Sprint Car's Lasoski Not Only the Man, He's Also the Dude

By SHAV GLICK

Feb. 25, 2000 12 AM PT

Danny Lasoski won seven of eight sprint car races in All-Star Circuit of Champions events during Florida Speed Weeks this month. Driving for Winston Cup star Tony Stewart and Vern Massey, the Dover (Mo.) driver won four in a row at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, then three of four at East Bay Raceway in Tampa.

Lasoski was warming up for his regular gig in sprint car racing’s premier circuit, the Pennzoil World of Outlaws, where the driver known as “Dude” expects to be a serious contender for the championship held by Mark Kinser.

The Outlaws open a 60-race season tonight at Kings Speedway in Hanford, followed by a 30-lap main event Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway. It will be the Outlaws’ only appearance in Southern California this season.

“I don’t know how Danny will do with the Outlaws, but he was terrific running for me,” Stewart said. “He just blew everybody away.”

The Outlaws are famous for the 25-square foot wings that tower over their cars, quite a contrast from the wingless cars of the Southern California-based Sprint Car Racing Assn. Outlaw cars weigh only 1,200 pounds but their 410-cubic-inch engines put out 750-800 horsepower.

Lasoski, 41, finished only 71 points behind Kinser last year, winning 11 main events. It was the second-closest points battle in series history, coming down to the final race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In the last 39 races, Lasoski had 36 top-10 finishes.

“We’ll have a different car for the Outlaws than the one Stewart owns, but it’s built by the same manufacturer [Eagle] and is very similar,” said Lasoski, a legend at his home track in Knoxville, Iowa, where he won the championship seven times and the Knoxville Nationals, sprint car racing’s Indianapolis 500, in 1998.

Lasoski finished second to Kinser in last year’s Knoxville Nationals after losing the lead on a restart. Kinser’s winning margin was 0.378 of a second.

“The Dude keeps getting tougher every year,” Kinser said.

The nickname, Dude, has nothing to do with racing.

As the story goes, Lasoski’s grandfather picked Danny up in the hospital shortly after he was born. When a nurse told him to put the baby down, Granddad said, “You’re not going to take this dude away from me.”

Forty-one years later, Lasoski is still the Dude.

Lasoski’s Outlaws cars are owned by Dennis Roth of Fresno. He will start the season with five No. 83 Beef Packers Eagles at his disposal.

“Our goal this year is to win the championship,” Lasoski said. “The Karl Kinser car is definitely the one to beat, as always, but we believe we can do it.”

Kinser-built cars have won 16 World of Outlaws championships, 14 with his nephew Steve Kinser and two with his son, Mark.

Mark Kinser had won seven consecutive races at Perris, from the time the track opened, until Johnny Herrera upset him a year ago on the half-mile dirt oval.

“There’s a lot more than the Kinsers to beat this year,” Lasoski said. “There are about 20 guys who can win. You can go right down the list, Mark, Steve, Jac [Haudenschild], Herrera, Donny Schatz, the Swindells [Sammy and Jeff], a lot of guys.”

Lasoski is defending champion tonight at Kings Speedway.

CART CHAMP CARS

Not too long ago, it appeared that five or six CART teams might enter the Indianapolis 500 and battle the Indy Racing League’s drivers. Now the number is down to two, but they are good ones, Chip Ganassi’s Target champions, Juan Montoya and Jimmy Vasser.

Vasser has been in four Indy 500s, his best finish a fourth in 1994 for owner Jim Hayhoe.

“I’ve been hoping to get at least one more chance to race at Indy before my career was over,” Vasser, 35, said.

In 1995, when CART ran the U.S. 500 opposite the Indy race, Vasser was the winner.

Montoya, of course, has never driven in the 500, as he is in only his second year with CART, but he says it has always been a dream of his.

“It doesn’t matter to me if they make me race in a school bus,” the Colombian driver told National Speed Sport News. “I’m excited to finally see the famous track I’ve been watching on television since I was 5 years old.”

The team will use G Force chassis and will test next month at Las Vegas, but is not expected to enter the IRL race at Las Vegas on April 22.

Steve Horne, who resigned as president of Forsythe Championship Racing on Tuesday, may join CART in an administrative capacity, a move that would strengthen the sanctioning body. Tony Brunetti, vice president of Forsythe Championship Racing, was named to replace Horne as president, it was announced by team owner Jerry Forsythe. Bryan Herta is their driver.

Bettenhausen Motorsports will continue to field a team for Michel Jourdain Jr., despite the death of team owner Tony Bettenhausen and his partner Russ Roberts in a plane crash. Tom Brown, the team’s chief engineer, will run the Herdez Mercedes team in the 2000 season, which opens March 26 at Homestead, Fla.

PacWest driver Mark Blundell, winner of the inaugural California 500 at Fontana, survived a 130-mph crash during testing at Sebring, Fla., on Tuesday. The Reynard-Mercedes lost traction in the fourth turn and the car smashed into a protective tire wall. The car was damaged extensively but Blundell walked away uninjured.

WINSTON CUP

After all the hoopla surrounding the Daytona 500 the last two weeks, life gets back to normal in NASCAR with the Winston Cup gypsy caravan heading for Rockingham, N.C.

From a 2.5-mile superspeedway, Daytona winner Dale Jarrett and a cast of 42 others must retool their thinking and their chassis setups for a 1.017-mile oval known officially as North Carolina Speedway. It has been part of NASCAR’s premier circuit since 1965, when Curtis Turner beat pole-sitter Richard Petty in the American 500.

Sunday’s race will be the Dura-Lube/Kmart 400.

Jarrett’s Ford Taurus dominated Daytona’s Speed Weeks but only twice since 1965 has the Daytona winner gone on to win the first race at Rockingham--Petty in 1974 and Jeff Gordon in 1997.

“Right now, the most important race in the whole wide world is this weekend’s race at Rockingham,” said Rusty Wallace, fourth-place finisher last Sunday. “Daytona was the first of the most important races and it’s over and done with. Now, it’s Rockingham that rates the most important.

“And, after that, there will be 32 more most-important races to go. Some may carry more prestige. Some may pay more money. But at the end of the day, each and every one of them offer the exact same number of points.”

DRAG RACING

Was the National Hot Rod Assn. just plain lucky, or could it be that its new rules mean a more productive era for racers, officials and, more important, fans?

At the season-opening Winternationals last month at Pomona, the results were a final day of side-by-side racing without time-consuming cleanups after oil-downs. The entire show was completed in a record 5 hours 40 minutes.

The rules provided for a maximum use of 90% nitro in the fuel used by top-fuel dragsters and funny cars, a penalty of points and fines for any car oiling the racing strip during eliminations, and a 75-minute turnaround between runs, 15 minutes less than previously allowed.

“What we experienced [at Pomona] was nothing less than spectacular and, in fact, exceeded our own expectations,” NHRA President Tom Compton wrote in National Dragster.

Now comes the next test. This weekend, at Firebird International Raceway, near Phoenix, the NHRA will be keeping its fingers crossed during running of the Checker Nationals. Firebird is a much rougher strip than Pomona and if the top-fuel and funny cars can go through another final round without dropping a load of oil on the track, it will be time to celebrate.

Despite rules changes, the Pomona results were much the same as under the old rules. Former champion Gary Scelzi was the top-fuel winner over 1999 champion Tony Schumacher, Jerry Toliver again defeated champion John Force in funny cars, and Jeg Couglin Jr. upset champion Warren Johnson in pro stocks, the winners repeating their November victories at Pomona.

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This Week’s Races

NASCAR

Dura Lube 400

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, 11:30 a.m.; Saturday, second-round qualifying, 8:30 a.m.; Sunday, race (TNN, 9:30 a.m.)

* Where: North Carolina Speedway (tri-oval, 1.017 miles, 22-degree banking in turns 1-2, 25 degrees in turns 3-4), Rockingham, N.C.

* Race distance: 399.681 miles, 393 laps.

* Defending champion: Mark Martin.

* Next race: Carsdirect.com 400, March 5, Las Vegas.

BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL

AllTel 200

* When: Today, qualifying, 10 a.m.; Saturday, race (TNN, 10 a.m.)