Stewart Doesn’t Take Lead for Granted

Tony Stewart has an 89-point lead over Mark Martin for NASCAR’s Winston Cup championship going into Sunday’s final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It sounds formidable, but no one knows better than Stewart that it might not be enough.

In 1995, Stewart was much further behind than that in the U.S. Auto Club’s Silver Crown series and came out the champion, making him the only driver to win all three USAC series -- midget, sprint car and Silver Crown -- in the same year.

To win, in the final race at Sacramento, Dave Darland and Jack Hewitt had to drop out early and Stewart had to finish second or better to make up the 155 points by which he trailed Darland and the 147 by which he trailed Hewitt.

“No one even thought about Tony, all the talk was who would win, Dave or Jack,” said Dick Jordan, USAC communications director. “It was unbelievable, the way things conspired to make Tony the champion.”

Darland’s engine blew on Lap 11, and his was the first car out of the 100-lap race. He got three points to total 892.

Hewitt hit the wall on Lap 33. He got four points to total 885.

Stewart, who’d started 12th, still needed to finish second and that appeared improbable as Jimmy Sills, who had won the three previous Sacramento races, led the first 75 laps, with Donnie Beechler running a strong second.

Stewart was third and seemingly still out of it when Sills inexplicably slowed with an ailing engine, finally dropping out on Lap 91.

When Beechler won and Stewart collected 160 points for finishing second, he had 894, two more than Darland.

“Now maybe you can understand me when I say I haven’t won the title yet this year,” Stewart said Wednesday in a conference call. “Yeah, I’m very close, but at the same time I could lose it, the way Darland did in ’95. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell all of you [reporters] all along, that this isn’t done yet.

“You guys, six weeks ago, started talking about something that was so far off that I couldn’t believe I was answering questions about it, and to be honest, I still don’t. I want to wait until after Sunday’s race is over to talk about how I feel about this year.”

To put Sunday’s finale in perspective, all Stewart needs to become champion is a 22nd-place finish even if Martin wins the race.

How About Kinser?

It’s time for auto racing’s driver of the year balloting and the question is, which driver in American racing deserves it most?

Winston Cup drivers from NASCAR have dominated recently, having won seven times in the last eight years. Only drag racing’s John Force broke the string in 1996.

Stewart is the likely champion this year, but he has won only three races. He has been more a survivor than a dominator as first one driver and then another took shots at leading, only to fall back, leaving Stewart on top.

Curiously, the year Force broke the NASCAR streak, the champion was Stewart’s teammate, Bobby Labonte.

This may be time to look for another worthy candidate out of the mainstream, the way the 16-person panel did in naming Force.

Steve Kinser, sprint car racing’s greatest driver, gets this panelist’s vote.

The 47-year-old “King of the Outlaws” earned his 18th World of Outlaws championship by winning 20 of 67 races. The former wrestling champion from Bloomington, Ind., won a series-record $577,385. He finished 48 times in the top five in the fiercely competitive world of winged sprint cars.

Giving the award to Kinser would be akin to the way John Wayne won his Oscar in 1969, not so much for the film “True Grit,” but for the accumulative strength of his career.

Kinser’s best year was in 1987 when he won 46 Outlaws main events and had 57 overall short-track victories. Dale Earnhardt was driver of the year.

In his career, Kinser has won 471 Outlaws events, dwarfing the NASCAR record of 200 by Richard Petty.

Champions Cristiano da Matta of Championship Auto Racing Teams and Sam Hornish Jr. of the Indy Racing League deserve notice, as does Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, but their achievements pale when compared to Kinser’s.

Da Matta won seven races and could make it eight Sunday in Mexico City, but Alex Zanardi and Juan Montoya both won seven in their CART championship years and were not selected. And Da Matta faced a weakened field after Roger Penske took his drivers, Gil de Ferran and Castroneves, out of CART.

Hornish won seven IRL races and Castroneves won six, Hornish retaining his championship with a dramatic win in the final race at Texas. However, since Tony George formed the IRL and split from CART, no open-wheel driver has gained racing’s top honor.

Nigel Mansell, in 1993, was CART’s last driver of the year.

Sprint Cars

The Sprint Car Racing Assn. will close its season Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway with the Jack Kindoll Classic, a 50-lap main event.

Richard “The Gas Man” Griffin clinched his fourth championship earlier in the season and last week the veteran from Silver City, N.M., won his third straight Non-Wing World Championship. Driving for car owner Ron Chaffin, he will be looking for his first win in the Kindoll since 1999.

Drag Racing

Three-time top-fuel champion Gary Scelzi will return to National Hot Rod Assn. competition next year as teammate of Scotty Cannon in a pair of Oakley-sponsored funny cars owned by Don Schumacher.... Pro stock driver Gene Wilson received $20,000 from the Auto Club at the NHRA banquet as the season’s rookie of the year.

More than 200 junior dragsters from all over the southwestern United States will converge Saturday on the eighth-mile Irwindale Dragstrip for the Del Cox Classic, NHRA’s junior championships for youngsters 7 to 17. Racing starts at 9 a.m.

Injured driver John Lingenfelter, in a racing accident during the Mazda Sport Compact Finals on Oct. 27 at Pomona Raceway, continues to show improvement but remains in the intensive care unit at Pomona Valley Hospital. Doctors are weaning Lingenfelter off a respirator.

Turkey Night

Steve Lewis, Laguna Beach entrepreneur and midget car racing enthusiast, has entered five Ford Beasts in the 62nd annual Turkey Night Grand Prix at Irwindale Speedway on Nov. 28.

One of the five, however, is for Stewart, who says that the hoopla surrounding his winning -- or not winning -- the Winston Cup will probably prevent him from competing. Stewart won the 100-lap race in 2000 and was second in 1999.

Passings

Marvin Porter, two-time NASCAR West Coast short-track champion and for many years vice president and general manager of Parnelli Jones Enterprises, died at his home in San Felipe, Baja California. Porter was recently inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame. His ashes have been scattered on the Sea of Cortez near his home. Remembrances can be sent to Saint James Infirmary, c/o Curt Porter, P.O. Box 1000, El Centro, Calif. 92244.

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This Week’s Races

*--* WINSTON CUP Ford 400

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When: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 10 a.m.); Sunday, race (Channel 4, 9:30 a.m.).

Where: Homestead-Miami Speedway (oval, 1.5 miles, 8 degrees banking in turns), Florida.

Race distance: 400.5 miles, 267 laps.

2001 winner: Bill Elliott.

*--* BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL Ford 300

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When: Saturday, race (Channel 4, 10:30 a.m.).

Where: Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Race distance: 200 miles, 300 laps.

2001 winner: Joe Nemechek.

*--* CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS Ford 200

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When: Today, race (ESPN2, 12:30 p.m.).

Where: Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Race distance: 201 miles, 134 laps.

2001 winner: Ted Musgrave.

*--* CART Mexican Grand Prix

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When: Today, qualifying 12:30 p.m. (Speed Channel, 1 p.m.); Saturday, qualifying, noon (Speed Channel, 12:30 p.m.); Sunday, race (Speed Channel, 1 p.m.).

Where: Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez (road course, 2.75 miles, 17 turns), Mexico City.

Race distance: 200.75 miles, 73 laps.

2001 winner: Inaugural race.