Brayton Wins in Pole Vault

By SHAV GLICK

May 12, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

INDIANAPOLIS —

Bumping at the Indianapolis 500 isn’t supposed to start until the second weekend of qualifying.

Team Menard advanced the procedure to opening day Saturday during a dramatic gamble in which veteran Scott Brayton withdrew one of John Menard’s colorful Lola-Menards he had qualified in the second row, then returned in another team car to bump Arie Luyendyk off the pole for the May 26 race.

It proved to be a moot point, however, because Luyendyk’s car was disqualified late Saturday after a post-race inspection revealed it was seven pounds light of the 1,550-pound minimum.

The qualification run was disallowed, but Luyendyk, the 1990 Indy 500 winner, will be permitted to try to requalify it today.

“We determined that there was no malicious attempt to run the car under weight, so it will remain eligible for the race,” chief steward Keith Ward said. “It will be charged with one failed attempt.”

No matter how fast Luyendyk runs today, he can start no higher than 21st, behind all of Saturday’s first-day qualifiers.

“It was just, the way I see it, a terrible oversight,” Luyendyk said. “Last night the car was five pounds too heavy. Then changes were made and our crew just screwed up. It wasn’t done intentionally, it just happened.”

The ruling didn’t eliminate the drama of the last hour of a bitterly cold day, as a crowd estimated at 70,000 watched a cat-and-mouse game between Team Menard and Luyendyk, who drove for Menard last year. Curiously, Brayton knocked Luyendyk off the pole last year too.

“I’ve never been through anything like this emotionally in my life,” Brayton said. “It was wonderful to beat Arie last year, but it was a greater feeling to come back out and do it with everything on the line.”

Brayton, a veteran of 14 Indy 500s and last year’s pole-sitter, had the final say with a four-lap average of 233.718 mph for the 10-mile time trial. Nearly three hours earlier, he had qualified the other car at 231.535, fifth fastest.

“I think this proves that there’s nothing more exciting than Indy on pole qualifying day,” Brayton said. “The Indy 500 is what Indy car racing is all about. There are a lot of people who love this place, and I’m one of them. You can’t take that away from people.”

Brayton, 37, collected the $100,000 PPG Pole Award as well as a $35,000 van.

The bumping overshadowed record speeds that wiped the Indianapolis Motor Speedway record book clean and the qualifying of nine rookies among 20 on a day that was as safe as it was swift.

Brayton also got the track’s one-lap record, albeit belatedly, when Luyendyk’s 234.742 was wiped off the books. Brayton ran 233.851 on his final lap.

Luyendyk, too, had taken dramatic license late in the day by twice passing up qualifying attempts while the crew changed engines in his Reynard-Ford Cosworth. During a hectic engine change, which included changing gears, the weight loss apparently occurred.

“It was an agonizing day, that’s all I can say,” Luyendyk moaned.

During morning practice, Luyendyk narrowly escaped potential disaster when he had to put two wheels in the damp grass on the third turn to avoid a runaway tire rolling across the track. It came from Johnny Parsons’ three-year-old car after the 52-year-old veteran crashed.

The accident, which severely damaged the car and bruised Parsons’ left foot, was the only wall-banging incident of the month.

For nearly three hours, while Luyendyk’s crew hemmed and hawed about which of their two cars he should try to qualify, the pole winner appeared to be Tony Stewart, the precocious rookie from nearby Rushville, Ind., who ran 233.100 in another of Menard’s colorful cars.

“It was the worst three hours of my life, waiting for those two guys to try to knock me off the pole,” Stewart said. “I have a word of warning for those guys, though. I plan on leading into the first turn in the race.”

Davy Jones, driving a Lola-Mercedes Ilmor for Derrick Walker, started the day’s record breaking when he qualified at 232.882, bettering the record 232.482 by Roberto Guerrero in 1992.

Jones will start on the outside of the front row.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Indy 500 Partial Field

The tentative partial lineup for the May 26 Indianapolis 500, listing the driver, hometown or country, car number, chassis-engine and four-lap qualification average speed in mph. More qualifications are today and next weekend:

ROW 1

1. Scott Brayton, Coldwater, Mich., No. 32, Lola-Menard, 233.718.

2. r-Tony Stewart, Rushville, Ind., No. 20, Lola-Menard, 233.100.

3. Davy Jones, Lake Tahoe, Nev., No. 70, Lola-Mercedes, 232.882.

ROW 2

4. Eliseo Salazar, Chile, No. 7, Lola-Ford, 232.684.

5. Eddie Cheever, Aspen, Colo., No. 3, Lola-Menard, 231.781.

6. Buddy Lazier, Vail, Colo., No. 91, Reynard-Ford, 231.468.

ROW 3

7. Roberto Guerrero, San Juan Capistrano, No. 21, Reynard-Ford, 231.373.

8. Alessandro Zampedri, Italy, No. 8, Lola-Ford, 229.595.

9. r-Michel Jourdain Jr., Mexico, No. 22, Lola-Ford, 229.380.