Gurney Sees Improvement on the Long Road Ahead

Dan Gurney wants to win in the worst way, and though his All American Racers still lag behind most CART Championship teams, it isn’t for lack of trying.

The 19-race season begins Sunday with the Grand Prix of Miami and Gurney’s drivers, P.J. Jones and rookie Alex Barron, are hoping to improve on last year’s finish when the now-retired Juan Manuel Fangio II finished 23rd and Jones finished 28th.

“The second half of the season is apt to be demonstrably better than the first,” Gurney said. “We are improving and so are the people in front.

“We’re pretty sure the light at the end of the tunnel is actually a light, but we need to get a little more success behind us. The only way you do that is to get in there and do it.”

That means diving headlong, and team owner Gurney has done that.

His Santa Ana facilities have been upgraded to include a new water tunnel and overhauled wind tunnel, which could lead to the introduction this season of a new chassis. “If it’s good enough,” Gurney joked, “we might call [the chassis] an Eagle.”

The Eagle chassis is Gurney’s baby, one his team developed, but it got pushed to the back burner after the 1996 season. AAR used the Reynard chassis in 1997 because Toyota wanted to focus on engine development. The design Gurney’s team is working on is called a 987, and testing could begin in late July if all goes well.

Gurney called the potential new chassis an updated version of the 1998 Reynard chassis used by his team, as well as that of Toyota’s other entry at Arciero-Wells.

Like the Arciero-Wells teams, AAR will have the new RV8C engines built at Toyota Racing Development in Costa Mesa, and a new team manager, John Scherry, who replaced longtime Gurney assistant Gary Donahoe. Donahoe left to become vice president of operations for the Indy Lights Series.

Testing on the new engine has gone “beyond well” at times, Gurney said.

By season’s end, not only could CART teams be running a second-year Swift and first-year Penske chassis, but also Gurney’s 987.

“It shows there is competition out there,” Gurney said. “There are still people around who want to take a serious swing at knocking Reynard off the perch, and we’re among those.”

But it comes with a risk.

“It’s a two-edged sword; it can be better and it can be worse,” Gurney said. “One reason we have invested so much in the tools [the water and wind tunnels] is so that we can get an oranges and oranges comparison with the Reynard.

“If we don’t look good enough in our tunnel, we won’t come out on the track.”

Scale models 40% of full size are used in the tunnels.

With all that’s gone on, Gurney is at least optimistic, though the real onus lies with TRD. Horsepower is ultimately critical. During Friday’s practice, Barron was 26th and Jones 28th.

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Over at Arciero-Wells, Newport Beach’s Max Papis is excited to begin racing on the oval at Homestead, a suburb of Miami. A rookie on oval tracks last season, he said he gained confidence from off-season oval testing that he lacked last season “and [acclimating] myself at average speeds above 210 mph.”

“We are definitely a much stronger and calmer environment within my team than what we had last year,” Papis said. “We made some steps forward, especially [the engine], but we’re still not up to the level we would like to be. But we are in a higher position compared to the end of the season. But I don’t know how much the others improved.

“Saturday [during qualifying] will provide a definite answer to the question.”

During Friday’s practice, Papis was 15th (205.057 mph), behind Scott Pruett’s 210.503.

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San Clemente’s Mark Weida will give new meaning to the term muscle car. Weida has been named race engineer for the newly formed Active Motorsports, which will partner with Weider Publications, to compete in the Toyota Atlantic Championship Series. Weider Publications, based in Woodland Hills, is owned by Joe Weider, who started the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest and publishes 10 health and fitness magazines.

The team will be based in Worthington, Ohio.

Weida also is race engineer for Clint Mears of Team Mears of the Indy Lights series. Mears was the fastest performer in testing this week in Homestead, Fla. The race is Sunday.

Weida, team owner for Leading Edge in Lake Forest, decided not to field his own Indy Lights team this season. His resume as a race engineer includes three Indy Lights championships, a front-row qualifying effort in last year’s Indianapolis 500 with driver Vincenzo Sospiri, and winning the 1997 Clint Brawner Mechanical Excellence Award.

Zak Brown, 25, of Indianapolis, will drive the Weider Publications Atlantic car.

The 1998 seasons begins with the April 4 race in Long Beach.

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Precision Preparation Inc., announced it signed Masaoki Nagashima of Ohta-ku, Tokyo, Japan, as its driver in the Toyota Atlantic Championship series. He joins the other new driver, Anthony Lazzaro of Acworth, Ga., on the Rancho Santa Margarita team.

Nagashima will also be competing in the Formula 3 series in Japan.