Battle of Indy-pendence

If it’s your custom on the Sunday before Memorial Day to pull up to your TV set and watch the Indianapolis 500, and you haven’t been paying close attention to Indy car racing this year, there is something you should know.

Former winners Bobby Rahal, Emerson Fittipaldi, Al Unser Jr. and Jacques Villeneuve won’t be racing at Indy today.

Neither will Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy or Jimmy Vasser. Robby Gordon? Uh-uh. Raul Boesel? Nope.

All of them, with the exception of Villeneuve, last year’s surprise winner who has taken his talents across the Atlantic to Formula One, will be racing here today, 250 miles northeast of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the Michigan International Speedway in the inaugural U.S. 500.

The U.S. 500? It’s Championship Auto Racing Teams’ answer to the Indy 500, the wedge that has split Indy car racing like a dry chunk of oak.

Not quite a year ago, Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, announced a new series of Indy Car races, a strictly American oval-track series known as the Indy Racing League.

That made CART a tad nervous. Its own series of oval, street and road races, in this country and others is highly successful, but George does operate from a bully pulpit in Indy at the holiest of all tracks in the realm.

Then George announced the rules for this year’s Indy 500. There would be no new equipment--’95 cars and engines, or older, would suffice--and 25 of the 33 starting spots would be reserved for IRL teams.

That made CART downright angry. The organization that, for years, had supplied most of the technology, cars and drivers for “the greatest spectacle in racing” would be made to scramble for eight spots, even if many of its drivers were faster than the IRL’s.

“Nuts,” said CART when diplomacy and negotiations failed to shake George from his intent. “We’ll have our own race that day.”

Hence, the U.S. 500, here in southeastern Michigan, and a slogan proclaiming: “The real cars . . . the real stars . . . the real race. The U.S. 500. The Real 500.”

Not that there won’t be lots of similarities to the Indy 500, all strictly intentional, of course.

The track here is a banked two-mile tri-oval, rather than a flat 2 1/2-mile oval, but the speeds are similar. And the cars here will start three abreast, just as they do at Indy, even though there will be only 27 starting, not the traditional 33.

The winner at Indy figures to make $1.5 million or more. Here, the winner is guaranteed $1 million. There is only one Borg-Warner trophy and Indy has it, but CART has come up with what would seem a suitable substitute--a gleaming 31-inch-high sterling silver replica of the Vanderbilt Cup, a symbol of racing excellence in this country in the early part of the century.

This race won’t draw Indy’s 350,000 or more fans, but more than 100,000 are expected, and CART finds that remarkable, considering that the race has been on the schedule for less than six months.

Said Rena Shanaman, general manager of the U.S. 500: “All 90,000 seats have been sold and the demand here was strong enough that, for the first time in MIS history, we had an advance sale of general admission [infield] tickets.

“It was not an easy task to pull this all together in such a short period,” she added, “but the fans are going to get good value for their tickets.”

Some of them, she suggested, had turned back tickets to the Indianapolis race when the split developed, and some didn’t even bother, she said, eating their Indy tickets and buying here.

The drivers? Most would rather be at Indy, where the field includes mostly rookies and journeymen, but . . .

“[The IRL] ridiculously saved 25 spots for their own drivers, regardless of their speeds,” said Jimmy Vasser, winner of three of CART’s five races this season and the pole-sitter here in his Reynard-Honda. “It doesn’t need to be analyzed any farther than that.”

Italian Alex Zanardi, a former Formula One driver racing the CART series for the first time, innocently suggested, “This series would fit beautifully in such a big event as the Indy 500 used to be.”

Unser, a two-time Indy winner who missed last year’s race because he wasn’t fast enough, is regretting missing his second but is supportive of CART’s decision.

“I’m disappointed, but I back my car owner [Roger Penske] and the PPG Indy Car World Series because it’s the most competitive series in the world,” he said, adding that racing is racing, wherever it’s done. “Once the green flag falls, it’s all business.”

And when the green flag does fall, two hours after they have started at Indy--that race will be on ABC, this one on ESPN--Vasser would seem the driver to beat.

He and his Honda-powered car have been dominant all season, and his qualifying speed of 232.031 mph was nearly a mile an hour faster than second qualifier Adrian Fernandez, in a Honda-powered Lola. Bryan Herta, in a Mercedes-powered Reynard, has the third front-row spot.

Unser is in the middle of the second row, Penske teammates Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy in the third.

Andretti, whose Lola-Ford has been short on horsepower on the speed tracks, will start back in the fourth row, and he isn’t sure how competitive he will be, but he is certain of one thing: The race here will be better than the one at Indianapolis. “Because of the configuration of the track, historically there have been better races here than at Indianapolis,” he said. “Indianapolis is narrow and it’s almost impossible to pass in the corners. There are lots of places to pass here. You’ll see cars going two and three abreast through the corners. . . . We’ve shown we can put on a good show.”

Sounds good. Now they just have to do it.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Today’s Races

INDIANAPOLIS 500

* The race--200 laps around the 2 1/2-mile, asphalt-on-brick Indianapolis Motor Speedway track.

* Sanctioning body--Indy Racing League and the U.S. Auto Club; also open to CART, NASCAR, SCCA, Formula One and other drivers through international FIA listing.

* Time--9 a.m. PDT (TV coverage begins at 8).

* Television--Channel 7.

U.S. 500

* The race--250 laps around the two-mile, asphalt Michigan International Speedway track in Brooklyn, Mich.

* Sanctioning body--CART.

* Time--11 a.m. PDT.

* Television--ESPN

RACE LINEUPS: C6