IRL Title Can Further Illuminate Lazier’s Career

Buddy Lazier, a former ski champion from Vail, Colo., who won the 1996 Indianapolis 500 eight weeks after his back had been shattered in a racing accident, is on the verge of winning the Indy Racing League’s Northern Lights Cup and its $1-million bonus.

All Lazier needs to do is finish 13th or better Sunday in the Excite 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Going into the final race, he leads Scott Goodyear by 38 points and Eddie Cheever, the 1998 Indy 500 winner, by 41.

“The toughest part has been the waiting,” said Lazier, 32. It has been six weeks since the last IRL race, which Lazier won at Sparta, Ky.

“Winning the championship is more important than winning the race. I wouldn’t trade my position for anyone else’s, but you can’t take anything for granted.”

In nine races, Lazier has twice finished worse than 13th, running 22nd at Las Vegas and 26th at Pikes Peak, where he lasted only one lap before his engine gave out. Besides his win at Kentucky, he also won at Phoenix.

Lazier was practicing early in 1996 at Phoenix International Raceway when a wing failure spun his car around, sending him backward into the wall at about 180 mph.

“I can’t imagine hitting anything harder,” he said. “Engineers told me it had a G-force impact of 99.6. I remember waking up in the hospital feeling lucky to be alive but wishing I wasn’t because it hurt so much. I can’t even describe the pain, it was so bad.

“My doctors told me I was crazy to even think about driving in the Indy 500, but I just had this feeling that good things were going to happen. It was kind of eerie, I was so calm about it.”

On race day, car owner Ron Hemelgarn’s crew cautiously helped Lazier into the cockpit. When he took the checkered flag ahead of Davy Jones and Richie Hearn, Lazier said he was so excited that he “couldn’t feel any pain at all.”

Yet, when he got out of the car, he was barely able to walk.

“Looking back, I can’t believe it was only four years ago,” he said. “Winning the 500 was my ultimate dream, but now if I can win the championship, that will rate right alongside it.”

IRWINDALE SPEEDWAY

When the IRL separated its Indy car season from the U.S. Auto Club last year, it left the Silver Crown cars as USAC’s top banana.

As a favor to sponsor Coors Light, the series was renamed Silver Bullet this year, but the cars’ gnarly appearance has not changed. They are throwbacks to the days when Indy cars had front engines, the drivers sat upright in the cockpits and they raced equally hard on dirt or pavement.

USAC began the series in 1971 when the rear-engine revolution made the older cars obsolete for the Indianapolis 500. The list of Silver Crown champions includes A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Jack Hewitt and more recently, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Jason Leffler.

The Silver Bullets, once known as “big cars,” will make their lone Irwindale Speedway appearance of the year Saturday night with the championship very much at stake.

Dave Darland, the 1997 Silver Crown champion and last year’s USAC sprint car champion, has a 20-point lead over Tracy Hines of New Castle, Ind. Only two races remain on the 14-race schedule, this weekend’s at Irwindale and the finale at Memphis, Tenn., both on pavement.

“We’re looking forward to them,” said Darland, 34, of Kokomo, Ind. “Our pavement program has been good this year but it could be an interesting battle with Tracy.”

Darland extended his lead with a victory on dirt last Saturday night at CalExpo State Fairgrounds in Sacramento. He outraced J.J. Yeley to Turn 1 on a late restart, then held off the Phoenix driver to the checkered flag. The race was stopped 17 laps short of its scheduled 100 because of a local curfew.

Leffler, 1998 Silver Crown champion from Long Beach and holder of the track 100-lap record of 91.314 mph, will be in Saturday night’s race.

Sharing the card will be the final USAC Western Sprint Car race, a 40-lap main event featuring three drivers with shots at the championship--Todd Ellison of West Jordan, Utah; Burney Lamar of West Sacramento, and Tony Hunt of Fair Oaks, Calif. Ellison leads Lamar by 45 and Hunt by 53, with 72 points available Saturday night.

Davey Hamilton of Las Vegas, winner of the only previous USAC sprint car race at Irwindale this year, will miss the show because he is in Texas for Sunday’s IRL race.

Rounding out a busy night at Irwindale will be the final race for Grand American modifieds. Rip Michels of Mission Hills has already been crowned track champion. The winner’s share of the purse will be $1,000.

For comic relief, New Year’s Day parade float builder Tom Estes of Duarte will make a “record run” with a six-ton float between races. One of Estes’ creations, driven by Tom Gaffney, did a lap last year around Irwindale’s half-mile at an average speed of 16.937 mph.

“We are serious about this,” Estes said. “We want to put [the record] out of reach for other float companies. We know we can make the float go faster down the straights and track better through the turns. We are just stoked on breaking our own record.”

FYI: The track record is 118.781 mph by Troy Regier in a supermodified.

*

The American Speed Assn., which spawned the careers of Winston Cup stars Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin, will make its first West Coast appearance March 10, opening night for Irwindale’s third season.

SPEEDWAY MOTORCYCLES

It won’t be the final night of speedway racing ever, as feared for most of the year, but Saturday night’s Coors Light U.S. Nationals at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa should be one of the most closely fought competitions of the year.

Four former winners, headed by defending champion Brad Oxley of San Juan Capistrano, are among the 20 qualifiers. Oxley first won in 1987. Other previous winners are Bart Bast, 1998; Mike Faria, 1990, 1991 and 1997; Chris Manchester, 1992, and Bobby Schwartz, 1986, 1989.

Other leading contenders are Charlie Venegas, three-time world speedway ice champion; Dukie Ermolenko, who edged Venegas for the Costa Mesa track title by a single point; and Gary Hicks, last year’s U.S. runner-up.

Unlike past nationals, in which winners were decided by heat finishes, this year’s champion must qualify through heats, then ride a semifinal and a five-rider, four-lap championship final.

The Costa Mesa oval is the smallest speedway track in the world, only 190 yards around, which makes lightning-like starts so important. Riders are mounted on 500cc alcohol-burning bikes capable of going from zero to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds--without brakes.

This will be the final speedway race of 2000, but the Costa Mesa track has been assured of racing next year, according to Oxley, who doubles as the track’s owner-promoter.

CART CHAMP CARS

An impressive lineup of motor racing legends, from Mario Andretti and the Unser brothers, Bobby and Al, to Alex Zanardi and Bobby Rahal, will be mingling with race fans Saturday, Oct. 28, as part of the Marlboro 500 weekend at California Speedway.

Fifteen or more famous drivers will be available for autographs and chatting in the morning. Other Saturday activities include CART qualifying, a NASCAR Craftsman truck race and Indy Lights qualifying.

The Marlboro 500 will be run Oct. 29.

*

Indy Lights drivers Casey Mears and Townsend Bell are among the five finalists for the inaugural Greg Moore Legacy Award. Others are Brazilian champ car drivers Helio Castroneves and Roberto Moreno, and Toyota Atlantic driver Andrew Bordin.

The award memorializes Greg Moore, the Canadian driver who was killed at Fontana in the final race of the 1999 season. The winner will be announced at the CART awards banquet Oct. 30 at the Century Plaza Hotel.

LAST LAPS

National outdoor motocross champion Ricky Carmichael has been listed as a 5-2 favorite to win this weekend’s THQ U.S. Open, an arenacross-type race at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas. Other favorites in the world’s richest motorcycle race, which will pay $100,000 to the winner, are Sebastien Tortelli at 7-2 and Mike LaRocco at 9-2. Conspicuous by his absence is Supercross champion Jeremy McGrath, who is racing in Europe.

World and national champions Chris MacClugage, Nicolas Rius and Tera Crismon will be defending their laurels Sunday in the 19th IJSBA Skat-Trak world championship of personal watercraft--popularly known as jet-ski--races at Lake Havasu. MacClugage rides a Kawasaki pro runabout 1200, Rius a Yamaha pro ski, and Crismon a Yamaha woman’s pro ski.

Veteran road racer Tom Kendall will return to the races Sunday when he drives for the new Steve Saleen-owned team in the American Le Mans Series at Laguna Seca Raceway. Kendall will team with Terry Borcheller and Ron Johnson in a Saleen S7 supercar in the 2-hour, 45-minute race.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP, Winston 500

* When: Today, first-round qualifying (ESPN2, 1 p.m.); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 8:45 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 10 a.m.)

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

* Race distance: 500.08 miles, 188 laps.

* Last year: Dale Earnhardt started 27th and led only 18 of the 188 laps, but got in front for the final time on Lap 186 to win.

* Last race: Bobby Labonte got four new tires on a pit stop 25 laps from the finish and won the UAW-GM Quality 500 in Concord, N.C. Labonte, sixth before the final pit stop, drove to the finish line 1.166 seconds ahead of Jeremy Mayfield.

* Next race: Pop Secret Microwave 400, Oct. 22, Rockingham, N.C.

* On the net: https://www.nascar.com

CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS, O’Reilly 400

* When: Today, race (ESPN, 5 p.m.)

* Where: Fort Worth, Texas Motor Speedway (quad-oval, 1.5 miles, 24-degree banking in turns).

* Race distance: 250.5 miles, 167 laps.

* Last year: Jay Sauter won for the second straight week. Sauter, who started from the pole, fell back early but came to the front with six laps remaining.

* Last race: Kurt Busch, who wrecked his primary truck in practice, came from last place to pass Mike Wallace and win the inaugural NASCAR truck series race at Dover Downs International Speedway. Busch took the lead by passing a spinning Wallace on the 198th lap of the MBNA E-Commerce 200.

* Next race: California 200, Oct. 28, Fontana.

* On the net: https://www.nascar.com

CHAMPIONSHIP AUTO RACING TEAMS, Honda Indy 300

* When: Today, qualifying, 9:30 p.m.; Saturday, race (ESPN, 9 p.m.).

* Where: Surfers Paradise, Australia, Australian Street Circuit (temporary road course, 2.795 miles, 12 turns).

* Race distance: 181.675 miles, 65 laps.

* Last year: Dario Franchitti led for 49 of 65 laps and posted his third victory of the season.

* Last race: Jimmy Vasser, the 1996 series champion, pulled away from teammate Juan Montoya at the end and picked up the ninth victory of his career, winning the Houston Grand Prix. Vasser had not won since a season-ending victory in 1998 in Fontana.

* Next race: Marlboro 500, Oct. 29, Fontana.

* On the net: https://www.cart.com

INDY RACING LEAGUE, Excite 500

* When: Saturday, qualifying, 10 a.m. (ESPN2, 12:30 p.m., tape); Sunday, race, 11 a.m. (Channel 7, 1 p.m., tape).

* Where: Fort Worth, Texas Motor Speedway (quad-oval, 1.5 miles, 24-degree banking in turns).

* Race distance: 312 miles, 208 laps.

* Last year: Greg Ray won his first IRL championship by finishing third in the season finale. Mark Dismore, who started on the front row, got his first IRL victory, with Davey Hamilton second.

* Last race: Buddy Lazier won the inaugural Belterra Resort Indy 300 in Sparta, Ky. Lazier took the lead for good 31 laps from the end of the 200-lap event, moving to the top when rookie Sarah Fisher made her final pit stop. Pole-sitter Scott Goodyear finished second and Fisher third.

* On the net: https://www.indyracingleague.com