Gurney Will Keep Salles in Driver’s Seat This Week

The Grand Prix of Cleveland champ car race this weekend will be the second race for Gualter Salles in Dan Gurney’s Eagle 997 chassis. Gurney replaced Alex Barron with Salles to obtain new feedback for All American Racers on their Toyota-powered car.

Last weekend’s race in Portland went about as badly as possible for the team, from inclement weather to NASCAR truck rubber on the track. Salles qualified 22nd.

A gearbox problem kept Gurney’s Santa Ana-based team from using a 30-minute prerace warmup, and forced Salles out only 10 laps into the 98-lap race. He finished 27th among 28 cars.

“You’re not comparing apples and apples,” Gurney said of Salles’ time in the car and Barron’s. “That’s one of the reasons why I wanted a three-race break to get a reading. It wasn’t a dead loss, but it was tough.”

Almost as tough as removing Barron, in his second champ car season, from the cockpit.

“It’s going to be a valuable process. Painful, but valuable,” Gurney said. “I don’t like to have to do that. But it’s an important time for us.

“In my opinion, we have to do something that would give us additional insight.”

* Rookie driver Shigeaki Hattori of Laguna Niguel became ill before the Portland race and completed only eight laps before retiring from the race.

“We knew Shigeaki wasn’t feeling well,” Bettenhausen Motorsports team manager Joe Ward said. “There was nothing wrong with the car mechanically, but he just didn’t feel well enough to proceed. The good news is that he was smart about it and pulled out of the race before he got in the way of the other competitors.”

* Every time Orange County driver Max Papis has finished out of the points--lower than 12th--he has rebounded with a top-10 performance. He finished eighth at Portland after placing 13th at Milwaukee. He finished ninth at Long Beach after placing 19th at Motegi, Japan. And he finished a career-best fourth at Rio de Janeiro after a 13th at Nazareth, Pa.

Papis has finished all eight races and has five top-10 finishes.

INDY RACING LEAGUE

Dick Simon, owner of Dick Simon Racing in Dana Point, watched his team come back nicely after failing to qualify for the 33-car field at the Indianapolis 500. Simon’s driver, Stephan Gregoire, finished fourth two weeks ago at the Longhorn 500 and will try to improve on Sunday at the Radisson 200 at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Fountain, Colo.

“I’m really looking forward to this race,” Simon said. “We practiced in the top five fastest speeds at Indy; we practiced in the top five and finished a strong fourth in Texas. So I want to practice, qualify and finish in the top five at Pikes Peak. After a great run in Texas, everyone on the team is ready to race.”

* Emmanuel Lupe, former owner of the Formula Project racing team that won three French F3 series titles in five years, has been named team manager for Dick Simon Racing.

* Despite finishing 18th in the Longhorn 500, San Juan Capistrano’s Jeff Ward is second in the series standings. Ward, who had led, has 127 points, 19 behind race-winner Scott Goodyear.

Ward has been extremely tough on one-mile ovals, finishing third in Orlando and second at Phoenix. He dominated the first half of last year’s race at Pikes Peak, leading 97 of the first 117 laps before an accident.

“It’s a lot of fun going to these mile tracks where you have to really drive and make changes to the car that can win you the race,” Ward said, “instead of just holding your foot down flat.”

NASCAR

Anaheim’s Butch Gilliland, a regular on the Winston West circuit and third-place finisher last weekend at the series race in Irwindale, will pull a double this weekend at Sears Point.

Gilliland will race the Featherlite Southwest Series on Saturday, and if he qualifies, the Winston Cup race on Sunday.

IRWINDALE SPEEDWAY

NASCAR late models, Grand Am Modifieds, Mini-Stocks and Street Stocks will race at 7:30 tonight at Irwindale Speedway, and NASCAR Super Late Models, Super Stocks, Legends Cars and Speed Trucks will compete beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday.

SPEEDWAY

On Saturday, the top three finishers in the scratch and handicap main races at the Orange County Fairgrounds were exactly the same.

Shawn McConnell finished first, Gary Hicks was second and Brad Oxley third. Hicks and Oxley came from 60 yards back in the eight-lap handicap race; McConnell from 50 yards behind the start line.