Winston in May will be tested by NASCAR teams next month.

Charlotte officials have received permission from NASCAR to hold test sessions on the nights of April 15 and 16 -- with the 17th as a rain date. The sessions will not count as one of the seven allowable team tests.

Drivers eligible to participate in the practice include Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Davey Allison, Bill Elliott, Darrell Waltrip, Richard Petty, Kyle Petty, Ernie Irvan, Ken Schrader, Ricky Rudd, Harry Gant, Dale Jarrett, Alan Kulwicki, Geoff Bodine and Mark Martin.

The system, provided by Musco Lighting Inc., includes light poles and lights mounted on top of the grandstands on the outside of the track, as well as some unusual installations on the inside of the oval.

Bruton Smith, chairman of the board at Charlotte, said he did not want poles on the inside of the track to distract from the fans and give the appearance of a picket fence to TV viewers. He also didn’t want the lights glaring into the faces of the drivers or the fans on the outside of the oval.

Musco came up with some unique light boxes, placed about 40 feet apart all around the track. Each of the boxes is about 8 feet tall and has a system of mirrors that takes the light -- pointing directly into the air -- and reflects it where the engineers want it to go.

In this case, the light is concentrated on the track surface and on the outside wall just below the top. Musco said there will be no glare but that the drivers, running at speeds up to 190 mph, will see as well as if they were in bright daylight.

In order to test the system, Musco built a scale model of the track that turned out to be 65 feet long. After they were satisfied with the lighting on the model, the company went outside and lit a 100-foot section of their own parking lot.

Steve Hmiel, crew chief for Martin, said, “I feel confident (the speedway) has this situation under control and we can expect to find great racing conditions. If not, I know the speedway will make it right.”

The tests will be open to the public at no cost.

Among the few all-new car and engine combinations at this weekend’s season-opening Indy-car race at Surfers Paradise in Australia are the 1992 Penskes powered by brand new Chevrolet Indy V8 “B” engines, a cut down version of the powerplant that has been dominating the series in recent years.

Penske drivers Rick Mears and Emerson Fittipaldi have put more than 1,000 test miles on the new cars and things went so smooth that the team decided to go ahead and use them in Australia -- just as they did with the 1991 Penske-Chevrolets.

Officials at Penske Racing only hope the results are better this year. In 1991, Fittipaldi succumbed to an early transmission problem and Mears lost the race when his brakes failed and he crashed near the end.

And while the rest of the team is in Queensland, third driver Paul Tracy has remained in the U.S. to put more test miles on one of the new cars.

Speaking of the IndyCar opener, there has been a major difference between the inaugural Australia event and this year’s race -- no controversy.

A year ago, FISA, the world sanctioning body of auto racing, was calling the race an outlaw event and threatening reprisals.

However, no punishment was ever handed out and a deal was cut late last year, after Max Moseley took over as president of FISA, to make the race “a national event with international participation.” That made it legal under FISA rules.

When Bill Elliott won $272,700, including $197,600 from Unocal, for his victory two weeks ago at Richmond, he also won car owner Junior Johnson bonuses from Ford of $10,000 for winning the pole and $50,000 for winning the race.

If you combine all of that money, the total of $332,700 easily eclipses the $275,910 that Johnson won during his entire Hall of Fame driving career, from 1953 through 1966.

The previous record of short track winings was $95,950 by Geoff Bodine at Martinsville, Va., in April of 1990.

Ford’s current string of four straight victories at the start of the season is a record for the marque, breaking the previous mark set in 1957.

But the current string of eight straight wins, dating to last October, is nowhere close to the record Fords set before NASCAR shortened its schedule in 1971.

In 1965, Ford won the opener and Mercury took the second event -- with the late Darel Dieringer at the wheel. Fords then took 32 straight victories until Richard Petty broke the string in a Plymouth on July 31 in a 200-mile race at Nashville, Tenn.

Ford finished the 1965 season with 48 wins in 55 races. The only non-Ford drivers to win that year were Dieringer, Petty (4) and David Pearson (2).

Two-time defending Winston Cup champion Dale Earhardt is off to a relatively slow start this season, with a best finish after four races of third at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But it isn’t too late to turn things around -- yet.

In his five championship seasons, the latest that Earnhardt has won his first race was the sixth race of the season -- at Darlington -- in 1986.

In 1980, his first championship year, Earnhardt’s first victory came in the fifth race --at Atlanta; he won at Atlanta in the fourth race in 1990, and in the second race -- both at Richmond -- in 1987 and 1991.