Foreign Invasion Considered a Big Plus on Circuit

When travel agent Chris Pook first broached the idea of a Formula One race through the streets of Long Beach 26 years ago, his hope was to spread the word that the sleepy beach town was worthy of international recognition. The Queen Mary had recently dropped anchor there and Pook wanted to make the Long Beach Grand Prix something of a Monte Carlo West.

After a few years, financial obligations caused him to drop F1 and run the more cost-conscious Indy cars with a nearly all American cast.

This year, in the 26th renewal, Long Beach will experience deja vu.

Of the 25 drivers in Sunday’s CART FedEx race, only four are Americans. And two of the four are only substitutes for injured foreign drivers.

Michael Andretti, at 37 the senior member of the U.S. group, says the trend toward a more international look in CART is a plus, not a negative, as some perceive.

“Times have changed,” Andretti said. “Most sports have become more international, so CART and champ cars are only following the trend. Look at hockey, baseball and the Masters last week. There are foreigners competing everywhere.

“I like it this way. With drivers from South America and Europe coming over here, I know we’re facing the best, and that’s what every driver wants--to beat the best. It’s made it harder to win, though.”

Why are the foreign drivers winning so much? Last season, 18 of 20 CART races were won by non-Americans. In the Indy Racing League, a Swede, Kenny Brack, won the Indianapolis 500.

“I think it’s because auto racing, around the world, is a lot more important per country than it is here,” Andretti said. “You go to Brazil and there are only two sports that matter, soccer and auto racing. When Brazilians are young, they want to be one or the other, and that’s what they train for.

“In the U.S., there’s so many other things to do, there is no concentration on racing. Then, too, there’s NASCAR. If it weren’t for it, we would probably have drivers like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart and John Andretti [Michael’s cousin].”

There are 10 Brazilians in Sunday’s lineup.

CART’s 20-race schedule, of which Sunday’s race is No. 2, takes what was once an American series to Brazil, Japan, Australia and twice to Canada. Next year it will go to either England or Germany.

“I also think that you can’t lose sight of the fact that if not for our series having a more international flavor, we would be in big trouble,” Andretti said. “That is where our biggest growth has been.

“The crowd was down in our first race [in Homestead, Fla.] and we’ve been hurting in ovals ever since the split with the IRL.

“Our fans are split in half. We’ve lost half of our oval fans, and the other half, even if they don’t go to IRL races, are disgusted with the split and don’t go to either. It’s good we have Long Beach because it’s our premier event.”

Long Beach holds good memories for Andretti.

It was on the twisting street course that he scored his first Indy car win, in 1986. He has won 37 more races since then--most by any active driver--but no more at Long Beach, despite having started on the pole in 1991, 1992 and 1995.

“It’s always nice to go back where you’ve won, but more than that, Long Beach is a special place,” he said. “Chris Pook does a great job. It’s the way all events should be run. It’s cool.

“I think we’ve helped Long Beach too. The area around the circuit has changed unbelievably since we started racing here. The buildings on the front straight used to be boarded up X-rated theaters and today it’s a nice metropolitan area. I think the race had a lot to do with the rebirth of the downtown area.”

For four years, from 1984 to 1987, the Long Beach Grand Prix was an Andretti happening. Michael’s father, Mario, won in 1984 and 1985, Michael won in 1986 and Mario came back in 1987. Mario also won in 1977 when it was still a Formula One race.

The younger Andretti says he is hungry for another family win and that this might be the year.

“I’m especially looking forward to this week because we’ve really turned our program around,” he said. “We’re a lot better off than we were last year. We have gone back to Lola [chassis] and we’ve become more accustomed to Firestone tires.

“Last year was our first on a street course with Firestones and we tried to force our Goodyear [tire] setup on Firestones and we missed pretty badly. Now we have a better understanding of how they work on road courses.”

Andretti’s Newman-Haas team was the factory team for the Swift chassis the last three years. In 1996, in a Lola, Andretti won five races and finished second to Jimmy Vasser in the championship standings. After switching to Swift in 1997, he won only one race in each of the next three seasons.

“Our whole chassis program [with Swift] didn’t take off the way it was supposed to and it started to siphon resources from our team,” Andretti said. “With Lola, there is a different philosophy. It is a company that understands racing more. Instead of us supporting them, they support us.”

ANOTHER AMERICAN

Jose Guillermo (Memo) Gidley was born in Mexico, but he is an American, born of American parents and wants the Stars and Stripes waving in the crowd to celebrate his ride in Sunday’s Long Beach Grand Prix.

“My father was a professional fisherman and he spent six months a year in Mexico at the time I was born, but our home was on a sailboat in Sausalito harbor,” said Gidley, named to replace the injured Patrick Carpentier in one of Gerry Forsythe’s cars.

“Right now, I live in Novato, near Sears Point, but really all I have is a cell phone, a pickup truck and a helmet. If I get a call to drive a race car, I’m on my way.”

Stories in Wednesday editions referred to Gidley as Mexican.

The 29-year-old was in Indianapolis, passing his rookie test, when he got the call from Forsythe.

“I went [to Indy] with nothing, hoping to find something,” he said. “I spent day after day sitting on the wall, walking through the garages, hoping someone would see me. I had been there nearly a week and the rookie tests were about over when I got a call Sunday night about 10:30 that I could test the next morning at 11.”

Without having driven on an oval since a Toyota Atlantic race in 1998 in Milwaukee, Gidley completed the entire 40-lap test, plus 21 practice laps, in little more than an hour. He drove for Team Pelfrey in the same car he will try to qualify next month for the 500.

“Indy was awesome,” he said. “I thought I was going fast when I warmed up at 135 mph, but when I got to 210 I knew I was going fast.”

Gidley drove in 10 CART races last year, six with Dale Coyne and four with Derrick Walker, but none were on ovals.

It is ironic how he landed with Forsythe’s team. When Japanese rookie Shinji Nakano was injured in testing one of Walker’s cars, Forsythe lent Bryan Herta, his third driver, to Walker for Sunday’s race. So when Carpentier, Forsythe’s No. 1 driver, was injured in a fall Monday, Herta was unavailable and the call went out to Gidley.

EIGHT FOR EIGHT

There have been eight Winston Cup races this year and eight winners, a NASCAR record for the start of a season. The surprising thing is that three-time champion Jeff Gordon is not one of the eight.

After going 12 races without a top-five finish, Gordon finally finished fourth last Sunday at Martinsville, Va. Tony Stewart, 1999 rookie of the year, has not won either, nor has he even led a lap in eight races.

Race No. 9 will be run at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, NASCAR’S fastest and longest track. It’s also the most nerve-racking.

“It’s not about what you and your car can do, it’s about what everybody else is doing to you and your car,” Stewart said. “Last year, I was running four-wide through the corners and I was on the outside. So, there was me and a concrete wall, and the concrete wall was about a foot away from me, and the guy on the inside of me was about three or four inches away from me.

“I can only imagine what the middle two guys felt like. It’s like being in bumper-to-bumper traffic running at 195 mph. If one person makes a mistake, then you’re all crashing. It makes for a very long day.”

MOTORCYCLES

For the 30th year, the American Trials Assn. will hold El Trial de Espana, an observed trials motorcycle event, Sunday as a fund raiser to send U.S. riders to Europe to compete. Geoff Aaron of Jamul, Calif., 1998 AMA champion and current points leader, will be among top riders giving an exhibition.

More than 100 are expected to ride in the Reed Valley trials area, near Aguanga, about 25 miles east of Temecula. Details: https://www.atatrials.org.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP, DieHard 500

* When: Today, first-round qualying, noon (ESPN2, 1 p.m., tape); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 7:45 a.m. (ESPN2, 3 p.m., tape); Sunday, race (ABC, 10 a.m. )

* Where: Talladega Superspeedway (tri-oval, 2.66 miles, 33 degrees banking in turns), Talladega, Ala.

* Race distance: 500.08 miles, 188 laps.

* Defending champion: Dale Earnhardt.

* Next race: NAPA Auto Parts 500, April 30, Fontana.

BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL, Touchstone Energy 300

* When: Today, second-round qualifying, 10:30 a.m.; Saturday, race (ESPN2, 12:30 p.m.)

* Where: Talladega Superspeedway (tri-oval, 2.66 miles, 33 degrees banking in turns), Talladega, Ala.

* Race distance: 300.58 miles, 113 laps.

* Defending champion: Terry Labonte nipped Joe Nemechek in a photo finish for the victory.

* Next race: Auto Club 300, April 29, Fontana.

CART, Toyota Grand Prix

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, 2:30 p.m.; Saturday, second-round qualifying, 1:45 p.m. (Sunday, 10 p.m., tape); Sunday, race (ESPN, 2 p.m.)

* Where: Long Beach Street Circuit (temporary road course, 1.824 miles, 11 turns), Long Beach.

* Race distance: 191.52 miles, 105 laps.

* Defending champion: Juan Montoya.

* Next race: Rio 200, April 30, Rio de Janeiro.

NHRA, O’Reilly Nationals

* When: Today,, first-round qualifying, 11L30 a.m.; Saturday, second-round qualifying, noon; Sunday, final eliminations, 8 a.m.

* Where: Houston Raceway Park, Baytown, Texas.

* Defending champion: Doug Herbert outran Tony Schumacher in the Top Fuel finals and became the first NHRA driver to win the $100,000 sponsor bonus. John Force (Funny Car), Kurt Johnson (Pro Stock) and Mark Osborne (Pro Stock Truck) won their divisions.

* Next race: Virginia Nationals, April 30, Richmond, Va.