Starr Can’t Sell, but He Can Sail

David Starr may lament his inability to sell sponsorships, admitting “I’m not a closer,” but the NASCAR Craftsman Truck driver from Houston hopes to close the show today at California Speedway.

Starr, 35, won the pole Friday for the American Racing Wheels 200, and is trying to win his second race in a row after a 65-race drought.

His Spears Motorsports Chevrolet, owned by Wayne Spears, will start alongside Coy Gibbs, son of former NFL coach and Winston Cup team owner Joe Gibbs, making it an all-Chevy front row leading the 37-car field. Starr went around the two-mile D-shaped oval in 40.944 seconds, averaging 175.850 mph. Gibbs was .004 of a second behind, averaging 175.824 mph.

Starr also started on the pole Oct. 13 in Las Vegas, site of his first victory. At California Speedway, starting on the pole may be a boost to driver confidence and team morale -- and the sponsors like it -- but it’s not that important.

“Qualifying is overrated at times,” Starr said. “The main thing is to get a solid starting spot in the field. It doesn’t matter where you start in this field, it’s where you finish.... A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on that one good lap, and sometimes I think it’s overemphasized, and when it comes to race time, you’re lost during the race. When I think of a solid starting spot, I think top 10, nine, eight.”

Starr is used to finishing in the top 10. He has 15 top-10 finishes and eight top-five finishes this season. He is fourth in the championship, 169 points behind leader Mike Bliss, who starts fourth in a Chevy, on the outside of rookie Bill Lester in a Dodge.

Starr seems to have a knack for this. He raced only five times last season for two owners, but finished in the top five in three of those races, and in the top 10 in another. Spears, his current owner, noticed what he was doing with a skeleton crew.

“When we finished [fifth] here last year, Wayne Spears was waiting at my truck,” Starr said. “It’s amazing to go from one of the most underfunded teams to one of the most well-funded.

“In the past, if I wanted to continue to race I had to be a salesman. It’s nice to know that this year, all I have to focus on is the racing.”

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The truck series announced its 2003 schedule, and it will have 25 races, beginning at Daytona on Feb. 14 and ending Nov. 14 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Lowe’s Motor Speedway will be on the schedule for the first time, on May 16. Martinsville will have a second race, which increases to 12 the number of races held in conjunction with Winston Cup, Busch Series or Grand National events. The series, which began in 1995, returns to one of its charter tracks, the half-mile Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield on March 23. The trucks raced at Mesa Marin in 2001 but not this season. The series returns to California Speedway on Sept. 20 as a support race for the Indy Racing League.

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Ryan Hemphill crashed in Turn 2 near the end of Happy Hour and suffered minor head and neck injuries. He was taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center and was responsive and alert. He qualified sixth.

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Alex Tagliani, Jimmy Vasser and Tony Kanaan were the three fastest drivers during Friday’s practice sessions for Championship Auto Racing Teams’ Toyota 500. Tagliani, last year’s pole winner at 228.727 mph, averaged 233.726 mph in the afternoon session, almost five mph faster than his pole speed a year ago of 228.727.

Vasser was second-fastest in the afternoon session, and Kanaan was fastest in the morning session at 232.891 mph, a shade quicker than Dario Franchitti.

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Adrian Fernandez, the only owner-driver in CART, announced he is returning to the series through 2004. That much had been expected because of Fernandez’s heritage, his Mexican sponsors and CART’s popularity in Mexico.

More than 300,000 are expected to attend the Mexico Gran Premio on Nov. 17 in Mexico City. “I’m not going to sit here and say that everything is perfect at the moment [in CART], but the series is on the mend and on the upswing,” Fernandez said.

Fernandez is trying to rehabilitate his fractured vertebra in time to race in Mexico City. He was injured last week at Surfer’s Paradise when Tora Takagi’s car landed on top of his in a first-lap accident involving nine of the 18 cars. Fernandez, 14th in the championship, is being replaced this weekend by Max Papis for the second time; he also was the replacement when Fernandez missed the race at Mid-Ohio with a fractured pelvis.

Papis, who finished second to Fernandez in the 1999 race and second to Cristiano da Matta last season, was eighth in afternoon practice, 12th overall. Fernandez is also expected to run a car driven by Shinji Nakano in the Indy Racing League.

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Vasser’s crew won the fourth Craftsman Pit Crew Challenge, finishing ahead of da Matta and third-place Christian Fittipaldi.

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Toyota 500

SITE

* California Speedway, Fontana.

SCHEDULE

* Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 11:30 a.m.); Sunday, race (Speed Channel, 12:30 p.m.).

TRACK

* D-shaped oval, two miles, 14-degree banking in turns).

RACE DISTANCE

* 500 miles, 250 laps.