For Gordon, It Will Be a Race From Indianapolis to Charlotte

If Felix Sabates--who owns Robby Gordon’s racing contract--had his way, Gordon wouldn’t be planning on an Indianapolis-Charlotte doubleheader on May 25, running first in the Indy Racing League’s Indy 500 and then jetting to North Carolina for the Coca-Cola 600 Winston Cup race.

“The only reason I did it is because when I tried to hire Robby, the only way I could get him to switch was to promise him a ride in the Indy 500,” said Sabates, a native Cuban who became a multimillionaire as one of the original Nintendo distributors.

“To me, personally, it’s not worth it. I don’t care about running an IRL car or a [CART] car. That’s not my cup of tea. I’m a Winston Cup person.”

Gordon drove Indy cars the last three years for Derrick Walker, winning two races in 1995, before

being lured away by Sabates, who was looking for a replacement for Kyle Petty, who had been his driver since 1989.

“Robby is a superstar in the making,” Sabates said. “It might be two years, but some day in the very near future, Robby is going to be one of the premier drivers on the Winston Cup circuit.”

In seven races this season in his Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the driver from Orange has one pole, at Atlanta, but his best finish was a 14th at Atlanta.

“I think we’re ahead of what we projected for our Winston Cup team,” Sabates said. “I think Robby’s developed quicker than I thought. Don’t be surprised if he wins a race this year. He’s already won a pole, and he’s got many more chances to win a race.

“This Indy thing, basically, is just an investment for the future. We’ve got two cars, and I had to pay the entry fee for the backup car too, and it was $9,000. I got a call from a CART owner, and he wanted us to field a second car for him in the Indy 500. I told him if he paid us $5 million I wouldn’t do it.”

Sabates originally wanted to rent a car from Andy Evans [now the owner of IMSA] for Gordon to drive at Indy.

“After meeting with Andy, I didn’t think I wanted to be involved with him, so I just had to do it on my own,” Sabates said. “It’s been a very expensive proposition. Our budget for just that one race is $2 million.

“The car and the gear box without the transmission is over $300,000. The [whole deal] is between $400,000 and $450,000, plus you’ve got to buy a telemetry system and that’s another $150,000. Those things are neat. I wish we could use one in our Cup car. It tells the tire pressure, oil pressure, water temperature, everything, even when the driver is putting his foot on the brake.”

Gordon, who gave up a lucrative off-road racing career when he became a full-time Winston Cup driver, recently tested Sabates’ car for two days at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Gordon was impressive with a lap at 215.7 mph. Tony Stewart, last year’s Indy pole-sitter, has the fastest test lap of 218.436.

“When we left Indy, Robby was like a kid in a candy store,” Sabates said. “We have a G-Force chassis and three engines we got from Jack Roush. What Roush gave us was an engine out of a box, no fine-tuning or nothing, so we were pretty pleased.”

When Gordon was testing, Sabates watched from the first turn, at the end of the long Indianapolis straightaway.

“It was scary,” he said. “You expect him to lift [his foot from the accelerator], but he was going 221 in the straightaways and 213 through the corners. Every time he went by, all I could think was $400,000 and a driver, $400,000 and a driver, $400,000 and a driver.

“The only thing neat about it was that those cars sound like a stock car.”

The team has an elaborate plan for making the two races, a feat that John Andretti accomplished in 1994. He finished 10th at Indy, 36th at Charlotte.

Charlotte officials have made it a little easier by moving back the start of their race by an hour, to 6:15 p.m.

“We’re going to try to qualify [at Indy] on the first day [May 10], and we won’t run again until Tuesday. We’ll run again early Wednesday and then leave for Charlotte that night to run the IROC race on Friday and hopefully the Winston on Saturday.

“Then we’re going back to Indy on Monday and maybe run 300 miles that day to do fuel mileage checks and engine checks. After that, we’re going to put the cover on the car and go to Charlotte and hopefully qualify for the 600 on Wednesday.

“We’ve got to be back at Indy on Thursday because it’s Carburetion Day. I told Robby he had to qualify the first day at Charlotte [to make connections]. We’ll be back in Charlotte on Friday and Saturday. We’ll put another driver in the car to practice on Saturday afternoon just to get some practice in case Robby wins the Indy 500.

“If we win the 500, I told him he could drink the milk on the airplane because we’re going to Charlotte.”

A helicopter will pick Gordon and Sabates up after the Indy 500 and take them to the airport for an hour and 14 minute flight to Concord, N.C., then an eight-minute ride to Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“We ought to make the Charlotte race with about 15 minutes to spare,” Sabates said.

Tight schedules are nothing new for Gordon.

In 1991, he drove a Ford pickup in the Baja 1,000, surviving five wrecks and six flat tires before abandoning the truck at 3:30 a.m. to co-driver Mike Schoffstall, who continued on to finish fourth and clinch the SCORE series title for Gordon.

Gordon, scheduled to drive an IMSA GTO car the next afternoon at Del Mar, drove 80 miles to the border where he was delayed an hour. He arrived at Del Mar at 9:30 a.m., in time for a 15-minute warmup to learn the twisting 1.6-mile road course. Then he took a two-hour nap before starting sixth in the 46-lap race, which he won in a tight battle with series champion Pete Halsmer.

“I really believe that Robby has a chance to win the Indy race,” Sabates said. “I think Stewart is going to be tough for the pole, but I think we can be on the front row and win the race. Robby came close a few years ago and he had a flat tire with eight laps to go.”

Gordon finished fifth in both 1994 and 1995.

And what would Sabates do if his driver wins the Indy 500?

“If we win, I’m going to leave the car on pit row and tell ‘em they can have it,” he said, smiling at the prospect.

SUPERCROSS

After 12 of 15 events, Jeff Emig of Riverside holds a two-point lead over defending champion Jeremy McGrath of Murrieta, 234-232. The AMA series will be at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday night. McGrath led 17 of the 20 laps last week before a record 63,043 in the Pontiac Silverdome until he fell and finished fourth. Ezra Lusk won on a Yamaha. Stephane Roncada of Corona won the 125cc main event.

CART

Long Beach Grand Prix Assn. officials reported that a record 127,000 spectators were at Sunday’s race, 90,000 of them paid. The announced three-day paid attendance of 215,000 was another record. . . . Team Penske driver Paul Tracy was fined $25,000 for three rough driving and unsportsmanlike conduct incidents during the Long Beach race.

NASCAR

Jeff Gordon muscled his way past Rusty Wallace to win last week’s short-track Winston Cup race at Bristol, Tenn., and now faces another short-track fender-banging experience Sunday at Martinsville, Va. The Food City 500 at Bristol had a record 20 yellow flags and 132 of the 500 laps run under caution. Like Bristol, Martinsville is a half-mile oval. After seven races, Dale Earnhardt has yet to finish in the top five.

The Craftsman truck series will resume its season, after a five-week layoff, at Phoenix on Sunday. A Chevrolet owned by veteran off-road truck driver Walker Evans, with Butch Miller driving, leads in points. Sharing the spotlight at Phoenix on Saturday will be a Trans-Am sedan race featuring defending champion Tom Kendall.

LAST LAPS

SCORE International off-road racers return to action Saturday with the Las Vegas Primm 300. Curt LeDuc of Cherry Valley will be going for his third Trophy Truck win in his Jeep Grand Cherokee, while John Herder of Tucson will be seeking a third win in the unlimited class, driving a VW-powered Jimco desert car. Primm is on the California-Nevada border 40 miles south of Las Vegas.

More than 500 drivers will compete this weekend in the Federal-Mogul drag racing series for sportsman cars at Famoso Raceway, 18 miles north of Bakersfield. It is the first of six NHRA Pacific Division races. . . . The 27th annual El Trial de Espana, a fund-raiser to finance sending the U.S. team to the Trials des Nations on the Isle of Man in Britain, is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at McCain Valley recreational area, about 50 miles east of San Diego.

In quarterly balloting for driver of the year, NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon and Dale Jarrett finished 1-2, far ahead of CART points leader Scott Pruett.