Brickyard Memories Get Their Hearts Racing

By SHAV GLICK

Aug. 3, 2001 12 AM PT

How big is the Brickyard 400?

Jeff Gordon has twice won the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s showcase event, but he says winning the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994 was his biggest accomplishment.

“Another win [at Indy] would be tremendous,” the three-time Winston Cup champion said as he prepared to qualify his No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet for Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “The Daytona 500 is our biggest event, but I don’t know if any win will ever top that win in the first Brickyard 400. I’d have to say that was the all-time win for me.”

Gordon, who will celebrate his 30th birthday Saturday, also won the Brickyard 400 in 1998.

After 20 of 36 Winston Cup races this year, Gordon is the points leader with three wins, five poles and 12 top-five finishes. His margin is only 45 points over Ricky Rudd, one of Robert Yates’ Ford drivers. Dale Jarrett, Rudd’s teammate, is an additional 62 points back. Race winners collect 180 points.

“We tested here a couple of weeks ago and the car ran well,” Gordon said. “We’ve led the most laps in the last two races but didn’t get the victory. Each week, we’re leading laps and getting into position to win. If we keep doing that, the wins will come.”

At Indy, he will be in the same Monte Carlo that won from the pole in Michigan the last time he raced it.

Qualifying is Saturday, the race Sunday, which is a departure from past years when the race was Saturday.

“I have a lot of good memories of Indianapolis,” Rudd said. “My win here in 1997 is obviously the biggest of my career and something that I’m very proud of.

“When I was 7 years old, I remember going on a tour of the Speedway with my parents and being completely in awe of the place. At that time, racing there was just a dream, so to actually win at Indy was extremely special to me.”

Joe Nemechek, Andy Petree’s Chevrolet driver, has his own interpretation of the Brickyard 400:

“We’re running at a track that has been hosting races for almost 90 years. They have more history in their basement than a lot of tracks have over their whole city.

“You win at Indianapolis and you’ve done something, whether you’ve won the Brickyard 400 or the Indianapolis 500 or you just beat somebody to the car after walking through the museum.”

IROC

Kenny Brack won the Indianapolis 500 in 1999 and because he left A.J. Foyt’s Indy Racing League team to join Bobby Rahal’s CART operation the following season, he was unable to defend his championship.

Brack will get his first shot at Indy since then Saturday in the season’s final International Race of Champions. He is coming off a win last week in the CART champ car race at Chicago Motor Speedway.

“I am very anxious to get back there,” the 35-year-old Swede said. “I’m only one point out of the lead from Bobby Labonte and winning the IROC against the NASCAR boys in a stock car would be a great honor.”

No open-wheel driver since Al Unser Jr. in 1988 has won the series in which everyone drives identically prepared Pontiac Firebirds. After three races, Labonte has 44 points, Brack 43 and Eddie Cheever and Tony Stewart 39 each.

“I think we have a good chance, I know my way around the track,” Brack said. “I’ve been getting some NASCAR-type experience while bump-drafting with Jim Sauter and Dick Trickle.”

Sauter and Trickle are IROC test drivers.

In the three previous IROCs, Brack finished fourth at Daytona Beach, second at Talladega, Ala., and third at Michigan.

Unser, a two-time IROC champion, will also be in the race, driving as a substitute for Scott Goodyear, who suffered a lower-back fracture in a crash during the Indianapolis 500 in May.

Only 11 cars will be in Saturday’s 40-lap race. After Dale Earnhardt’s death in the Daytona 500, IROC officials decided not to replace him in the field. A win by Unser would make him the winningest driver in series history. He and Earnhardt are tied with 11 wins each.

Unser could also become the first driver to win at Indy in a stock car and Indy-style car. He won the Indy 500 in 1992 and 1994. However, he will not appear in IROC’s final 2001 standings. Series rules dictate that Unser’s points are awarded to Goodyear, the original invitee.

Stewart, an Indiana native who has driven at the Speedway in Winston Cup and Indy cars, will also be in the IROC.

“In a stock car [such as an IROC Pontiac or Stewart’s Winston Cup Pontiac] you’re lifting and braking into [Turn] 1 and [Turn] 3. In the short chutes you’re back on the gas wide open. All you do in [turns] 2 and 4 is just lift a little bit.

“In an Indy car you just don’t lift anywhere--if the car is right. If you can get your car set up right then you can run it wide open around Indy. It’s a momentum racetrack and a rhythm racetrack. You have to get into a rhythm early, and once you get into that rhythm it seems to have things a lot easier.”

Sprint Cars

George Gervais, critically injured in an accident in last week’s Sprint Car Racing Assn. show at Perris Auto Speedway, remained unconscious with severe head injuries Thursday in the Riverside County Medical Center in Moreno Valley.

Gervais, 40, of Mira Loma, was involved in a collision with another car during a heat race when his car began flipping violently along the back straightaway. A regular in the SCRA, Gervais was 14th in season points.

With three-time defending champion Richard Griffin sidelined because of an off-track accident, Cory Kruseman extended his lead to 221 points with his win last Saturday.

The SCRA will be at Tulare’s Thunderbowl Raceway on Saturday night while CarQuest dirt late models and street stocks run at Perris.

Long Beach Boat Race

The Southern California Speedboat Club will host the Long Beach Sprint Nationals, a circle boat racing championship, Saturday at the Marine Stadium.

Featured will be blown Grand National endurance boats vying for the national championship. Cracker Box boats, one of the most exciting of the American Power Boat Assn. classes, will be going for the western division title.

Super stock national champion Lance Faulkner will head a field of 15 super stock inboard flatbottom boats that will reach 120 mph. Also scheduled are tunnel lights, K-racing runabouts, stock outboards and V-drive drag boats.

Racing starts at 9 a.m.

Last Laps

Tim Woods III of Chino will be after his third consecutive win in the Food 4 Less super late model main event Saturday night at Irwindale Speedway. . . . After two weeks off, speedway motorcycle and sidecar riders return Saturday night to Costa Mesa Speedway with a demo derby as a side attraction. At the halfway point in the season, Gary Hicks of Corona leads former national champion Chris Manchester of Reno, 412-361, for the track title.

Ben Bostrom, who left Temecula to pursue the world superbike championship on a Ducati, won both rounds of the British Grand Prix on Sunday at Brands Hatch. After 10 of 13 events, Bostrom is third behind Troy Bayliss of Australia and Colin Edwards of Conroe, Texas.

Chris MacClugage of Canyon Lake closed the Skat-Trak Pro Watercross Tour with his 101st career win Sunday in Ventura. His win in the pro ski race also enabled the Kawasaki rider to score a double for the third time with season championships in pro ski and pro runabout. The only rider to win two titles in the same season, “Mac Attack” also won both in 1994 and 1999.

Brian Tracy, former National Hot Rod Assn. vice president, has joined Performance Marketing Group as executive director of business development, it was announced by John Dangler, president of the Carmel, Ind., firm. . . . Kyle Busch, 16, will become the youngest driver in NASCAR Craftsman Truck history tonight at Indianapolis Raceway Park when he drives a Ford for Roush Racing. Busch, from Las Vegas, is the younger brother of Winston Cup driver Kurt Busch.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP

Brickyard 400

* When: Saturday, qualifying (TNT, 8 a.m.); Sunday, race (Channel 4, 11:30 a.m.)

* Where: Indianapolis Motor Speedway (rectangular oval, 2.5 miles, nine-degree banking in turns).

* Race distance: 400 miles, 160 laps.

* 2000 winner: Bobby Labonte.

* Next race: Global Crossing at the Glen, Aug. 12, Watkins Glen, N.Y.

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

BUSCH

Kroger 200