AUTO RACING : With Earnhardt, It’s Only a Matter of Time

Oh for the glamorous life of a racing star.

Dale Earnhardt, a five-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion, has his own airplane, a big farm in North Carolina where he is building a new house, a Chevrolet dealership and other businesses. He’s got a wife, children and a successful racing career.

The only thing the 41-year-old stock car racer doesn’t have is time.

This week, with last Sunday’s snowed-out Motorcraft 500 rescheduled for Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Earnhardt’s life was more hectic than usual.

He braved the snow on Monday morning to fly home to Doolie, N.C., for a day of working on the farm and seeing his family.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent testing at Darlington, S.C., where the Winston Cup series will race next week.

Thursday, Earnhardt flew to Houston for a noon press conference promoting Sunday’s ARCA-NASCAR Shootout at Texas World Speedway, then on to Dallas for an autograph-signing session. He over-nighted at College Station, near the Texas track.

Friday morning, Earnhardt tested the car he will drive in Sunday’s race. He then jetted back to Hampton, Ga., to practice in his Winston Cup car.

Saturday, while longtime friend Neil Bonnett qualified Earnhardt’s car for the Sunday race, Earnhardt was to drive in the Atlanta event. Then, after another quick plane trip, The Intimidator was to finish his week on the high-banked 2-mile Texas oval.

By the way, Bonnett had to fly from Texas to Martinsville, Va., on Sunday to work as a commentator on TNN’s Busch Grand National broadcast.

MARLBORO, A MAJOR sponsor involved in the Indy car PPG Cup series, has followed Unocal’s lead in Winston Cup racing by setting up a Skins Game type format for the open wheel series. But the new $400,000 Marlboro Pole Award program goes the established Unocal 76 Challenge one better.

In NASCAR, Unocal puts up $7,600 per race that goes to a driver winning both the pole and the race. If that isn’t accomplished, the money rolls over from race to race until somebody wins it. Pole winners in Winston Cup racing also get $500 from Busch beer.

Beginning this weekend at the Indy car opener in Australia, the pole winner will receive $10,000 from Marlboro. If he goes on to win the race, it’s worth another $15,000. If the pole winner doesn’t win the race, the $15,000 is carried over to the next event. Only the Indianapolis 500, sanctioned by the rival U.S. Auto Club, will not be part of the program.

If the program had been in place in 1991, Rick Mears, now retired, would have won $175,000 for sweeping the Marlboro 500 pole and race. Last year, eventual champion Bobby Rahal’s win from the pole at New Hampshire would have been worth an extra $130,000.

Steve Weiss, communications director for Indy car, said the Marlboro Pole Award is a long-term commitment--meaning that any money still up for grabs at the end of 1993 will roll over to the first race of 1994--just as it does in the Unocal program.

Marlboro will also pay the driver who wins the most poles each season $25,000, the same amount Busch pays the driver who wins the most poles in the stock car series each season.

In helping to announce the new program, Weiss said the Marlboro Challenge, an all-star race involving the season’s pole winners, would be on “hiatus” for one year while a new format to make it a stand-alone event is worked out.

DALE JARRETT, off to a great start in the 1993 Winston Cup season, is still 48 victories behind his father’s career record. But he is well ahead of two-time Winston Cup champion Ned Jarrett in career earnings.

In fact, the younger Jarrett, who has two career wins, including last month’s Daytona 500, was just $11 short of equaling his father’s career earnings of $289,146 in the first three races of 1993.

Ned Jarrett had to drive in 351 races to come up with his total earnings.

The younger Jarrett is led Dale Earnhardt by 1 point in the 1993 title battle after winning Daytona, finishing sixth at Rockingham and fourth at Richmond.

“It doesn’t surprise me we’re leading the points,” Jarrett said. “That’s what we set out to do. I’m sure a lot of other people are surprised.

“They were surprised when we won at Daytona. They were surprised we finished at Rockingham, and they’re probably surprised we finished at Richmond.

“We’re still not what people are going to consider a title contender because we’re only four races into the season. If we can keep this up, they’ll take notice.

ONLY THREE manufacturers are taking part in the battle for the NASCAR Winston Cup championship this season, and each of them had a victory after the first three races.

Chevrolet, Pontiac and Ford went into the snow-postponed race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in a tie for the manufacturers’ point lead--each with 19 of a possible 27 points.

Ford took away the title from Chevrolet last season after an unprecedented run of nine in a row for the GM marque. Pontiac has never won the manufacturers title.

THE AUTOMOBILE Racing Club of America (ARCA) has signed the Hooters restaurant chain as the sponsor of the late model stock car series for the next five years.

Atlanta-based Hooters, a growing company with 100 restaurants spread over 24 states, already was the sponsor of Alan Kulwicki’s Winston Cup stock car, as well as the title sponsor for Atlanta Motor Speedway’s November Winston Cup race.

The series will be known as the ARCA Hooters Cup Super Car Series.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI’s Formula One debut was certainly not what he was hoping for.

The 1991 Indy car PPG Cup champion, trying to follow in the footsteps of father Mario Andretti, who won the Formula One championship in 1978, was a creditable sixth after the first round of qualifying last week in South Africa.

But gearbox problems helped him slide back to ninth in the final time trials. Then, when the race began, Andretti stalled the engine of his McLaren-Ford on his first standing start. He managed to get the car fired up, but retired after five laps after running into the rear of another car in what Andretti called “a chain reaction-type collision that I just got caught up in.”