Kendall Doesn’t Want the Number of a Truck to Hit Him
It was tough, turning them down, because it’s sort of what Tommy Kendall wants and he has nothing more to prove in Sports Car Club of America Trans-Am sedan racing.
And because Trans-Am, the country’s oldest road-racing series, is gasping for breath.
Chevrolet has pulled out and what’s left of its Camaros are competing the hard way, without factory support. Ford hasn’t said it will re-up for another season with
its Mustangs, and here was a NASCAR Craftsman truck series ride that offered Kendall a future.
But that was about all--a future--and Kendall is a here-and-now guy at 30, after a decade of futures.
“Millions of people would have gotten up and jumped into it,” said Kendall, who grew up in La Canada and now lives in Santa Monica. “But most of those people haven’t done what I’ve done, had the success I’ve had, and people should pay for that success.”
Translation: The truck folks didn’t offer enough money to get Kendall out of the Mustang he will drive this weekend in Cleveland, the seventh race of the Trans-Am season.
And what a season it has been. Six races, six victories for Kendall, whose economics degree from UCLA comes in handy when fixing a value for his services behind the wheel of anything with an engine in it.
The Trans-Am series has covered 606.4 miles this year, and he has led 488.19 of them. He has earned $137,700, and if he can add $5,420 this weekend, it will put him over $1 million for his career--five full years, plus parts of a couple of others--in a Trans-Am car.
No one else has done that, not even the venerable Mark Donohue, who won 29 Trans-Am races. And no one else has led 1,000 laps. Kendall passed that number last Sunday, when he won at Minneapolis, and Trans-Am is set to establish a 1,000/1-million club with Kendall as the charter member.
Two more consecutive victories will tie Donohue’s record of eight straight in 1968.
With 21 wins, 47 podium finishes and an amazing 66 top-10 finishes in 76 starts, Kendall has gotten comfortable in Trans-Am after a decade of racing frustration.
“When I was 20, I wanted to be in an Indy car by 22,” he says. “Now I’m 30, and I still want to get in an Indy car, but it’s not keeping me up nights.”
If no Indy car is available, Kendall would jump into a stock car faster than a Ford takes the last turn at Daytona, but nothing has been offered. Jack Roush, who owns Kendall’s Trans-Am car, campaigns eight NASCAR teams, three in Winston Cup, three in Busch Grand National and two in the Craftsman Truck series, and Kendall has talked with Roush about a move, without, he says, getting an answer.
Meanwhile, Roush has hired Ted Musgraves and formed the Jeff Burton teams in Winston Cup since Kendall has been in his employ.
And Kendall still drives Trans-Am and wonders.
He’s a victim, he figures, of two stereotypes.
“Nobody’s ever told me, but I’ve heard it’s been said that I’m too tall for an Indy car,” Kendall says.
He would break the mold at that, because by and--you should excuse the expression--large, Indy car drivers could get weekday work on horses at Santa Anita and Kendall is 6 feet 4.
“And I guess I’m fighting the stigma of being a road racer,” Kendall says.
Though the Winston Cup circuit competes on road courses at Sears Point and Watkins Glen--and Kendall has subbed in both races for injured drivers--NASCAR tradition tends to frown on drivers who have spent their formative years turning right.
Kendall got his only oval-track experience subbing in a Winston Cup car at Rockingham in a 500-mile race, and in the International Race of Champions, a series that mixes top drivers from various series and in which he has generally held his own.
He waits and wonders, occasionally seeking solace from Mark Martin, a Roush driver in Winston Cup.
“What I need is somebody with a little courage, a little imagination and some money--somebody like Rick Hendrick, who saw something and invested in Jeff Gordon, bringing him to NASCAR from sprint cars,” Kendall says.
Until he finds that benefactor, he’ll stay put, winning races keeping the rest of the Trans-Am drivers racing for second.
NASCAR
NASCAR spokesmen have denied it but there are signs that a major change is in the wind in next season’s Winston Cup schedule, with California Speedway and Texas Speedway adding racing dates, giving each track two Winston Cup weekends in their second years of operation; and Las Vegas Motor Speedway joining the series after two seasons with Busch Grand National and Craftsman Truck races.
That would extend the Winston Cup schedule from its current 34 dates, including the non-points The Winston and Busch Clash weekends, to 37 dates, and word is that the announcement will be made in August, giving teams time to plan and car owners time to go to sponsors for more money to run three extra weeks in 1998.
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The timing was strange when Robert Yates announced he would not be renewing Ernie Irvan’s contract for next year, because this week is the anniversary of Irvan’s first Winston Cup victory in his comeback after a crash that almost killed him.
And because Irvan is only a month removed from another victory at the Michigan International Speedway track where he had almost been killed.
It’s said that Havoline, the sponsor of the car Irvan drove, had problems with him that had been festering since his involvement in a scuffle at a bar near Charlotte, N.C., last spring. Charges stemming from that incident were dropped, but the sponsor problems continued and grew, although Yates would not give a reason for dropping Irvan, whose plans for next year have not been announced.
A possible successor to the second Yates car, teaming with Dale Jarrett, is Kenny Irwin, who is the top rookie in the Craftsman Truck series.
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Cale Yarborough, who owns the car John Andretti drove in winning the Pepsi 400 at Daytona on Saturday, says he will appeal a $50,000 fine assessed crew chief Tony Furr when an inspection found an illegal carburetor mount the day before the race.
But if the illegality had been found after the race, Andretti probably would have been disqualified, costing him his first Winston Cup victory.
IRL
Scott Sharp has been released from the hospital after suffering a second head injury this season.
Sharp, co-champion of the Indy Racing League’s first season, suffered a brain hemorrhage when he hit the wall at the Pikes Peak International Raceway on the first lap, while starting from the pole two weeks ago.
He had suffered a similar injury and a concussion in a crash while practicing for the Indy 500. Those injuries kept him out of the race and on the sideline for five weeks.
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When the undermanned and underfunded Tom Chastain team found its car, driven by Stephan Gregoire, in the lead of the IRL race at Pikes Peak, Mike Smith, a sometime crewman put “P1” on the pit board and happily showed it to the passing driver.
Gregoire, confused, asked on the radio if that meant that he should pit in one lap.
“I called back on the radio that, no, it didn’t mean that,” says Smith. “It means, ‘You’re in the lead and it’s staying up where everyone can see it until somebody passes you.’
“I’ve waited for 10 years for a chance to do that.”
Sure enough, it came down when Tony Stewart passed Gregoire and won the race by 0.222 of a second.
CART
Paul Tracy holds a five-point lead over Greg Moore, 100-95, going into Sunday’s Medic Drug Grand Prix at Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, the first of three consecutive weekends that CART drivers will be racing.
Tracy is seeking his first series championship and the 10th for a driver for Roger Penske.
QUICK LAPS
The World Superbike Championship Series makes its American stop this weekend at Laguna Seca, with Britain’s Carl Fogarty and Ducati leading the series by 14 points over Modesto’s John Kocinski and Honda. Kocinski has three victories to Fogarty’s two.
Bob Gordon, father of NASCAR and Indy car driver Robby Gordon, is the defending overall and unlimited Class I pro champion of the SCORE Fireworks 250 off-road race, which will be run Saturday in four laps over a 62.1-mile loop, much of it alongside I-15 near Barstow. The start-finish line is at Outlet Center Drive off I-15, with trucks getting underway at 6 a.m.
Saugus rookie Sean Woodside had led the most laps in the NASCAR Winston West series this year, but had not won a race until Saturday night at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Wash.
