King of the Roads : Nobody Goes Faster Than Fangio, Who Is Dominating IMSA Circuit

Indy cars don’t run on the Del Mar Fairgrounds road racing circuit where the Vons Grand Prix of San Diego will be held today, but if they did, you could be pretty sure that Michael Andretti’s Lola couldn’t match the speeds posted by Juan Manuel Fangio II in his Toyota GT prototype sports car.

The Camel GTP cars have raced four times this season where Indy cars run--Portland, Ore.; Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca and Elkhart Lake, Wis.--and each time the GTPs were faster.

The Toyota MKIII, prepared in Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers’ shop in Santa Ana, was fastest at three of them. Davy Jones, in a Jaguar, was fastest at Mid-Ohio.

“There’s no doubt about it, IMSA (International Motor Sports Assn.) GTP cars are the fastest race cars in America,” Fangio said. This, even though, at 1,800-plus pounds with cabs and fenders, they are 300 pounds heavier than the open-wheel, open-cockpit Indy cars.

“At first I was surprised when we ran faster than the Indy cars, but I shouldn’t have been,” Fangio said. “After seeing the Jaguars go faster than the Formula One cars at Silverstone (England), I should have known that if we were to beat the Jags, we would have to go faster than the Indy cars.”

Fangio, who clinched the Camel GTP championship last Sunday at Phoenix, has won six of the last eight races and was second in the other two.

If he wins today, Fangio will equal the late Peter Gregg in IMSA solo victories with 14. In addition to his six solo triumphs this season, Fangio teamed with Andy Wallace to win the 12 Hours of Sebring last March for Toyota’s first long-distance victory.

Fangio, nephew of the five-time world Formula One champion of the same name, got off to a good start Saturday when he turned in a record 57.6-second lap. Fangio averaged 99.908 m.p.h. to qualify on the pole.

To take his third consecutive checkered flag at Del Mar today, Fangio will have to drive two hours at speeds approaching 100 m.p.h. around a twisting 10-turn, 1.6-mile circuit.

That should be child’s play, considering what the 36-year-old Argentine driver faced after the recent hurricane that swept across south Florida. His high-rise apartment in Miami was not in the path of the storm, but it was close enough to lose its power and water supply.

“I had to carry my son Juan--he weighs 30 pounds--up 23 flights of stairs to our apartment, and I was carrying a suitcase at the same time,” Fangio said during a break in practice Friday. “We were fortunate to be about 10 miles from the hurricane and also fortunate we left for Hawaii for a business meeting three days later. But before we left, I made a lot of trips up and down those steps.

“I have always said that a driver cannot race properly if he is not in shape, and I found that he can’t carry a 30-pound son up 23 stories if he’s not in shape, either.”

Fangio is looking forward to returning to Hawaii in January as one of the 16 drivers in the $1-million winner-take-all Hawaiian Super Gran Prix.

“It is wonderful idea,” he said of the race that will be held around Aloha Stadium in Honolulu on Jan. 24. “I have driven in different races of that type in Europe, Mexico and Miami, and the thing I remember about them is the fun we had leading up to the race, and then when we pulled on our helmets it was all business.

“It will be equal for everybody at the start and no driver of that caliber wants to look bad. Everyone will be trying as hard as if it were for a championship because there will a lot of pride at stake. And people will love seeing drivers from different series racing together.”

Among the entrants are Michael and Mario Andretti, Al Unser Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi from Indy cars, Bill Elliott and Kyle Petty from NASCAR, Nelson Piquet, Michael Schumacher and Riccardo Patrese from Formula One and Steve Kinser from the sprint car World of Outlaws.

And what about that $1 million for the winner?

“If you are thinking about the million dollars when the race starts, your car will crash in the first turn,” Fangio said, laughing.

Fangio credits intense chassis and engine development work during the 1992 season and the leadership of Gurney for the emergence of Toyota as the dominant IMSA car after four seasons of Geoff Brabham and Nissan winning nearly everything.

“When we started the season at Daytona back in February, the Jaguars were definitely superior, but we felt we were making progress when we finished the 24 hours and were fourth,” Fangio said. “The Jags came from Europe with a full year of development behind them. We knew we had to get the maximum potential out of our car to be competitive.”

After Fangio and teammate P.J. Jones failed to score a point at Miami, the team got a lift by winning the 12-hour race at Sebring.

“We kept testing and trying new things, little things that we hoped would give us just a little more power and reliability,” Fangio said. “Drino Miller and TRD (Toyota Racing Development’s USA engine shop in Gardena) worked overtime to get more power from the (2.1-liter) turbocharged four-cylinder engines, and the engineers at All-American Racers did everything they could to make the chassis more aerodynamic.

“We did a lot of testing, P.J. at Willow Springs and both of us on courses where we were going to race. It was a total team concept.”

The breakthrough, Fangio said, occurred at New Orleans, in the seventh race of the 13-race season.

“We had won races before, but at New Orleans we did everything right,” he said. “We qualified first, led the entire race, had the fastest lap in the race and finally led in GTP manufacturers’ points for the first time.”

The next race was at Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Fangio ran the fastest Camel GTP race ever, averaging 130.657 m.p.h.

Since the final 40 minutes of the Watkins Glen race, a Toyota has led every minute of the series. That equates to eight hours and 40 minutes in the last five races, and Toyota’s consecutive 1-2 finishes at Laguna Seca, Portland and Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., is a feat never before accomplished by a manufacturer.

“It all goes back to Gurney,” Fangio said. “It is difficult to describe in words what he means to the team. I do not know how a person can be so intense, yet at the same time put no pressure on his drivers. No matter what you need, he seems to be always next to you, explaining the different situations you might meet.

“He says only a little. He never lectures, but he always seems to get right to the problem. After he talks to you, whether it’s after you’ve done something good or made a mistake, you always feel better. He creates an atmosphere, a very strong esprit de corps, where everyone is working as hard as they can to win, and they are happy doing it. It makes you feel good inside.”