CART’s Moreno Finds There’s No Substituting for Success

Last year, Roberto Moreno was CART’s “Super Sub.” This year, the 41-year-old Brazilian is its superstar.

After years of driving with inferior equipment, or filling in for injured drivers, the oldest driver in CART broke through last week in Cleveland to win his first champ car race, ending a streak of 69 that began in 1985.

“That was almost as good as seeing the birth of my two daughters,” Moreno said Thursday from Chicago, where he will be testing his Patrick Racing Reynard-Ford today at Chicago Motor Speedway.

“We didn’t get much time to celebrate, about two days with my wife [Celia] and youngest daughter [Kiara, 5], at home in Florida, before I had to come here for a test. My oldest daughter [Andressa, 12] was in camp in New York where she saw the race on TV and gave me a call.”

Moreno’s parents still live in Brazil, but he has not been back--except for Christmas visits--for 20 years, having lived in England, Monte Carlo and now Weston, Fla.

“Winning in Cleveland wasn’t my only good news last week. I just got my green card,” he said proudly. “Our youngest daughter was born in Indianapolis.”

Moreno drove in 13 races last year, subbing for the injured Mark Blundell and Christian Fittipaldi. His steady performances in borrowed cars caught the eye of Jim McGee, team manager for Patrick Racing. McGee has been one of open-wheel racing’s sharpest minds since he masterminded Mario Andretti’s 1969 Indy 500 win.

“We started talking last year at Elkhart Lake [Wis.] and we signed the deal the week before the Fontana race, after McGee convinced Pat Patrick that he wanted me to be with the operation.”

Moreno, who earned the Super Sub name by scoring points in six races last year, highlighted by a second-place finish at Laguna Seca, adapted quickly to the Patrick team. He finished second at Homestead, Fla., in the season opener and impressed by leading at Long Beach before dropping out with a broken gearbox.

“The season has sort of built up every race,” he said. “With the good setups I was getting, I expected to win, but until it happens you never know. . . . There were a lot of times along the way when I was the only one who believed in myself. But if you believe, you push, push, keep pushing and finally you get there.”

Even before the breakthrough at Cleveland, Moreno was leading in points for the CART championship. The victory put him 22 points ahead of second-place Michael Andretti, 90-68.

“We are not thinking about the championship,” Moreno said. “Not now, anyway. We work each race, do as well as we can, and if we do well, the championship will eventually be there. Our thinking is race to race. If you think about the end result, you put too much pressure on yourself and tend to make mistakes.”

The balding Moreno also discounts the age factor.

“I have a young spirit,” he said. “As long as I have my spirit, I am not old. The only reason I am 41 before I win is because it took me a long time to get a good break. Now I’ve got it.”

The victory was his first in any type of race since a 1988 Formula 3000 win in England.

ON THE YOUNGER SIDE

For every old-timer’s success story in racing, there is at least one of youth conquering.

Take Nicky Hayden, 18.

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Honda rider from Owensboro, Ky., has already won U.S. motorcycling’s top award as the American Motorcyclist Assn. Speedvision 1999 athlete of the year for his versatility, having won in dirt track and road races.

By winning the award, he joined such motorcycling legends as Kenny Roberts, Bob Hannah, Bruce Penhall, Rick Johnson, Scott Parker, Eddie Lawson and Jeremy McGrath, all past recipients.

To earn it, Hayden won the AMA Supersport title with five wins, finished second in the Formula Xtreme series with seven wins as a road racer, and also won a flat track Grand National half mile at Hagerstown, Md., on the dirt.

He may be young, but Nicky is no novice. He has been riding since his dad put him on a bike when he was 3, and he won his first race at 5 on a 50cc dirt-track bike.

“Racing was something we all did together,” Hayden said. “Dad used to race and my older brother, Tommy, had a bike so it was, ‘Hey, let me try.’ And so Dad got me a bike. My younger brother, Roger Lee, rides too. It’s something the whole family does together.

“We have a flat track and a motocross course in the backyard and we’ve got a track that runs through the woods. Our sister rides too. It’s kept us all close together, and out of trouble.”

The three brothers will all be in the same race, the 600 Supersport, today at Laguna Seca Raceway as part of the AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike championships, which share the weekend with the McGraw International Superbike Classic, Round 9 of the world championship series.

Nicky will be on his Honda, Tommy on a Yamaha and Roger Lee on a Chaparral.

Nicky is defending Supersport champion, but is concentrating this season on the more prestigious Superbike class. The Superbike final is Saturday.

Supersport bikes are production-based stock machines, whereas Superbikes are heavily modified versions of four-stroke street bikes, built for racing but made to look like the ones on the highway.

When he was only 16, Hayden stunned the cycling fraternity by winning the Willow Springs round of the highly competitive 600 Supersport series.

“It was an awesome weekend at Willow,” Hayden recalled. “We had tested there and we went into the race confident. I got a great start and everything went perfect. I got into the lead and was dicing with Eric Bostrom when he crashed and I had a two-second lead at the finish.”

Going into Saturday’s Superbike round, Hayden trails Australian Mat Mladin by 14 points. Of the six races to date, Mladin has won four and Hayden two.

“Mat is definitely the man to beat,” Hayden said. “He’s the defending series champion and he’s won every pole but one, but we proved we could beat him at [Elkhart Lake, where Hayden won both his races at Road America].

The AMA season finale is Oct. 1 at Willow Springs.

LAST LAPS

The Southern California Speedboat Club will host an American Power Boat Assn. Hi-Point event Saturday at Long Beach Marine Stadium. There will be racing for 150-mph Racing Runabouts, as well as Super Stock, Pro Stock, Grand Nationals, Crackerboxes and SST-45s. Competition will be over a five-mile circle course. The Grand Nationals will have a LeMans start, with all the boats lined up on shore. Racing will start at 9 a.m.

Irwindale Speedway and the National Hot Rod Assn. have agreed to build a one-eighth mile drag strip on the speedway grounds. It will be used for street-legal cars and junior dragsters. The NHRA-sanctioned strip will be built on the southern edge of the property. No date has been set for groundbreaking.

Juan Montoya, who won consecutive races, the IRL’s Indianapolis 500 and CART’s Milwaukee 225, was a runaway winner in second-quarter balloting for the 2000 driver-of-the-year award. He received 12 of 15 votes, out-distancing runners-up Gary Scelzi of the NHRA and Dale Earnhardt Jr. of NASCAR’s Winston Cup.

Two off-road ironman legends, Ivan Stewart and Larry Roeseler, will team up in a Toyota/PPI Tundra V-8 trophy truck in the Desert Nevada 2000, a six-day Las Vegas-to-Reno-and-back race that will start Sunday and end July 14. In November, the two champions will team again in the Baja 2000.

Rod Millen’s attempt to better the 10-minute barrier in the Fourth of July Pikes Peak Hillclimb last Tuesday ended with engine failure in his Toyota Tacoma truck, just when it appeared he was about to do it. Millen covered the first 5.5 miles of the 12.42-mile course in 4 minutes 21 seconds before the truck quit near George’s Corner.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP, New England 300

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, 11:30 a.m.; Saturday, second-round qualifying, 8 a.m.; Sunday, race (TNN, 10 a.m.)

* Where: New Hampshire International Speedway (oval, 1.058 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns), Loudon, N.H.

* Race distance: 317.4 miles, 300 laps.

* Defending champion: Jeff Burton.

* Next race: Pennsylvania 500, July 23, Long Pond, Pa.

CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS, New Hampshire 200

* When: Today, qualifying, 10:30 a.m.; Saturday, race (Channel 2, 11:30 a.m.)

* Where: New Hampshire International Speedway (oval, 1.058 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns), Loudon, N.H.

* Race distance: 211.6 miles, 200 laps.

* Defending champion: Dennis Setzer. * Next race: Nazareth 200, July 15, Nazareth, Pa.