MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : At Daytona, Talk Is About the Brickyard

Never before had a NASCAR Winston Cup season been so eagerly anticipated, only to have the enthusiasm dampened before the season began because of the deaths of two drivers.

The loss of veteran Neil Bonnett and rookie Rodney Orr in single-car crashes while practicing for Sunday’s Daytona 500 is on everyone’s mind. But as racing resumes, there is a feeling--albeit subdued--in the garages, along pit row, in the grandstands and wherever racing fans gather that something special is about to happen in 1994.

It isn’t because Dale Earnhardt is going for a seventh championship, which would pull him even with stock car racing’s king, Richard Petty.

It isn’t because Rusty Wallace, winner of 10 races last year, has switched from Pontiac to Ford.

It isn’t because drivers will be competing for a record $30 million in prize money in 31 races.

It isn’t because Hoosier has returned to revive the tire war of the late 1980s with Goodyear.

And it isn’t because all the racing world wonders whether Earnhardt, winner of 59 races, six championships and $19.5 million, will win his first Daytona 500.

It’s all of that, but the one thing that sets 1994 apart is a race in August, the Brickyard 400, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It will be the first time anything other than Indy cars have raced on the 2 1/2-mile track, and that has not been lost on the stock car set.

The Daytona 500, which will open the season Sunday, has always been the Super Bowl of NASCAR, but this year the Brickyard 400 is hogging attention. As drivers and crews prepare for the Twin 125-mile qualifying races today, hardly a conversation in the pits, garages and grandstand doesn’t begin or end with the question, “Hey, what do you think about Indy?”

Wallace, like Earnhardt still looking for a first Daytona 500 victory, did not mince words when asked about the Brickyard 400.

“I want that one real bad, and so does Roger Penske (co-owner of Wallace’s car),” Wallace said. “Roger wants it real, real bad, I mean real bad. If I had to choose between winning Indy and winning Daytona, I’d choose Indy this year. No kidding.”

Penske’s cars have won the Indianapolis 500 nine times.

Interest in the Aug. 6 race has reached heights never approached in racing, even for the Indy 500, the Memorial Day weekend race that is the largest one-day sporting event in the world.

“If we could accommodate every ticket request, it would be the biggest race crowd we’ve ever had, by far,” said Bob Walters, public relations director of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “We sold every seat (more than 250,000) almost as soon as the race was announced, and we have sent back three checks for every one we accepted.”

All the drivers know that the winner of the inaugural race will be remembered forever, much as Ray Harroun is for winning the first Indianapolis 500. There will be other winners, but only one “first.”

A few, like Ken Schrader, like to downplay the Brickyard 400’s importance, claiming as he did, that “it’s only 1/31st of the Winston Cup season, and that’s what we’re all racing for.” But no one is talking about Rockingham, Bristol or even Charlotte or Darlington this week as much as they are about the Brickyard 400.

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Although Loy Allen Jr., a rookie, and Earnhardt assured themselves of front-row starting positions in Sunday’s race during qualifying, the season more or less starts today with the Gatorade Twin 125s. The field behind the front two will be determined by the finishing order of the two heat races.

Earnhardt and Wallace are the drivers most likely to contend for the season championship, but if either or both should falter, Mark Martin, Ernie Irvan, Bill Elliott and defending Daytona 500 champion Dale Jarrett could move to the front.

Martin won four consecutive races last year in the Jack Roush-prepared Ford to finish third in points. Irvan took over for the late Davey Allison in midseason in the Texaco-Havoline Ford and finished the season with two victories in the final six races. Elliott will be in the last year of his contract with Junior Johnson’s team and wants to go out a winner. Jarrett is back in Joe Gibbs’ Chevrolet, hoping for a repeat victory in Sunday’s 500.

Two major confrontations attracting attention are Chevrolet vs. Ford and Goodyear vs. Hoosier.

Chevrolet, led by Earnhardt, edged Ford, 191-190, with Pontiac another point back last year in the closest manufacturers’ race ever. Ford has strengthened its position by adding Wallace, a move expected to knock Pontiac from contention. He had all of Pontiac’s 10 victories last year.

Hoosier, which dropped out of Winston Cup racing after the tire war of 1988-89, has returned and scored a coup when Allen won the pole at 190.158 m.p.h. on a set of tires from the small company in Lakeville, Ind.

Goodyear, however, will probably have a majority of the 40-plus starters. About 65% of the cars in the garages are on Goodyears.

Tire rules have been changed since 1989, when teams could switch brands during a race, choosing the compound that seemed to be working better that day. This year, teams must use the same brand on which they qualified.

Bonnett and Orr were using Hoosier tires at the time of their fatal accidents, but NASCAR officials said there was no indication that it was anything more than coincidence.

Darrell Waltrip won the 1989 Daytona 500 on Hoosiers, and the upstart brand had 11 winners in 38 races before abruptly pulling out of Winston Cup racing in mid-1989 after Goodyear introduced a much superior radial tire. Bob Newton, president of Hoosier, which builds tires for other types of stock cars, spent the next three years developing his own radial tire before again challenging the tire giant from Akron, Ohio, on the Winston Cup circuit.

Motor Racing Notes

DRAG RACING--The National Hot Rod Assn., which opened its 18-event season two weeks ago at Pomona, will hold Round 2, the Motorcraft-Ford Nationals, this weekend at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Ariz. All of the Pomona winners--Shelly Anderson in top fuel, K.C. Spurlock in funny car and Warren Johnson in pro stock--will be looking for repeat victories. Qualifying is Friday and Saturday, with eliminations Sunday.

STOCK CARS--The eight-race KCR Challenge winter series will continue Saturday at Kern County Raceway in Willow Springs. Featured will be sportsman, mini and street stocks and dwarf cars. . . . IMCA modifieds, pro and factory stocks will make up the Saturday night program at Imperial Raceway, near El Centro.

MISCELLANY--The Western Racing Assn., an organization of vintage midget race car owners and drivers, will hold its eighth annual banquet Saturday night at the Lobster Trap restaurant in Oxnard. Honored guests will be the Vukovich racing family, according to WRA President Dan Fleisher.