AUTO RACING : There’s Six-Way Battle for the NASCAR Title

Six drivers separated by 114 points with three races remaining. What a scenario.

Never before in the history of NASCAR stock car racing has a season championship been so up for grabs so late in the fray. It’s a delight for the fans and a pressure cooker for the happy half dozen.

Bill Elliott still leads, as he has since August. But the margin is currently just 39 points over Davey Allison, with Alan Kulwicki breathing down his neck at 47 down. Mark Martin, coming off his big victory two weeks ago at Charlotte is 91 back, followed by Harry Gant 98 behind and Kyle Petty, 114 in back of Elliott.

Elliott, the only one of the six who owns a Winston Cup title (1988), had a seemingly solid 154-point lead over a struggling Allison after finishing second in a race at Dover Downs on Sept. 20.

Since then, though, the wheels have simply come off the tracks for Elliott and the rest of Junior Johnson’s team.

He finished 30th in a field of 31 at Martinsville because of an uncharacteristic blown engine; followed with a 26th at North Wilkesboro when he had an ill-handling car, then finished 30th at Charlotte when a piece of the car’s rear-end alignment mechanism snapped, causing him to tag the wall.

On the other side of the coin, Martin and Petty have gotten into the point chase by making up a lot of ground in a hurry.

After Dover, Martin trailed Elliott by 352 points and Petty was 388 behind.

With a maximum of 185 points at each event, there could be plenty more shuffling before the end of the season, but Elliott said, “Our bad luck has let some people back into the race, but we never thought it was over anyway. It’s a real dogfight now, but I’d rather be where we are than where any of those other guys are. We just have to go out and get the job done and put this other stuff behind us.”

Galles-Kraco Racing has become Galles Racing International.

The reason for that “International” designation is Adrian Fernandez of Mexico, who has joined regulars Al Unser Jr. and Danny Sullivan on team for 1993 and beyond.

Rick Galles, the team owner, said his third driver, Fernandez, who was Rookie of the Year in Firestone Indy Lights this season, will run up to five Indy-car races next season “depending on the number of sponsorships,” as well as doing extensive testing.

Fernandez, who has a three-year contract with Galles, probably won’t drive the Indianapolis 500, Galles said.

“I doubt if I’ll run Adrian at Indy unless he just comes on so strong,” Galles said. “I want to focus on winning that race. I don’t think you can do that with a young driver.”

He said he’d like to run Fernandez “at Michigan after he has a couple of races under his belt.”

This setup is similar to that in which Canadian driver Paul Tracy is involved with Penske Racing. But Tracy was pressed into considerably more race work than expected because of injuries to Penske regular Rick Mears.

Al Unser Jr. said his father, a four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, is “doing OK” after surgery last week on his left ankle at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

The elder Unser, 53, who ran in only two races this season, was released Monday from the hospital and returned to his Albuquerque home, where he is recuperating.

Crashes during the course of his career took a toll on the ankle, Little Al said.

“He pulled the ligament so many times that the cartilage is really gone,” the younger driver said.

Doctors had to fuse Big Al’s ankle, but when they started digging around they found “there wasn’t enough bone in his ankle,” Little Al added.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is following in the footsteps of his father and late grandpa Ralph Earnhardt.

The 17-year-old recently won an amateur event at Charlotte Motor Speedway, bumping aside his own team owner on the last lap to take the victory--looking very much like his father, a five-time Winston Cup champion.

“He was awesome,” Dale Sr. said. “He passed just like his grandfather used to do. . . . I don’t know what he’s going to do. When he gets through with college, if he still wants to drive a race car, then we’ll talk about it. But he ain’t getting my ride.”

An era ended last Sunday at Laguna Seca Raceway when Nick Fornoro waved the checkered flag over race winner Michael Andretti.

It was the last Indy-car race for Andretti for at least awhile, since the 30-year-old racer is bound for the world-hopping Formula One series in 1993.

There was more finality for Fornoro, who retired after presiding on the flagstand for every one of the 200 events sanctioned by Championship Auto Racing Teams since it was formed by dissident Indy-car team owners in 1978.

Fornoro, once an East Coast short-track driver--as are sons Nick Jr. and Drew--also flagged hundreds of races for the U.S. Auto Club and other organizations over the years.

There was another significant retirement announcement in the Indy-car series, as well.

Jim Chapman, director of racing for series sponsor PPG Industries--known by nearly everyone as the “First Gentleman of Auto Racing”--will retire from the fulltime rigors of his job on Feb. 19, remaining on for at least awhile as a consultant.

Among many things the former journalist and longtime public relations man is known for is his relationship with Babe Ruth, whom Chapman hired as consultant to Ford’s sponsorship of American Legion Junior Baseball.

In more than two years of traveling with Ruth on personal appearance tours, the two became close friends and Chapman was at Ruth’s bedside when the baseball star died of cancer in August 1948.