Pook Putting His Signature on CART Opener

By SHAV GLICK

Feb. 21, 2003 12 AM PT

Being told he can’t do something is nothing new to Chris Pook. There were many naysayers when the English travel agent first said he would run a Formula One race through the streets of downtown Long Beach.

That was 27 years ago and the race, although no longer Formula One, is the standard for street races around the world. It is also the crown jewel of the 19-race Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) schedule.

This week, Pook is at it again. As president and chief executive of CART, Pook is producing an East Coast clone of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in St. Petersburg, Fla.

More important than the success of the race -- like Long Beach, held alongside the seashore -- is what it will do for the sagging fortunes of CART, which Pook has been trying to shore up since taking over leadership of the open-wheel racing organization 14 months ago.

During that time he has witnessed a steady stream of teams, drivers, manufacturers and sponsors heading elsewhere, most to the Indy Racing League, CART’s bitter rival in a struggle for open-wheel supremacy that has served more to harm the sport than help it.

Cristiano da Matta, its champion, has moved on to Formula One. Michael Andretti, its all-time winner and most recognizable name, has defected to the IRL and has taken drivers Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan with him. Bobby Rahal, once an outspoken foe of the IRL -- and a former interim president of CART -- has joined the enemy.

Honda and Toyota, two of CART’s prime engine manufacturers, are now in the IRL camp, leaving Ford Cosworth to furnish spec turbocharged engines for the entire field. The Torrance company says it has 70 engines ready to go, which may be enough, since one of CART’s biggest concerns is having enough race cars to make a race.

Pook promised last year to have 18 cars this year, two or three shy of the number preferred by promoters. The entry for St. Petersburg is 19, although the American racing public is familiar with only a few of the drivers.

Money runs racing and sponsors bring the money. Again, CART is in short supply as such major labels as Target, Kool, Motorola and FedEx, not to mention Honda and Toyota, have left for a variety of reasons. This has caused Pook and CART to establish a $30-million fund to beef up underfunded entries such as the new American Spirit Team headed by former driver Stefan Johansson. The drivers are veteran Jimmy Vasser and rookie Ryan Hunter-Reay.

CART is said to be paying Vasser’s contract to keep him in the series. Vasser, 1996 CART champion, drove in the Busch Grand National race last week at Daytona and is planning more NASCAR races. Vasser will be defending race champion when CART ends its season Nov. 2 at Fontana. In last year’s California Speedway race, he beat Andretti in the fastest-ever open-wheel race, averaging 197.995 mph for 500 miles on the two-mile oval.

CART will be in Long Beach on April 13.

Favorites entering Sunday’s season opener are the Newman/Haas pair of Brazilian Bruno Junqueira and French rookie Sebastien Bourdais. Da Matta won the CART title last year driving for Newman/Haas and Junqueira was runner-up while driving for Chip Ganassi, who also left for the IRL.

Bourdais, 23, the Formula 3000 champion, was the fastest driver in CART’s training session at Sebring, Fla.

Besides Vasser, familiar names in CART include Canadians Paul Tracy, Patrick Carpentier and Alex Tagliani, and Mexico’s Adrian Fernandez, Michel Jourdain Jr. and Mario Dominguez.

An intriguing newcomer to the Barber Dodge Pro Series, companion feature to CART, will be Al Unser, 20, making his professional debut. He is the son of Al Unser Jr. and grandson of Al Unser, both multiple Indianapolis 500 winners.

World of Outlaws

Steve Kinser has won 471 World of Outlaws winged sprint car races and 17 championships but has never won a main event at Perris Auto Speedway.

The former state wrestling champion from Bloomington, Ind., will try to remedy that Saturday when the Outlaws make their only Southland appearance on the half-mile clay oval at the Lake Perris Fairgrounds.

The Outlaws’ season opens tonight at King’s Speedway in Hanford, Calif.

Little-known Daryn Pittman of Owasso, Okla., held off Kinser at the finish line last year at Perris for his first Outlaws victory.

Favored with Kinser will be Danny “the Dude” Lasoski, the 2001 champion from Dover, Mo., who drives a car owned by Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart. He was leading the WoO standings in late July last year when he crashed in a pre-race hot-lap session and missed four races with his injuries.

Kinser, 47, went on to win his 17th championship, winning 20 main events on the way. Lasoski, 44, won a personal-record 13 features.

The O’Reilly World of Outlaws sprint cars, with their huge wings on the top, differ markedly from their Southern California counterparts of the Sprint Car Racing Assn. The wings create down-force and allow the Outlaw cars to lap two seconds faster than the non-winged SCRA cars at Perris.

Kinser and Lasoski drove in the International Race of Champions last week at Daytona, Lasoski finishing fourth and Kinser seventh against Winston Cup and Indy Racing League drivers.

Other potential winners include veteran Sammy Swindell, who is running about half the schedule; two-time champion Mark Kinser, Steve’s cousin from Oolitic, Ind.; Craig Dollansky of Elk River, Minn., a former winner at Perris; and Joey Saldana, a second-generation driver from Brownsburg, Ind.

Spectator gates open at 4 p.m., with the first race at 6:30. Also on the program will be California Lightning sprint cars, scaled down versions of the Outlaw machines powered by motorcycle engines.

Daytona Aftermath

The best move of the Daytona 500, er 272 1/2, was not Michael Waltrip’s following lapped teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. past Jimmie Johnson and on to victory, it was the decision by NASCAR officials to start the race 30 minutes early. If they had stuck with the original time, the race would not have been official when rain hit for the second time and would have been carried over to Monday.

Despite all the excitement about three-wide racing in the high banks and the chaos along pit row when 40 or so cars come in at the same time, there were only two passes for the lead on the track. The first was on the opening lap when pole-sitter Jeff Green pulled several lengths in front, only to have Waltrip pass him in the third turn. The other pass was the winning one, Waltrip’s of Johnson on Lap 106 of 109.

Ryan Newman’s spectacular flip and barrel roll apparently didn’t slow him down. Two days after the accident, Newman ran the fastest lap in practice at Atlanta Motor Speedway, 189.733 mph.

“I’m a little sore in my shoulders and my ankle, but here I am today, smiling and driving,” he said.

The real racing of NASCAR will begin Sunday at Rockingham, N.C., where there will be no carburetor restrictor-plate racing, no impossible-to-pass drafts, and no having to find a partner to move up in the field.

Stewart said, “I enjoy going to Rockingham because I really feel that’s where our season starts. That’s a track where you don’t really worry about what everybody else is doing, you worry about what your car is doing. You’re racing the racetrack. You’re not racing everybody else. Once we leave Rockingham, you feel like the season has officially started.”

Only four of the 36 points races -- two at Daytona and two at Talladega, Ala. -- are on restrictor-plate tracks.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

This Week

NASCAR WINSTON CUP

Subway 400

Where: Rockingham, N.C.

When: Today, qualifying (Fox Sports Net, noon); Sunday, race (Ch. 11, 10 a.m.)

Track: North Carolina Speedway (tri-oval, 1.017 miles, 22-degree banking in turns 1-2, 25 degrees in turns 3-4).

Race distance: 400 miles, 393 laps.

Last race: Michael Waltrip won the Daytona 500 for the second time in three years after the day’s second rainstorm shortened the race to 109 laps, 91 short of the scheduled distance.

Winner last year: Matt Kenseth.

Next race: UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, March 2, Las Vegas.

BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL

Rockingham 200

Where: Rockingham, N.C.

When: Today, qualifying, 1:35 p.m.; Saturday, race (FX, 10 a.m.).

Track: North Carolina Speedway.

Race distance: 200.349 miles, 197 laps.

Last race: Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 67 of the 120 laps at the Koolerz 300 in Daytona Beach, Fla., and won the Busch season opener.

Winner last year: Jason Keller.

Next race: Sam’s Town 300, March 1, Las Vegas.

CHAMPIONSHIP AUTO RACING TEAM