If Pizza’s Late, Don’t Blame Zanardi

Pole-sitting specialist Alex Zanardi, who has been quoted as saying he drove a pizza truck two years ago in Rome when he was temporarily out of racing, put an end to the story Friday during the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“It was a joke, a joke between me and Jimmy [Vasser] over a Target commercial we did together a year ago,” the Italian driver explained. “We were joking about it in Australia and the writers down there didn’t know it was a joke and they printed it, and it ran all over the world.

“The joke was funny between us, but when my family read about it in Italy, it wasn’t so funny. So I must tell you the true story.”

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Long Beach Grand Prix Assn. officials estimated Friday’s attendance at a first-day record 48,500.

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Actors Jason Bateman and Sean Patrick Flanery upstaged their professional racing rivals by qualifying in the front row for today’s 10-lap pro-celebrity race in which everyone drives identically prepared Toyota Celicas.

Bateman, who won the celebrity race in 1987, lapped the course at 69.338 mph, just nipping Flanery’s 69.146. Bateman stars as Harry Kulchak, the middle brother on NBC’s new comedy, “Chicago Sons,” while Flanery will appear in the film “Independence,” opposite Drew Barrymore.

“Killer!” exclaimed Flanery. “It was an adrenaline rush. It was different with stands full of people yelling.”

They beat favorites Jimmy Sills, U.S. Auto Club Silver Crown champion from Placerville, who did 69.071; Tom Kendall, Trans-Am champion from Santa Monica, 68.758; and Ivan Stewart, off-road truck champion from Alpine, 68.753.

“One time Sean tagged me in the bumper,” Sills said. “But I won’t hold it against him.”

After Brian Austin Green crashed, he said, “The wall on Turn 1 is not your friend, but at least I got a nice souvenir, a Toyota emblem from the front of the car.”

The celebrities race today at 1:45 p.m.

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Hiro Matsushita owns the Swift Engineering Co., which builds the Swift chassis driven by Michael Andretti and Roberto Moreno, but in CART, Matsushita drives a Reynard-Toyota entered by Cal Wells and Frank Arciero. . . . Several accidents during morning practice for the Kool-Toyota Atlantic cars caused officials to postpone qualifying for today’s race. The 45 cars will qualify at 11:10 a.m. for their 38-lap race at 3:45 p.m. Rookie Alex Barron of Vista had the fastest practice lap of 93.282 with defending champion Case Montgomery next at 93.156.

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Students from the L.A. Unified School District, the Peary School District and the Long Beach Unified School District were guests Friday of Team Rahal as part of a community program called the Youth Motivation Task Force. The students received a briefing about Bobby Rahal’s car, a tour of the paddock and a meeting with Rahal and teammate Bryan Herta.

“It is a privilege to be able to take part in a program like this,” Rahal said. “Who knows, this visit may inspire a star driver, engineer, crew chief or marketer of the future.”