They Have Designs on Victory : Long Beach Grand Prix: Michael Andretti is driving one of five Indy cars with a slimmer look and faster speeds.

Five Indy cars in Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will be slimmer, with a lower profile and more compact design than their more conventional competition.

Two are Penskes, driven by Rick Mears and Emerson Fittipaldi, and are powered by a new generation Chevrolet Indy V-8, called the Chevy B. The other three are Lolas, two for the Andrettis, Michael and Mario, and one for Eddie Cheever, with new Ford-Cosworth engines.

The changes were made possible after the British builders of Chevrolet and Ford engines developed much smaller and lighter power plants that enabled design engineers to drop and narrow the profile of the 200-m.p.h. Indy cars.

It was a daring decision to switch to an unproved Ford-Cosworth for the Newman-Haas team because Michael Andretti had won a record eight races and the PPG Cup championship last year driving a Chevrolet-powered Lola. Carl Haas, however, is interested in staying ahead of the competition and it’s hard to stay ahead when you are using what everyone else is, thus his switch to the Ford power.

“A designer of racing engines can never be satisfied with what he did yesterday,” said Mario Illien of Ilmor Engineering, designers and builders of the Chevy engines. “We really started thinking about the V-8B shortly after the present engine began to win consistently.”

The Chevy V-8A engine, which was introduced in 1986 at Phoenix, had won 36 consecutive races, including all 17 pole positions and races last season, before its streak was broken in this year’s opening race when Fittipaldi drove the V-8B to victory at Surfers Paradise in Australia.

It was the first time in modern Indy car history that a new engine design won in its race debut.

“The new engine, because of its configuration, allowed us to lower the car and the driver’s position in the car,” explained Nigel Bennett, designer of the Penske chassis. “The benefit of these changes has given us more efficient air flow for speed on the ovals and more downforce on the road and street circuits.”

Eighty percent of the major components in the new Chevy engine, including cylinder head, inlet system and cylinder block, are not interchangeable with the V-8A engine.

There is an adage in racing, however, that “New cars go fast, old cars win races.”

Fittipaldi and Mears, with their one-two finish in Australia, dispelled that theory, at least temporarily.

Bobby Rahal, driving a conventional Lola with the V-8A engine, evened the score between old and new when he led from start to finish last Sunday at Phoenix.

“There is something to be said for the tried and true,” Rahal said. “I think we proved there was something left in the old lady.”

After Friday’s first day of qualifying for Sunday’s race, the newer cars had five of the top eight speeds.

Michael Andretti covered the new--shorter and less difficult--Long Beach street circuit in his slim-line Lola with a Ford-Cosworth engine at a record 105.633 m.p.h. Second was Scott Pruett in a Truesports chassis, the only American-built car among the 22 qualifiers. Pruett averaged 105.606 with a Chevy V-8A engine.

“We’ve been thrashing,” Andretti said. “We didn’t get the car from England until Monday, and we tested about 200 laps Tuesday and Wednesday at Firebird (near Phoenix) before bringing it to Long Beach.”

The engine, however, had been well tested. Mario Andretti ran a 500-mile simulated race test, complete with pit stops and yellow caution periods, at Texas World Speedway, and Michael ran more than 550 miles at Laguna Seca in a two-day Goodyear tire test.

“The new Ford-Cosworth engine was actually proven to the point it was ready to race a year ago, but we had no package for it until this season,” said Michael Kranefuss, Ford’s worldwide director of racing.

Although this is the third race of the Indy car season, the newly packaged Lola-Ford has been in only one race, driven by Mario Andretti at Phoenix, where he qualified third but dropped out after 111 miles because of gearbox problems.

Cheever’s second-place finish behind Rahal at Phoenix was with a year-old Lola and the new Ford-Cosworth engine.

Cheever was eighth in first-day qualifying at Long Beach with a 103.840-m.p.h. lap.

“The total package is what makes the difference,” Cheever said. “The smaller engine allowed the engineers to design a neater package.”

Bruce Ashmore, chief designer for Lola Cars, explained what was done:

“From a design perspective, the most important aspect was to maximize the smaller aerodynamic envelope made possible by the engine. In this car, the driver sits in the middle, and that dimension is the biggest part of the chassis envelope. In the (older) car, the engine is the biggest part.

“The problem became where to fit the pieces into the car, because the bottom came up and the top came down (because of the engine’s profile). It is the most complex design I’ve ever done.”

The return of Ford to Indy car racing after an absence of more than 20 years has even Chevrolet officials applauding.

“The best thing that can happen for Chevrolet, for race fans and for the sport is to have more than one competitive engine available so there can be the same kind of close competition between engines as there is now between chasses, drivers and teams,” said Frank Ellis, Chevrolet manager of motorsports marketing.

Mears and Fittipaldi, speaking from the driver’s perspective, agreed.

Mears: “I think it’s great for the series to get a bit of rivalry. It’s good for everybody.”

Fittipaldi: “It is good for the future because it gives an alternative for new teams. It is good for everyone, the fans, the drivers . . . the sponsors and the promoters. I think that all adds up to good.”

* QUALIFYING RACES

Michael Andretti, driving a new Lola-Ford, wins the provisional pole with a fast lap of 105.633 m.p.h. C8