INDIANAPOLIS 500 / DAILY REPORT : Allison Takes Stock and Is Impressed

Davey Allison, the Daytona 500 winner and Winston Cup stock car points leader, paid a visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday to see how the other half lives.

“It’s great fun to watch, but it’s the wrong kind of racing for me,” Allison said. “I really enjoyed sitting in Michael Andretti’s car, but if they’d reached for the starter, I’d have jumped out and run.”

This was Allison’s first visit to Indy since 1973 when his father, Bobby, was in the race.

“That was not a good year for a 12-year-old kid to watch,” Davey said. “It was pretty tough on me, to see that many horrible things.”

That was the year Salt Walther crashed into the fence as the race began, spewing fire and debris into the crowd. Rain then postponed the restart for three days, and when the race finally was resumed, Swede Savage suffered fatal injuries and a crewman was killed by a truck as he ran toward Savage’s car.

Allison walked down to the first turn during practice, watching as the cars raced into the corner at more than 200 m.p.h.

“It was pretty awesome to feel all that power coming at you before you could even see the cars,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

If Allison can win his next race, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, N.C., on May 24--the same day as the Indianapolis 500--he will collect the Winston million, a $1-million bonus for winning three of NASCAR’s four major races. He won the first two legs at Daytona and Talladega, Ala.

Lyn St. James, a spokeswoman for the Ford Motor Co. for 10 years, was given approval by her boss to drive a Chevrolet-powered car if that’s what is needed to get her into the 500.

“Lyn St. James is free to compete in any car in the Indy 500, and we wish her the best of luck,” Robert L. Reway, a Ford vice president, said in a prepared statement.

Said St. James, who is trying to become the second woman to drive in the 500: “It moves me tremendously, getting support like that in a sensitive situation.”

Late in the afternoon, she drove 17 laps in her new car, a 1991 Lola-Chevy that was originally assigned to Philippe Gache, a rookie from France who qualified last week.

St. James had been driving a Cosworth-powered Lola, which apparently does not have enough power to produce a qualifying speed.

Hospital report: Nelson Piquet underwent 6 1/2 hours of skin-grafting surgery on his right foot and left ankle by Dr. Tom Southern at Methodist Hospital. Piquet, who is listed in good condition, will undergo further surgery in about a week. Hiro Matsushita, who suffered a broken thigh in an accident last Saturday, was released from the hospital.