IRL Losing Stature on Way to Indy 500

The countdown to the Indianapolis 500 begins Sunday at Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Fla.

The Pep Boys Indy Racing League, the sanctioning body for the Indy 500, opens its season with the TransWorld Diversified Services Indy 200. It is the first of three IRL races scheduled before the big one May 30.

Surprisingly--and disappointingly--the IRL as it starts its fourth year under Tony George’s direction, instead of having gained stature, has lost some since last year.

Gone is two-time Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk, the marquee name of the series. After winning the season finale last year at Las Vegas, the Dutchman announced that he would run only the Indy 500 this year and then retire.

Luyendyk, 45, is stepping aside to help with the career of his 17-year-old son, Arie Jr., who plans to drive in the Formula Ford 1600 class.

Gone too is 1997 champion Tony Stewart, who was the IRL’s poster boy when the series was founded in 1996. He won three IRL races for John Menard’s team, one of them last year’s opener in Orlando, but he has left to drive stock cars for Joe Gibbs in NASCAR’s Winston Cup and Busch series.

Stewart had been programmed to return to Menard to drive in the 500, but that now seems unlikely, since Stewart’s Winston Cup Pontiac is sponsored by Home Depot, Menard’s fiercest competition in the home improvement business. Home Depot has announced that it will distribute 80 million advertising inserts featuring Stewart, which it expects will reach 80% of U.S. households, not a pleasant thought for Menard.

The only new attraction of note is Jason Leffler, 23, who won the U.S. Auto Club’s Silver Crown and midget national championships last year. Leffler will drive for Fred Treadway as a teammate of Sam Schmidt, who is replacing Luyendyk.

Leffler, however, will also be devoting effort to defense of his Silver Crown title in the series for front-engine, open-wheel cars. At Orlando, the Long Beach youngster will drive in both races, the Silver Crown on Saturday and the IRL opener Sunday.

In preparing for Sunday’s race, Leffler put in 2,000 miles of testing, 800 of them in tire testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Otherwise, the lineup is the same as the 1998 season, which means that competition should be close. In 19 races held since the IRL introduced radically different engine regulations in 1997, there have been 11 different winners.

A.J. Foyt’s tandem of IRL champion Kenny Brack and midget veteran Billy Boat will open as favorites for the championship.

“It’s always difficult to win a championship, whether it’s the first, second or third,” Brack said. “We’re going into every race doing absolutely the best we can. I’m confident. This year, we’ve been together for a year. We should start out smoothly.”

Boat, who had a record six PPG poles last year but won only once, should offer the strongest challenge. He was contending last season before injuries forced him to miss two races.

Veteran Eddie Cheever, a winner at Orlando two years ago and last year’s Indy 500 champion, is returning for the second year with his team. At selected races, he will have Robby Unser as a teammate, but this week he has loaned Unser to Team Pelfrey.

There are other changes:

Davey Hamilton, runner-up to Brack in points last year, will drive for the revived Galles Racing team, and Chilean veteran Eliseo Salazar will replace Hamilton in the Nienhouse Motorsports car.

Greg Ray, surprise front-row starter in last year’s Indy 500 with the low-budget Thomas Knapp team, has taken over Stewart’s seat in Menard’s No. 1 car. Knapp went along as the team’s engineer.

The cars are the same, Dallaras and G Forces, plus two Riley & Scotts. Except for two Infinitis, the engines are all Oldsmobile Auroras.

OFF-ROAD RACING

The six-race SCORE Desert Series will get underway this weekend with the fifth annual Laughlin Desert Classic--six races Saturday and six more Sunday over a 13-mile loop course near the Nevada gambling resort alongside the Colorado River.

Featured will be the Trophy Truck class, with the Ford F-150 team of David Ashley of Riverside and co-driver Dan Smith of Huntington Beach opening defense of both the race and the series championships.

Their main challenge is expected from the Herbst brothers, Ed, Tim and Troy, from the Terrible Herbst Racing Team of Las Vegas. Ed and Tim share their Trophy-Truck ride in another Ford F-150. The Herbsts finished second in points last year and in 1997 won the Laughlin Classic.

Troy, youngest of the brothers, drives a Ford-powered hybrid Smithbuilt desert race car. He won his second consecutive unlimited Class 1 championship last year and was also the overall winner in the SCORE Desert Series.

Bekki Freeman, winner of the Class 1-2/1600 class in her Jimco desert car and SCORE’s rookie of the year, will be back to open defense of her title. The Henderson (Nev.) driver is the first woman to win a SCORE class championship.

Racing will start at 6:30 a.m. both days. All races are 85 minutes.

SUPERCROSS

The Rose Bowl will be the site of a major Supercross event Nov. 20, according to Dave Jacobs, general manager of the Rose Bowl. The date has been approved by the Rose Bowl Operating Co., despite concerns from the Tournament of Roses Assn. that it might harm the field for the New Year’s Day football game. It will be produced by Speed Vision Productions, a Fox West entity.

Team Kawasaki’s Ricky Carmichael will miss the next two or three AMA Supercross events while recuperating from injuries suffered in last Saturday night’s race at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. A record crowd of 54,645 watched as the Florida rookie crashed on the second lap. When Carmichael fell on his bike, the foot peg cut deeply into his upper right thigh. He may return for the race Feb. 6 at Edison Field in Anaheim.

IROC

This year’s International Race of Champions will open Feb. 12 at Daytona International Speedway, with races to follow April 24 at Talladega, Ala., June 12 at Michigan International Speedway and Aug. 6 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Defending champion Mark Martin is the first of the 12 drivers to be named for the True Value-sponsored series of 100-mile races. Other early entries include Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon, Indy Racing League champion Kenny Brack, Indy 500 winner Cheever, and U.S. 500 winner Greg Moore from CART.

They will drive identically prepared stock-appearing race cars.

LAST LAPS

Toyota, which will have five cars in CART this season, has announced plans to develop a Formula One team. No date was announced, but the Japanese company said it plans “to consider participation in F1 early in the next century.”

Bill France, president of NASCAR, and Tony George, president of the Indy Racing League, have joined forces with Dale Coyne, president of Route 66 drag strip in Joliet, Ill., to build a $100-million, 1.5-mile oval track adjacent to the strip in the Chicago suburb. The facility, scheduled to open in 2001, expects to be on the Winston Cup and IRL schedules.

Former Indianapolis 500 winner Danny Sullivan will serve as grand marshal of the 37th Rolex 24 at Daytona next weekend.

National Hot Rod Assn. drivers will have an extra $3.3 million in bonus money as an incentive when the season starts in two weeks at Pomona Raceway.

This Week

IRL

TransWorld Diversfied Services 200

Schedule: Saturday, qualifying, 9:30 a.m. (Speedvision); Sunday, race, 3 p.m. (Channel 7, delayed)

Track: Walt Disney World Speedway (tri-oval, 1.0, miles, 10 degrees banking in turn 1, 8.5 degrees in turn 2, 7 degrees in turn 3), Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Race distance: 200 miles, 200 laps

Defending champion: Tony Stewart