New Series for Old Times’ Sake

Vintage race cars have been around for nearly as long as there has been racing. So have vintage race car drivers, but only rarely have they lined up on a starting grid against one another.

That may change next year when the Shelby Cobra Challenge is launched as a senior racing series promoted by CART to cash in on memories of Indianapolis 500 winners such as Mario Andretti, Bobby Unser, Emerson Fittipaldi, Tom Sneva, Danny Sullivan and Parnelli Jones, as well as other old-time drivers such as Bob Bondurant, George Follmer, John Morton and Kevin Cogan.

All will drive new Shelby American CSX 4000 Series Cobras, powered by Ford 351-cubic-inch engines.

Preliminary plans call for an 18-car field to race on six road circuits as part of CART weekends at Monterrey, Mexico; Portland, Ore.; Cleveland; Mid-Ohio; Road America and Laguna Seca. Each race will have a $100,000 purse.

“This is a terrific opportunity for CART to help showcase many of open-wheel racing’s legendary drivers,” said Joe Heitzler, CART chairman and CEO. “Fans are always anxious to watch an Andretti, or an Unser, or Parnelli Jones.”

The kicker in the program is that each of the cars, priced at $120,000, must be privately owned, with the drivers rotating from one car to another. All upkeep during the series, however, will be done by series operators. At the end of the six races, the cars will be returned to their owners along with a log book documenting the history of the car and its drivers.

“We have sold 12 of the 18 cars already, mostly to owners of Shelby street cars,” said David Parcell, co-founder of the series. “We are just beginning to hear from people in the entertainment industry who are interested in becoming race car owners. One good thing is that when the season is over, they can race the cars themselves in SCCA or other events.”

Carroll Shelby, 78, isn’t on the list of drivers, even though he would probably love to be. Former Formula One driver Bondurant, 68, is the oldest competitor.

Bobby Unser likened the concept to the Jaguar TV series of a few years ago, but with the much smaller price tag.

“Those Jaguars cost $750,000 each and the ratings were good, but there were so many wrecks the cars were stacked up like cord wood,” said Unser, a three-time Indy 500 winner. “The series invited 50 drivers, all 50 or older, but they were not all familiar with that sophisticated machinery and just wrecked the hell out of them.”

Unser is even more upbeat about another senior racer program, the Legends of Champ Car Racing, which will be part of CART’s Marlboro 500 at California Speedway, Nov. 2-4.

There will be no racing involved, but such champions as Dan Gurney, Rick Mears, Wally Dallenbach, Al and Bobby Unser, Bobby Rahal and others will be on hand to sign autographs, take part in a fan forum and bench talk with fans.

“That was my idea,” Bobby Unser said. “We were sitting around one day, talking about how much fun we had in the old days when I got the idea of going back to the races and kind of saying thank you to the fans. When we were racing, we didn’t have as much time to do things like that as we’d liked, but now that most of us are retired, it’s a nice thing to do. It’s nice to see the faces of the fans. It’s fun and I know the fans love it.”

The former champions, along with current CART drivers Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser and Gil de Ferran, are scheduled to take part in a fan forum Nov. 2 in Chalet Village and hold an autograph session Nov. 3 outside the track, near Turn 4.

The CART Scene

As a bookend to its senior series, CART also will inaugurate a Stars of Tomorrow program next season in which the North American Karting Assn. will hold races at six to eight CART events as part of a national championship series.

It will be the first rung on a new ladder system to develop young drivers for the CART series. From karts, the top drivers will advance to Skip Barber Formula Dodge, then Toyota Atlantic on the road to CART.

“This is something CART has needed for a long time,” said car owner and former driver Rahal, who has a son in karting. “Karting has been so fragmented in the United States, it is time we had one national championship series. You look at all the European and South American top drivers and they all started in karts. It’s the one way to identify your best young drivers.”

Bryan Herta’s fifth-fastest qualifying run Saturday at Laguna Seca was disqualified because his Forsythe Racing Reynard did not meet CART’s height limitations--it was about half the width of a dime too low. Herta was forced to start 26th and last, but came back to finish 12th, on the same lap with winner Max Papis.

Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves is featured in the November issue of Cosmopolitan magazine as “Hunk of the Month.” The article about the Team Penske driver is titled, “Why Helio Castroneves Makes Our Hearts Race.”

Sprint Cars

On Saturday night, Cory Kruseman will have an opportunity to clinch his first Sprint Car Racing Assn. championship on his hometown Ventura Raceway track, where he first raced karts more than a decade ago. Kruseman has won an SCRA-record 14 main events and leads three-time champion Richard Griffin by 310 points--2,374-2,064--with only 340 points possible in the remaining four races.

Curiously, Kruseman will become the first California driver to win the non-winged sprint car championship in the SCRA’s eight-year history. Griffin is from Silver City, N.M., and both previous winners, Ron Shuman and Lealand McSpadden, were from Arizona.

The season will end Nov. 17 with the Jack Kindoll Classic at Perris Auto Speedway.

Last Laps

Irwindale Speedway will have a pair of firsts this Saturday. The new eighth-mile Irwindale Dragstrip will open at the southeastern corner of the track’s parking lot at 7 a.m. Only street-legal cars and motorcycles will be allowed to run. Jim Partridge was named competition director for the drag strip. Saturday night, the track will hold its first demolition derby after the evening’s racing program of trucks, pro4 modifieds and figure 8s....

Supercross champion Ricky Carmichael found the switch from Kawasaki to Honda no problem as he won the U.S. Open for the second straight year Saturday at Las Vegas. Carmichael won motos Friday and Saturday night to claim the $100,000 prize.... Bobby Bonds, 17, of Bakersfield, has been named AMA motocross/supercross rookie of the year. He will receive his award at the AMA Pro Racing Champions banquet Dec. 7 at the Desert Springs Marriott in Palm Springs.... Five-time pro stock champion Warren Johnson has been named No. 7 in the National Hot Rod Assn.’s list of its top 50 drivers.

The Davey Hamilton Rehabilitation Benefit Golf Tournament will be held Oct. 26 at the Fig Garden Golf Club in Fresno. It will be held in conjunction with a super modified invitational race Saturday at Madera Speedway. Hamilton suffered extensive injuries last June 9 in an accident at Texas Motor Speedway and proceeds will go toward his recovery. Details: Joyce Vukovich, (559) 683-0556.

Jet ski superstars Chris MacClugage of Canyon Lake and Jeff Jacobs of San Diego took the top prizes in last weekend’s Skat-Trak Watercross world championships at Lake Havasu. MacClugage won pro runabout 1200 on a Kawasaki and Jacobs won pro ski on a Yamaha.