INDIANAPOLIS 500 : Start is Finish for Some : Auto Racing: First lap brings together fear, fumes, tight quarters and turbulence.

Every driver in today’s Indianapolis 500 would like to be on the front row with Al Unser Jr., Raul Boesel and defending champion Emerson Fittipaldi, but there is room for only three.

One of the three will lead the field through the first turn of the first lap--the single most exciting moment in all of sports.

The drivers up front will have a clean racing line, running in clean air on a clean track, but back in the field, back around the seventh through the 11th rows, there will be such turbulence, such buffeting, such burning of eyes from methanol fumes that the drivers will wonder how they got into such a predicament.

“It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever been through,” is the common assessment of any driver who has started in the middle or rear of the pack.

“When you head into that first turn, it’s such a bottleneck, it’s like trying to put a cork in a thimble,” said car owner Dick Simon, who started 17 Indy 500s and who has six drivers in today’s field. “You see all those cars in front of you, and you don’t know whether to get on the gas or let off. The truth is, you can’t do either. You just have to keep going and hope you get to the short chute in one piece.”

First-lap accidents are not uncommon. Four times in the last seven years, first-lap accidents have sent drivers to an early shower.

“A lot of drivers tend to get pumped up when the green (flag) drops, and they act like it’s a sprint race, not 500 miles,” three-time winner Johnny Rutherford said. “They try to get to the front immediately. Sometimes they make it, more often they don’t, but whatever happens, it disrupts the field and causes confusion. And confusion causes accidents.”

Turbulence from having so many cars running close to 200 m.p.h. in tight quarters is a major problem.

“For the first lap, if you’re in mid-pack, all you can do is hold on for dear life,” said Dominic Dobson, who will be in the fourth row today, his highest start in seven races. “The turbulence, the buffeting is unlike anything you’ve encountered.

“Buffeting is a funny phenomenon. It can move the car sideways, to the left or the right, without warning. It’s very unnerving.”

Former driver Derek Daly, a six-time starter in the 500 and now a television commentator, said methanol fumes from cars ahead make it almost impossible to see.

“There can be so much methanol in the air when everyone gets on the throttle at the start that it actually comes into the cockpit and just hangs there,” he said. “Your eyes sting so much, it is difficult to keep them open. It gets downright scary, and you haven’t even reached the back straightaway yet.

“Sometimes, if the pack stays together, you don’t have any clean air for several laps. If you’re behind 25 or 30 cars, you drive more on instinct than on observation. You can’t see more than two rows in front of you. You just hope and pray nothing happens up front because if it does, you’re into it before you know what’s happening.”

Jimmy Vasser, one of the most promising of a young crop of American drivers, will be starting his third 500 today from the sixth row. His first start two years ago was in the 10th row.

“If you’re not careful, you can get sucked along into the first turn like you’re in a vacuum,” Vasser said. “You lose all feeling of how fast you’re going. You feel like you have no control over your car, and it’s easy to be going faster than you think.

“Your head is moving around, the fumes are getting in your eyes, the dust is coming up from cars in front, it’s like you’re in a brown cloud. Or like being in the fog in San Francisco.”

Vasser is from San Francisco.

Two-time winner Fittipaldi started in the eighth row in his first year at Indy, 1984.

“I was so scared, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t think,” he said. “That is why I drive so fast now when we qualify. I do not want to be back there again.”

Today’s start will be Fittipaldi’s third from the front row.

An added worry at Indianapolis is the imbalance of its starting grid. Because faster cars that do not qualify on the first day must start behind all first-day qualifiers, it can place fast car-driver combinations behind slower cars with less-experienced drivers.

“Sometimes, having a slow car up front is a bigger worry than a fast car in the rear,” Simon said. “Sometimes one driver can get a break in the weather, have the car set up perfectly and drive four great laps--something they are not likely to repeat lap after lap in the race.”

He didn’t say so, but he could have been speaking of one of his own drivers, Lyn St. James, who is in the second row--ahead of Nigel Mansell, Arie Luyendyk and Mario Andretti. She has not driven in a race since last Aug. 1 and had not been among the fast cars in practice before driving what she called “four perfect laps” in qualifying.

Also in the second row is Jacques Villeneuve of Canada, the fastest rookie in Indy history who is in only his fourth Indy car race--and he has either crashed or clipped the wall in his first three. At Indy, the penalty for crashing or hitting a wall is much more severe than at Surfers Paradise, Phoenix or Long Beach.

Then there are the chargers--fast drivers with fast cars--way back in the pack.

Bobby Rahal, the 1986 winner, is in Row 10 with the seventh-fastest qualified car. Paul Tracy, in one of the Mercedes Benz-powered Penskes identical to those driven by Unser and Fittipaldi on the front row, is in Row 9 with a car that ran 230 m.p.h. in practice two weeks ago.

Rahal is back there because he switched cars, moving from a Honda so slow it faced being bumped to a quick Ilmor-powered Penske. Tracy is back there because he crashed and missed the first day of qualifying.

So, when the field of 33 heads into the first turn, don’t worry abut whether Boesel will get the jump on Unser, as he did last year on pole-sitter Luyendyk, but look up the track and see what’s happening back in the brown cloud.

Indy 500 Lineup

Driver Residence/Country No. Chassis-Engine MPH ROW 1 1. Al Unser Jr. Albuquerque, N.M. 31 1994 Penske-Mercedes 228.011 2. Raul Boesel Brazil 5 1994 Lola-Ford 227.618 3. Emerson Fittipaldi Brazil 2 1994 Penske-Mercedes 227.303 ROW 2 4. r-Jacques Villeneuve Canada 12 1994 Reynard-Ford 226.259 5. Michael Andretti Nazareth, Pa. 8 1994 Reynard-Ford 226.205 6. Lyn St. James Daytona Beach, Fla. 90 1994 Lola-Ford 224.154 ROW 3 7. Nigel Mansell England 1 1994 Lola-Ford 224.041 8. Arie Luyendyk Netherlands 28 1994 Lola-Ilmor 223.673 9. Mario Andretti Nazareth, Pa. 6 1994 Lola-Ford 223.503 ROW 4 10. John Andretti Indianapolis 33 1994 Lola-Ford 223.263 11. Eddie Cheever Aspen, Colo. 27 1993 Lola-Menard 223.163 12. Dominic Dobson Truckee, Calif. 17 1994 Lola-Ford 222.970 ROW 5 13. Stan Fox Janesville, Wis. 91 1994 Reynard-Ford 222.867 14. r-Hideshi Matsuda Japan 99 1993 Lola-Ford 222.545 15. r-Dennis Vitolo Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. 79 1993 Lola-Ford 222.439 ROW 6 16. Jimmy Vasser Discovery Bay, Calif. 18 1994 Reynard-Ford 222.262. 17. r-Scott Sharp East Norwalk, Conn. 71 1994 Lola-Ford 222.091. 18. Hiro Matsushita Japan 22 1994 Lola-Ford 221.382 ROW 7 19. Robby Gordon Orange 9 1994 Lola-Ford 221.293 20. Roberto Guerrero San Juan Capistrano 21 1992 Lola-Buick 221.278 21. r-Brian Till Columbus, Ohio 19 1993 Lola-Ford 221.107 ROW 8 22. r-Bryan Herta Dublin, Ohio 14 1994 Lola-Ford 220.992 23. Scott Brayton Coldwater, Mich. 59 1993 Lola-Menard 223.652 24. Teo Fabi Italy 11 1994 Reynard-Ilmor 223.394 ROW 9 25. Paul Tracy Canada 3 1994 Penske-Mercedes 222.710 26. r-Adrian Fernandez Mexico 7 1994 Reynard-Ilmor 222.657 27. Stefan Johansson Sweden 16 1993 Penske-Ilmor 221.518 ROW 10 28. Bobby Rahal Hilliard, Ohio 4 1993 Penske-Ilmor 224.094 29. r-Mauricio Gugelmin Brazil 88 1994 Reynard-Ford 223.104 30. John Paul Jr. Lantana, Fla. 45 1993 Lola-Ilmor 222.500 ROW 11 31. Mike Groff Worthington, Ohio 10 1993 Penske-Ilmor 221.355 32. r-Marco Greco Brazil 25 1994 Lola-Ford 221.216 33. Scott Goodyear Canada 40 1994 Lola-Ford 223.817

Field average: 223.270 (record 223.479, 1992)

r--rookie