Zanardi Is Hardly the Only One Moving On as the Wheels Turn

The announcement that two-time CART champion Alex Zanardi is leaving Chip Ganassi’s champ car team to return to Formula One could be made as soon as this weekend, but waiting for it hasn’t stopped the driver dominoes from falling.

PJ Jones, who’s stepping aside with four races remaining so that team owner Dan Gurney can find a replacement for his Toyota-Eagle, will be named today as the driver for one of Pat Patrick’s cars next season. Patrick will also announce that his team is switching chassis, from Reynard to Swift, in 1999.

“We have mixed emotions about losing PJ after seven years with our team,” Gurney said. “He won Toyota’s first-ever 24-hour race at Daytona and helped win two GTP manufacturer’s championships. He will be sincerely missed by all of us. But at the same time, we are happy to see him go to a front- running team, which only underlines what we have known for a long time--that he is one terrific driver.”

Vicenzo Sospiri, 31-year-old Italian sports car driver, will join Gurney’s team this weekend in the Honda Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca Raceway. Sospiri, who qualified for the front row of the 1997 Indianapolis 500, has been racing a Ferrari this year in the International Sports Racing Series in Europe.

Sospiri and rookie Alex Barron, a former go-kart driver from Vista, will be in Eagles from Gurney’s All American Racers shop in Santa Ana.

Last Sunday at Vancouver, in the Eagle’s second outing, Barron led for nine laps. It was the first time a Toyota-powered car had led a champ car race in 48 events.

Max Papis, another Toyota driver, has left the Arciero-Wells team to replace the retiring Bobby Rahal on next year’s Team Rahal as a teammate of Bryan Herta. And Papis’ place with Arciero-Wells was taken by veteran Scott Pruett, finishing his fourth season with Patrick Racing.

Speculation along pit row at Laguna Seca for a successor to Zanardi’s championship seat with Ganassi includes such widely diverse names as Sweden’s Kenny Brack, A.J. Foyt’s highly successful Indy Racing League driver; Robby Gordon, who started his CART career in 1992 with Ganassi, and Richie Hearn, although he says he plans to fulfill the next two years of his contract with John Della Penna.

Heinz-Herald Frentzen, who has said he would like to leave Formula One and try CART, was also rumored to be in the running but he took himself out of it Thursday, when he and Ralf Schumacher swapped Formula One teams. Frentzen will drive next season for the Jordan team and Schumacher for the Williams team, where Zanardi also is expected to land. Williams had previously lost a driver, 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve, for next year.

Ganassi hedged when asked about Zanardi’s replacement.

“I wouldn’t say Alex is gone today but then again, I wouldn’t say he’s coming back,” he said.

Maybe Zanardi’s not gone today, but he may be by Sunday, when an announcement is expected from the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

After becoming only the third repeat CART champion with a fourth-place finish in Vancouver, Zanardi flew to Italy to be with his wife, Daniela, for the birth of their first child, a boy. He is expected back today to qualify for Sunday’s Texaco/Havoline 300.

It was at Laguna Seca where Zanardi, who joined Ganassi after his Formula One Lola team folded in 1995, earned his reputation as the hardest charger in CART by cutting across a portion of the track’s Corkscrew turn, denying Herta a victory two years ago.

“Sure, Alex has won our team a third championship but our work is far from finished this year,” Ganassi said. “We want to finish 1-2 again, the way we did last year.”

Jimmy Vasser, who won for Ganassi in 1996, was second last season and signed earlier this week for three more years, . He is second at the moment, but only 20 points separate him and seventh-place Pruett. Vasser, defending champion at Laguna Seca, has 126 points, followed by Adrian Fernandez with 120, Greg Moore with 118; Dario Franchitti with 110, Michael Andretti with 109, and Pruett with 106.

“We’re very relieved to have Jimmy in the fold for the future,” Ganassi said. “He is one of the most underrated drivers on the circuit. Next year, whether Jimmy’s with Alex or someone else, we want to become the first team to win four championships in a row.”

Owner Roger Penske, who won with Rick Mears in 1981 and ’82 and Al Unser in ‘83, is the only other owner to have won three in succession.

SCORE DESERT RACING

Defending series champion Curt LeDuc of Cherry Valley, who missed the last two Laughlin SCORE Desert Series races while competing elsewhere, returns Saturday to defend his title in the SCORE Las Vegas Primm 300.

LeDuc and his Jeep Grand Cherokee will face a stiff challenge from Troy Herbst of Las Vegas, who leads the unlimited Class 1 standings after having won three consecutive overall SCORE events in his Ford-powered Smithbuilt desert race car. In the Trophy Truck class, the leader is the Ford team of David Ashley and Dan Smith of Riverside.

LeDuc missed several races while competing in the Paris-to-Dakar Rally and an Italian Baja-style race in Northern Italy, in which he became the first American driver to win a stage.

Nearly 150 vehicles are expected for the 250-mile race, which starts and finishes in Primm, Nev., 35 miles south of Las Vegas on the California border. Racing will start at 7 a.m. Saturday.

IRWINDALE SPEEDWAY

Although the new half-mile paved oval isn’t scheduled to open until next March, NASCAR has announced that Irwindale Speedway will become part of its nationwide Winston Racing Series.

“The combination of Irwindale Speedway and the Los Angeles market makes this a win-win situation,” said Tom Deery, NASCAR vice president. ‘Irwindale promises to be one of the top weekly short tracks in the country, and Los Angeles fans and competitors deserve no less when it comes to motor sports entertainment.”

Divisions of the Winston Racing Series include super late model, late model, Grand American modified, super stocks, street stocks and mini stocks.

The track is at East Live Oak Avenue and the 605 Freeway in Irwindale.

RICH GET RICHER

Three times in the last year, Jeff Gordon has been one of the drivers eligible to collect $1 million by winning a specific race. He has collected each time.

He did it first last year in the Winston Million, winning three of four major superspeedway races. The last one was the Southern 500 at Darlington and Gordon won a fender-bumping contest with Jeff Burton to claim the million.

This year, sponsoring R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. made it easier to win a million with the No Bull 5 contest, in which five drivers were eligible to collect in specific races. Gordon wasn’t eligible for the first two and no one won. He was eligible for the first time at the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis and won. That made him eligible for another $1 million in last week’s Southern 500.

He won again.

“I’m as mystified as the next guy at how we’ve done it,” he said.

FEUDIN’ AND FUSSIN’

Darrell Waltrip will race a Tabasco-sponsored car Sunday in a Winston Cup race at Richmond, Va., against the sponsor’s wishes.

The McIlhenny Co., maker of the pepper sauce, wants its logos stripped off Waltrip’s car but U.S. District Judge Rebecca Doherty ruled the other day in Lafayette, La., that the Tabasco logos must stay on the cars for now, pending a hearing.

McIlhenny claims that ISM Racing of Indianapolis, for whom Waltrip now drives, has not lived up to performance terms of the sponsorship contract. ISM drivers have failed to qualify for nine of 22 races and have finished in the top 10 only once in 13 starts.

ISM fired driver Todd Bodine in July and in August got Waltrip by joining forces with Texas businessman Tim Beverly, who had bought Waltrip’s team. Waltrip finished 13th in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis and has been in the money in every race since.

A three-man Indy Racing League advisory committee will hear a penalty appeal by Team Menard at Indianapolis on Sept. 23. The penalty against defending series champion Tony Stewart and teammate Robbie Buhl at Pikes Peak International Raceway last month cost the team $25,000.

Stewart also lost the standings lead when he was dropped from first to third place after the rear wings on his and Buhl’s cars were found to be in violation of IRL specifications.

The committee will make a recommendation to IRL Executive Director Leo Mehl, who will then decide.

Formula One drivers Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard, who nearly came to blows after crashing in the Belgian Grand Prix last month, shook hands Thursday after peace talks at Monza, Italy.

Ferrari driver Schumacher, a two-time world champion, had accused Coulthard of reckless driving after their collision in rain and near-zero visibility during the race at Spa-Francorchamps on Aug. 30.

After Thursday’s meeting, Schumacher told the Associated Press that he saw “no point to be angry with David.”

Coulthard drives for McLaren-Mercedes, as does Mika Hakkinen, who leads Schumacher by seven points in the championship standings. The accident cost Schumacher a victory and 10 points.

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This Week’s Races

CHAMPIONSHIP AUTO RACING TEAMS, Grand Prix of Monterey

* Schedule: Today, qualifying, 2:30 p.m.; Saturday, qualifying, 12:45 p.m. (ESPN2, 10:30 p.m.); Sunday, race, noon (ESPN).

* Track: Laguna Seca Raceway (road course, 2.238 miles, 11 turns), Monterey, Calif.

* Race distance: 185.75 miles, 83 laps.

* Defending champion: Jimmy Vasser.

* Next race: Texaco Grand Prix of Houston, Oct. 4, Houston.

WINSTON CUP, Exide Select Batteries 400

* Schedule: Today, first-round qualifying, 2:30 p.m. (ESPN2); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 11 a.m.; race, 4:30 p.m. (ESPN).

* Track: Richmond International Raceway (oval, 0.75 miles, 14 degrees banking in corners), Richmond, Va.

* Race distance: 300 miles, 400 laps.

* Defending champion: Dale Jarrett.

* Next race: MBNA Gold 400, Sept. 20, Dover, Del.

BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL, Autolite Platinum 250

* Schedule: Today, second-round qualifying, 9:30 a.m.; race, 4:30 p.m. (ESPN).

* Track: Richmond International Raceway (oval, 0.75 miles, 14 degrees banking in corners), Richmond, Va.

* Race distance: 187.5 miles, 250 laps.

* Defending champion: Steve Park.

* Next race: MBNA Gold 200, Sept. 19, Dover, Del.

CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS, Memphis 200

* Schedule: Saturday, qualifying, 12:45 p.m.; Sunday, race, 10 a.m. (ESPN).

* Track: Memphis Motorsports Park (oval, 0.75 miles, 11 degrees banking in corners), Memphis Tenn.

* Race distance: 150 miles, 200 laps.

* Last year: Inaugural race.

* Next race: NCTS Ram Tough 200, Sept. 19, Madison, Ill.

FORMULA ONE, Italian Grand Prix

* Schedule: Saturday, qualifying, 4 a.m. (Speedvision); Sunday, race, 5 a.m. (Speedvision; Fox Sports West, 10 a.m.).

* Track: Autodromo Nazionale di Monza (road course, 3.585 miles, seven turns), Monza, Italy.

* Race distance: 190 miles, 53 laps.

* Defending champion: David Coulthard.

* Next race: Luxembourg Grand Prix, Sept. 27, Nuerburgring, Germany.