Mack, Laidler Sharing a Dream

Karting has long been considered a starting point for becoming a successful race driver, but few, if any, have tried making the quantum leap from karts to Indy cars, skipping other developmental series.

George Mack, an African American driver from Inglewood, is in the process of doing it.

He is a regular in the Indy Racing League series and, with a little luck and few more miles per hour from his G Force-Chevrolet, he will become an Indianapolis 500 driver in Sunday’s final round of qualifying.

Mack’s racing had been limited to karting, where he had won national and international recognition, before Marc Laidler, a Los Angeles entrepreneur, began a search for an African American driver to carry Laidler’s 310 Racing’s colors in big-time auto racing.

310 Motoring, Laidler’s main business, customizes automobiles for celebrities such as Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Gary Sheffield, Keyshawn Johnson, Denzel Washington and the Sultan of Brunei.

“Some friends took me to the CART race at Fontana last year and I was blown away by the cars and the excitement,” Laidler said. “I had never understood racing, but I saw it as an untapped opportunity for a minority racing team. I immediately began asking questions about African American drivers and the conversations usually led to George Mack.”

Mack, 30, had raced karts against such drivers as Richie Hearn, Alex Barron, Bryan Herta and Anthony Lazzaro and had raced in Europe as a teammate of Renault’s Formula One driver, Jarno Trulli.

However, since winning the International Karting Federation championship in 1994, Mack had spent most of his time working at a Honda dealership in Culver City and doing some testing for Mazda.

“Before the IRL would give George a license, they said he had to run laps at 180 and 185 [mph] at Homestead in Florida,” Laidler said. “He was right on. I was blown away at how good he looked.”

Laidler had a driver, now he needed cars and a team.

“We were lucky,” Laider said. “Clayton Cunningham had two G Force cars and all the equipment, but no driver. I had a driver and no equipment, so I bought the team from Cunningham.”

Mack has driven in all four IRL races this year. His best finishes were 13th at Homestead and 16th at California Speedway. His best qualifying was ninth at Nazareth, Pa.

Then it was time for Indianapolis and its 2.5-mile rectangular oval, the most famous and daunting racing facility in the world.

And how did Mack feel when he took the first lap in his rookie test?

“I was scared as hell,” he said. “There’s no other way to put it.”

Since then, he has raised his speed close to the 226-mph bracket, borderline for making the 33-car field on May 26.

“I’ve felt more comfortable every time out,” he said. “My fear now is not doing what I have to do.”

Mack has logged 290 laps since practice opened May 5. Only two-time champion Arie Luyendyk and Paul Tracy--also non-qualifiers--have been on the track for more laps.

“I’ll be fine in the race,” Mack said. “I put my blinders on and go into my own little world. I might be nervous, but I’ll also be intense and focused. Before the race, I’ll listen to my Natalie Cole ‘Stardust’ CD. Her voice really calms me down and helps me focus.”

In their role as Indy’s first African American team owner and driver, Mack and the 310 Racing crew visited Flanner House, a 103-year-old educational and child development center originally established in Indianapolis as a settlement house to serve African American families migrating to Indiana from the Confederacy.

“The kids loved it,” Mack said. “We had one of our cars there and you should have seen the kids’ reaction to see a race car and a crew up close. It brought back a lot of memories to me too. You know, I was a kid once.”

The Ferrari Flap

It wasn’t that Ferrari’s decision to have No. 2 driver Rubens Barrichello slow down and allow No. 1 driver Michael Schumacher to win Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix was out of order, it’s that it was so blatant.

Those knowledgeable about F1 have known for years that being teammates doesn’t mean being equals in Grand Prix garages.

What appears to have upset F1 authorities most was not Barrichello’s backing off, but Schumacher’s insisting that his Brazilian teammate stand on the winner’s level during podium ceremonies. And his giving Barrichello the winner’s trophy.

Prediction: Ferrari and Schumacher will be given a massive fine when the FIA reviews the situation at a special hearing on June 26--and it won’t be for the “team strategy,” but for the uproar Schumacher caused on the podium.

Even Schumacher was embarrassed.

“I have to be honest to say no, it was probably the wrong decision to win this race,” he was quoted as saying. “If I had the chance to turn it around, I would probably do so, but I cannot now.”

Barrichello, for his part, seemed not the least upset.

“I’ve got the [winner’s] trophy, which I will give to my wife, whose birthday it was [race day], and to my mother, as well, because [it was] Mother’s Day,” he said. “I’m a happy guy. I think the way the race went, as everybody saw, it was probably one of the best races of my life.”

He also has a multimillion-dollar contract with Ferrari that he signed only a week earlier.

At worst, the incident opens suspicions about the great victories of some other Formula One legends--Juan Fangio, Jack Brabham, Mario Andretti, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. How many times did they take the checkered flag because of team orders?

On the other hand, how different is it from what happened at Indianapolis last year when Raul Boesel flew in from Brazil to drive for Fred Treadway.

After he’d qualified, Boesel said: “It is one thing to qualify well and another to have a good car for the race. I think we have that car. Other teams had called, but when Treadway called, I didn’t think twice.”

Boesel’s reward? For the race, the car he’d qualified was handed over to Felipe Giaffone, the team’s No. 1 driver, who had been bumped from the field. Boesel sat out the race.

Believe It or Not

If Robbie Buhl had been .685 of a second faster in his 10-mile qualifying run Sunday, his wife Becky would have become the only woman to have been married to two Indianapolis 500 pole-sitters. That was the margin by which Buhl trailed Bruno Junqueira.

When Scott Brayton won the pole in 1995 and 1996, Becky was Mrs. Brayton. Her husband was killed while practicing for the 1996 race and Becky later married Buhl.

Southland Notes

A victory Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway will give Cory Kruseman a record 56 Sprint Car Racing Assn. wins, breaking him out of a tie with 45-year-old Rip Williams. Kruseman won No. 55 Saturday night at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix.

Irwindale Dragstrip’s stepped-up program will feature the Summit Series on Sunday, starting at 11 a.m. Interest in the eighth-mile strip has escalated since the start of weekly side-by-side racing Thursday nights.

For its Saturday night program, Irwindale will have three stock car divisions--super late model, late model and modified 4s, and two truck divisions--speed trucks and American race trucks. Tony Green of Oak Hills will be out to retain his lead over Ben Walker of North Hills in the super late models.

The U.S. Auto Club’s Ford Focus midget series will be at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino on Saturday night. Todd Hunsaker of Chino Hills has won three of the last four Ford Focus main events.

Bruce Flanders, the voice of Irwindale Speedway and the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, has been named chief announcer for CART races, starting June 2 at Milwaukee.

The Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary donated $50,000 to the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit fund. The money was raised during CART’s annual “Runway Madness” season-ending party at Ontario. Since its inception in 1981, CARA Charities has raised and donated more than $3.5 million to a variety of charitable organizations.

Passing

Paul Jones, 63, younger brother of 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones, died Tuesday of a heart attack at his home in Norco. Jones, a prominent California Racing Assn. sprint car driver in the 1960s and ‘70s, had trained horses in recent years with his son, Paul Jr., at Los Alamitos. Services will be held Monday at 2 p.m. at Pierce Bros. Mortuary in Riverside. Survivors also include his wife, Joyce.