MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Penske’s Loss May Well Be Newman-Haas’ Gain

At least one thing is certain about the 1995 Indy car season, which starts Sunday with the Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami, a street race alongside Biscayne Bay: There will be no 1-2-3 finish by the Penske trio of Al Unser Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy.

That’s because there will be only two Penskes running this year, defending champion Unser and Fittipaldi.

Tracy, let go when team owner Roger Penske decided it was not profitable to run three teams on the PPG Cup circuit, moved to the new-look Newman-Haas team.

Newman-Haas, which paired former Formula One champions Nigel Mansell and retiring Mario Andretti the last two seasons, has undergone a youth movement. Working with Tracy will be Michael Andretti, returning to the team after two years in which he raced in Formula One and for Chip Ganassi in Indy cars.

The younger Andretti won the 1991 championship with Newman-Haas.

“I think we are going to work well together, as good as any other two-car team out there,” Andretti said of his Canadian driving partner. “It seems like in our testing that we both have a similar feel for the race car, which is good. I have had some teammates in the past where we just didn’t connect, but Paul and I seem to have the same driving style.”

Both will drive Ford-powered Lolas, a departure from last year when Tracy won three races in a Penske chassis and Andretti won two in a Reynard.

Penske cars won 12 of the 16 races last year and filled the podium on five occasions, but the team is not standing on its reputation. Chief designer Nigel Bennett will introduce a new chassis at Miami that he estimates will be about half a second quicker than last year’s record-setting car.

Bobby Rahal, who missed the 1993 Indy 500 when his Rahal-Hogan car failed to qualify and got into the 1994 race only after abandoning his Honda engine, is back with a new Lola-Mercedes and a new teammate, Raul Boesel, who left Dick Simon’s team.

“From a preparation standpoint, we’re in better shape than ever before,” said Rahal, a three-time Indy car champion. “I know that I have done more preseason testing than ever before, and so has Raul. Now we’ll have to see what it means when we get to Miami with all the other cars.”

The Mercedes engine, which will be used by Penske, Rahal and several others, is new in name only. It is little more than last year’s Ilmor engine, only with the name Mercedes on the cam cover.

What will be different is the return of Firestone as a tire supplier along with Goodyear, which has had a virtual Indy car monopoly for 20 years.

Patrick Racing, winner of three Indy 500s and two Indy car championships, has been testing Firestones for more than a year in preparation for this season. Scott Pruett, last year’s Trans-Am champion, will be Pat Patrick’s driver. Also using Firestones at Miami will be owner Steve Horne’s Tasman team with rookie Andre Ribeiro of Brazil driving.

Tasman has also taken over development of the Honda engine from Rahal-Hogan.

Two young American drivers, Bryan Herta and Jimmy Vasser, have replaced Michael Andretti with Ganassi; veteran Eddie Cheever has replaced Herta, who was injured most of last year, on A.J. Foyt’s team; Hiro Matsushita has left Simon to become Frank Arciero’s driver, leaving Simon with newcomer Eliseo Salazar of Chile and veteran Dean Hall; Robby Gordon has been joined by Formula One driver Christian Fittipaldi, Emerson’s nephew, on Derrick Walker’s team; and Italian Teo Fabi has moved from Jim Hall Racing to Forsyth Racing, with rookie Gil de Ferran of Brazil replacing Fabi.

Returning on the same teams are Adrian Fernandez with Rick Galles, Stefan Johansson with Tony Bettenhausen and Jacques Villeneuve with Barry Green.

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Motor Racing Notes

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Speedway racing will return to the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa tonight for the annual Coors Spring Classic. Sam Ermolenko, national and former world champion, is entered along with fellow British Racing League riders Billy Hamill, Greg Hancock and Chris Manchester, plus former U.S. champions Mike Faria, Bobby Schwartz and Brad Oxley.

MOTORCYCLES--The third annual Malcolm Smith Gran Prix, a 12-mile off-road motorcycle race formerly known as the Prairie Dog GP, will be held this weekend at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino. . . . Final rounds of the CMC Golden State Motocross Nationals are scheduled for today and Sunday at Sunrise Valley Raceway in Adelanto.

NECROLOGY--Rouem (Haf) Haffenden, longtime crew chief on Formula One and Indy car teams, died Sunday of bone cancer at the City of Hope in Duarte. Services for Haffenden, 55, will be Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the O’Connor Funeral Home in Laguna Hills.