INDIANAPOLIS 500 / DAILY REPORT : Despite Speed, Menards Not Big Favorites

Team Menard drew most of the attention in the early part of the month with its speed, produced by the V-6 stock-block engines in the cars of Scott Brayton and Arie Luyendyk. But the drivers who qualified 1-2, each at more than 231 m.p.h., are hardly uncontested favorites in today’s Indianapolis 500.

In Thursday’s final practice session, with cars in racing trim, Brayton was 25th-fastest and Luyendyk 29th--at 221.061 and 220.083, and attributed the speed drop to lack of throttle response in traffic.

Many had been anticipating that when the Menard-powered cars went from qualifying to racing setups. And at least two opponents think that the Lola-Menards, with their superior horsepower, might also have a fuel-consumption problem.

“To make horsepower takes fuel,” said driver Scott Pruett, who leads the CART season series. “So they know going into it that they’ll have to back down [on power] a little bit, and they’re still going to have a couple more pit stops than we do.”

Said car owner Barry Green, whose driver, Jacques Villeneuve, finished second as a rookie here a year ago, “I would be surprised if they got the fuel mileage we will get. I’m not counting them out, but I don’t think they’re our primary competition.”

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Motorsports writer Shav Glick and photographer Jayne Kamin-Oncea of The Times were award winners Saturday at the annual breakfast of the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Assn. Glick won in column writing and Kamin-Oncea took a first in color action photography.

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Former winner Bobby Rahal: “The race I visualize is going to be an extremely hard-fought--and fraught--race, because of the traffic and the closeness of the cars and the competitiveness. I think it’s going to be a real fight all day long.”

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Last week was cool, cloudy and frequently rainy here. More cool and cloudy would be welcomed by the drivers, if it would stop at that, because racing engines work best in those conditions. But afternoon thunderstorms are in the forecast. The race will start at 11, local time, and will be considered complete, should rain stop it, if 101 laps, one more than half, have been run. . . . The average age of the starting field is 33 years 6 months, the youngest in the modern history of the Speedway.