Model Goes Va-Va-Vroom

Behind her, drivers reach speeds close to 220 mph. The noise is deafening but Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp doesn’t seem to mind as she dodges other race cars being dragged out to the track.

“It’s a real American landscape,” says Irwin-Mellencamp about race-car driving. “It’s beautiful. Intoxicating.”

On a recent afternoon, Irwin-Mellencamp has come to California Speedway in Fontana to watch drivers go through qualifying laps before the next day’s race. As she talks about her fascination with the sport and the milieu of auto racing, Irwin-Mellencamp, a Ralph Lauren and Victoria’s Secret model, pauses to greet team members, drivers and mechanics, offering each a straight look and a strong handshake.

As a spokeswoman for the Indy Racing League, Irwin-Mellencamp’s mission is to puncture the myth that Indy racing runs on testosterone. For one thing, she points out, many women are involved in the sport as drivers, mechanics and other support functions. Drivers are not brash daredevils but rather focused athletes who occasionally “cry before the event because it’s so exciting,” she says. And, she stresses, pointing to a portable on-site kindergarten, it’s a family sport.

Irwin-Mellencamp grew up with the sport, attending dirt-track events with her father while growing up in Pennsylvania. Today, she lives in Indiana, home of the Indianapolis 500, with her husband, rock musician John Mellencamp, and their two children.

After watching Janet Guthrie, Lyn St. James and Sarah Fisher, the first women to compete in the famous race, Irwin-Mellencamp developed a fascination with the sport. She became a spokeswoman for the league last year, went through the Championship Auto Mechanics School and rode in a pace car that reached 170 mph.

But not in the driver’s seat.

Once she realized how much athleticism and concentration it takes to drive the cars, “any dream of being a driver was dashed right there,” she says. “But I’m a great passenger.”

The Indy racing cars, which have about 650 horsepower and cost close to $400,000 (a top-of-the-line Mercedes has between 350 and 400 horsepower and costs about $125,000), come within five inches of each other as they fly around the track.

“It’s hair-raising,” she says, flashing her model’s smile.

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J.Lo Works Some Restaurant Mojo

Actress-pop singer Jennifer Lopez has added yet another descriptor to her name: restaurateur. About three months ago, she quietly leased a space in Pasadena owned by Los Angeles chef and restaurateur Joachim Splichal and his wife, Christine. The new eatery has been christened Mojo.

Splichal said he didn’t seek out celebrity interest in his vacant space. “It just happened that we had a few offers and the final person was Jennifer Lopez,” he said. “It’s a long lease.”

The fashionable Granite Drive location has been shuttered for about four years and used only for photo and movie shoots, Splichal said. It is well-known as the former home to the Chronicle, an old-style mahogany place with bar-and-leather booths that attracted Pasadena’s more affluent residents and thrived for decades.

Splichal, who owns the Patina restaurants in Northern and Southern California and Nevada, bought the spot in the mid-1990s and opened a martini lounge there called Pinot at the Chronicle, but the bar closed in 1998.

This month, Lopez’s venture was granted a liquor license and City Council approval. Arya Group Inc., a Los Angeles-based construction company, is handling the restaurant renovations, and work is expected to be completed in April. The bar and restaurant, which seats about 170, is poised for success, says Splichal: “It has a good identity, good parking [and] it’s close to an affluent neighborhood.”

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Quote/Unquote

Publishing mogul Si Newhouse runs his Conde Nast magazines like a movie studio, says GQ editor-in-chief Arthur Cooper in the April issue of Earth Times magazine. “Think MGM in the 1930s, with Si as Louis B. Mayer and the editors in chief as a galaxy of temperamental, indulged, high-strung stars. You have [Vogue’s] Anna Wintour as Vivien Leigh, [Vanity Fair’s] Graydon Carter as Mickey Rooney, and me, well, as Clark Gable.”