MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Tragedies Dominate Otherwise Successful Year on Circuit

No matter how you look at it, 1993 has not been a good year for motor racing.

Financially, attendance and purses were up nearly everywhere. Nigel Mansell’s astounding ability to adapt to oval racing after a lifetime of driving on Formula One road courses gave the Indy car series a much needed shot in the arm. The drag racing exploits of 57-year-old Eddie Hill and John Force brought record crowds to National Hot Rod Assn. events. And youthful Jeremy McGrath created new excitement in stadium motocross.

But regrettably, the year will be more remembered for the tragic deaths of two of stock car racing’s finest drivers, defending Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki and one of his leading challengers, Davey Allison. Both were killed, not on the dangerous high banks of NASCAR’s superspeedways where they had raced nose-to-tail at better than 200 m.p.h., but by falling out of the sky.

Kulwicki, who had captivated American spectators with his self-styled “Polish victory lap,” in which he celebrated by driving his car the wrong direction around the track, was killed when a small plane in which he was a passenger crashed into a hillside in eastern Tennessee on April 1 while en route to a race in Bristol, Tenn.

Allison, son of Hall of Fame driver Bobby Allison, whose career was shortened by a head injury several years earlier, died of injuries suffered in a helicopter accident on July 12. He had flown from his home to watch a friend test a car and crashed while attempting to land in the track infield. Less than a year before, his brother Clifford was killed while practicing at Michigan International Speedway.

Indications of the affection for the two drivers came in the season’s final race at Atlanta. Dale Earnhardt, who won his sixth championship that day, and Rusty Wallace, who won the race, both drove around the track backward, Earnhardt waving a flag with No. 7, Kulwicki’s number, and Wallace displaying a flag with Allison’s No. 28.

Earnhardt said: “I don’t think I’ll ever climb in a race car without thinking of Alan and Davey.” Wallace said: “They did a lot for our sport, they both touched us in their own way, and they’ll always be in our hearts and mind.”

In an emotional International Race of Champions at Michigan, Davey Allison was declared a posthumous champion when fellow NASCAR driver Terry Labonte drove his car in the final race and earned enough points for Allison to win. His $175,000 purse was paid to his estate.

Tragedy also befell motorcycle racer Wayne Rainey, a three-time world road racing champion, who was paralyzed from the chest down when he fell during the Italian Grand Prix on Sept. 5.

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Although it didn’t involve physical tragedy or even injury, the dismal performance of Michael Andretti in his Formula One adventure dealt a severe blow to American racing prestige abroad. Mario’s son had won the Indy car championship in 1991 and was considered this country’s finest open-wheel driver--the perfect person to carry the American flag in the world championship series, as his father had done in winning the title in 1978.

As his countrymen watched in anticipation, the younger Andretti crashed in his first four races and eventually quit the series with three races left, returning home with plans to drive Indy cars again, this time with Chip Ganassi.

The fact that Mansell, the British world champion who took the opposite path and moved from F1 to Indy cars, had unprecedented success against the Americans only fueled the derisive cries from Europe about the quality of U.S. drivers.

Typical was the comment of retired three-time world champion Niki Lauda: “There is a huge difference between the competition there and the competition here. Look at Mansell. He didn’t know one single circuit. If he hadn’t fallen asleep going into the pits, he would have won Indianapolis. He won the series, and look at Andretti on the other side. Andretti was your best guy, and on the other side he couldn’t make it.”

Mansell not only won six poles and five races--four on ovals--he also won the hearts of Indy car fans with his dauntless driving style. He finished third in the Indy 500, the first time he’d even seen an oval track, and might have won had he not been outmaneuvered by veteran Emerson Fittipaldi after a caution-flag restart late in the race.

At year’s end, he became the first “rookie” to win the PPG Cup Indy car championship and was named American driver of the year over Wallace and Earnhardt.

From Sept. 19 to 26, Mansell had an unprecedented stretch as champion of both Formula One, which he won in 1992, and Indy cars. He clinched his 1993 Indy car crown with a victory at Nazareth, Pa., a week before Alain Prost captured his fourth F1 title at Portugal.

Mansell also had a rebuttal for Lauda’s comments: “Those who criticize the Indy car series obviously don’t understand because they’ve never done it themselves.”

While not entirely unexpected, Indy car racing received a bit of a jolt when the legendary A.J. Foyt pulled into the pits on qualifying day for the Indianapolis 500 and announced his retirement after driving in 35 consecutive 500s and winning four of them. Foyt, who also won seven Indy car championships, remained on the scene as car owner and private tutor for young Robby Gordon.

“Y’all ain’t seen the last of me,” the irascible Foyt said. “I’ll be around. I just ain’t going to race anymore. I can’t do two things at once, and right now I’m a car owner with a driver.”

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Even before the deaths of Kulwicki and Allison, the Winston Cup season had an unnatural look: Richard Petty, who retired at the end of the 1992 season, was not in his familiar No. 43 after a 33-year career that paralleled Foyt’s.

Earnhardt, coming off a disappointing ’92 season in which he won only one race, started fast with six victories in his Chevrolet Lumina and managed to hold off a fast-finishing Wallace, who won 10 races but could never make up the points lost from two violent crashes at Daytona and Talladega early in the year.

“I would not have thought it possible I could win 10 races and not win the championship,” Wallace said after finishing 80 points behind Earnhardt. At the season’s close, Wallace and team owner Roger Penske announced that they would switch from Pontiac to Ford next season.

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Sports car fans suffered a loss when the International Motor Sports Assn. announced that it was dropping its Camel GT series, once the most popular sports car competition in the country. Dan Gurney’s two drivers, Juan Manuel Fangio II and P.J. Jones, battled for the final championship in matching Toyotas before Fangio won his second consecutive title in the final race at Phoenix.

The GT series, which once featured the Porsches of the late Peter Gregg and Al Holbert, and the Nissans of Geoff Brabham, will be replaced by something called the World Sports Car series. The series took a blow when Camel announced it was dropping its IMSA sponsorship.

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Hill, once the world’s fastest dragboat driver, won his first NHRA top-fuel championship with a career-record six victories in his Pennzoil Special dragster. Force, who had been upset by Cruz Pedregon, in the funny car race a year earlier, dominated the 1993 season with 11 victories in his Castrol GTX Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Steve Kinser won his 13th World of Outlaws sprint car championship, as expected, but it was not easy. Dave Blaney took the lead from the perennial champion in midseason, and only a Kinser rally enabled him to win in the season’s final race. Kinser had 19 victories to 11 for Blaney and 10 for Stevie Smith.

Prost, the winningest driver in Formula One history, announced his retirement after nailing down his fourth world title. Three other of racing’s most successful drivers, Mario Andretti, Don (Snake) Prudhomme and Harry Gant, announced that they were retiring after one more go-round in 1994.

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McGrath, newest of California’s seemingly endless parade of motocross champions, made his first full supercross season memorable by winning 10 of 16 races, something the greats of the past such as Bob Hannah, Rick Johnson and Jeff Ward never accomplished.

Ricky Graham gave dirt-track racing fans something to remember when he came back from near oblivion to win his third Grand National flat-track title. After the Salinas rider won in 1982 and ‘84, he was victimized by bad decisions, a bout with alcohol and a negative attitude before making a turnaround two years ago that was capped by winning this season on a non-factory sponsored Honda.

Graham was named rider of the year by the American Motorcyclist Assn.

Kevin Schwantz finally won his long-awaited world road racing championship for Suzuki, but the Texan’s enjoyment was tempered by his winning after Rainey’s crippling accident.