Mansell Impressive in Opener, but Don’t Forget About Rahal

From the impressive driving talent Nigel Mansell displayed in winning the Indy car race opener in Australia, it would be easy to concede him the championship without a fight, but defending PPG Cup champion Bobby Rahal says it’s too early for such an assessment.

“It would be foolish to draw conclusions off one race,” Rahal said. “Nigel was impressive, no doubt about it, but he was in his element on a road course. We’d better wait until he gets his first taste of oval racing before we concede anything.”

Mansell, the Formula One world champion from England, will get that first chance Sunday when the PPG Indy Car World Series resumes on a one-mile oval with the Valvoline 200 at Phoenix International Raceway.

Said, Rahal, the defending race champion: “Phoenix is like no other track, and you can’t get to know it driving around by yourself (testing). When you get out there with 20 or 25 other drivers, the track keeps changing, the fastest line keeps moving. So much depends on the weather and how it changes driving conditions as the afternoon wears on.

“Nigel will be fast, I’m sure, but he will find traffic vastly different than on a road course. There really isn’t a lot of passing on a road course. At Phoenix, after a few laps, there will be lapped cars to pass every time around the track. Every 22 seconds or so.

“Look at last year. It was the same thing after Australia. Everyone said the Penskes were going to run away with everything after Emmo (Emerson Fittipaldi) and Rick (Mears) finished 1-2. It never happened. As things turned out, they were barely a factor after that. It could happen again.”

Rahal, who has won three Indy car championships, 24 races, including the 1986 Indianapolis 500, and 18 poles in 12 years, is pleased with all the attention Mansell has attracted since leaving Formula One to become an Indy car regular, but wonders where it was before.

“I understand the European interest in Mansell, but I do find it aggravating that it took an English driver to bring attention to focus on our cars in the United States media,” he said. “For instance, in a recent USA Today, there was a line in the motor racing story that said, ‘Nigel Mansell did not go out today.’ What about his teammate, Mario Andretti? He was a world champion, too. Or how about me? I’m the American champion. No one ever wrote, ‘Bobby Rahal did not go out today.’ ”

After winning the championship in his first season as a driver-owner, Rahal is going even farther out on a limb this year. He hopes to be the first driver-owner-car builder to win the Indy car title since A.J. Foyt did so with his Coyote in 1975.

Rahal and co-owner Carl Hogan, a St. Louis trucking magnate, scrapped the Lola that won four races and the championship last season in favor of the Truesport chassis designed and developed by Don Halliday for the Truesports team, which closed up shop last year. Rahal and Hogan also bought the team’s racing facility in Columbus, Ohio, and moved their headquarters there.

“Things couldn’t have worked out better,” Rahal said. “The race shop is about five minutes from my home, and my house is on (Jack Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village) golf course.”

The chassis, renamed R/H 001, is the only American-built car in the Indy car lineup. All others are built in England. The engine will be a new-generation Chevrolet “C” model.

“It’s a (real) obligation, a challenge, to be the only American car,” Rahal said, “but I feel there are definite advantages to building your own product instead of buying one off the shelf and then having to modify it.

“No matter when you get your car, it’s under a continuing process of evolution. It changes every race. If you order a new Lola, you have to wait your turn for it to be delivered, and every year or two you need a new model. So what do you do with the old ones? And you never know exactly what it’s going to be like because it’s being built in England.

“If you build your own car, you start with last year’s car and never stop upgrading it. It’s right there in our shop where we can touch it and do what we want with it. We don’t have to share ideas with other Lola teams and we have use of our own wind tunnel at Ohio State.

“When your car is being designed and built in England, it tends to have a life of its own, apart from yourself. It’s more impersonal. We can see and touch ours every day, and it tends to give everyone a sense of pride, of accomplishment, in watching it grow and develop.”

Rahal finished sixth in Australia in the car’s debut.

Rahal/Hogan have also taken on the task of developing the Honda V8 engine for future Indy car use.

“We will do all the development work and test the engine in our chassis,” Rahal said. “Mike Groff will do most of the testing with the idea of becoming a full-time team driver next season. We chose Mike because he doesn’t mess around, he gets in the car and goes fast.”

Groff, 31, is a Studio City resident who began racing in midgets at Ascot Park and was the American Racing Series--now Indy Lights--champion in 1989. He has been hanging around the fringes of Indy car racing for three seasons, driving for a variety of owners, including Derrick Walker, A.J. Foyt and Antonio Ferrari’s Euromotorsport team, before signing with Rahal earlier this season.

“The name is Honda, but it is very much an American Honda effort, rather than Japanese,” Rahal said. “The Honda Formula One program had a thousand engineers from Japan working on the project. We feel it is important to develop a core of American engineers, and we expect the Honda project to do just that.

“It will be totally different from the V12 engine Honda developed for Formula One. Ours will be a 2.65-liter turbo V8 specifically for Indy cars.”

Rahal owns a Honda dealership in Mechanicsburg, Pa., and his racing shop is not far from Honda’s U.S. manufacturing sites in Marysville and East Liberty, Ohio.

Briefly

SPRINT CARS--The California Racing Assn. will try again Saturday night at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix after being rained out last week at Bakersfield Speedway. The Bakersfield race has been rescheduled for April 25.

STOCK CARS--Saugus Speedway opened last week, but when the sportsman cars make their debut Saturday night, it will be called the “official opening night.” Also on the program will be pro stock ovals and Figure 8s and Grand American modifieds. . . . The sportsman racing season also will open Saturday night at Cajon Speedway. Bakersfield Speedway and Imperial Raceway also stage Saturday night races. . . . The Coors 100, a Featherlite Southwest Tour event, will be at Mesa Marin Raceway Saturday night, with M.K. Kanke of Granada Hills hoping to celebrate the end of his racing drought with another victory. When he won the Southwest Tour main event last Saturday night at Cajon Speedway, it was his first success in 70 events during more than six years.

DRAG BOATS--Ron Braaksma of San Bernardino and Clinton Anderson of Alpine, Calif., will continue their rivalry in top fuel hydro competition this weekend when the International Hot Boat Assn. holds its Springnationals at Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas’ Bonelli Park. Braaksma edged IHBA champion Anderson last week at Firebird Lake in Arizona with a 214.40-m.p.h. run, despite Anderson’s higher speed of 217.82. Braaksma’s winning margin came off the starting line with a faster reaction time. Qualifying is Saturday followed by eliminations at 11 a.m. Sunday.

MOTORCYCLES--The Silver Anniversary season for speedway bikes will open Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, with national champion Chris Manchester of Hesperia in the favorite’s role. Despite offers to race in the British Speedway League, Manchester has elected to race on the Southern California circuit. Monrovia’s Billy Hamill, who raced in England last year, also has decided to remain at home this season. . . . The world road racing circus will be in Malaysia, on the Shah Alam track, for the second race of the season Sunday.

MIDGETS--Ventura Raceway will open its 1993 season Saturday night with United States Auto Club midgets and three-quarter midgets. Seven-time Western regional champion Sleepy Tripp will be there looking for No. 8 against veterans Wally Pankratz and Robby Flock.