Path to Indy Is Paved With CART Experience

By SHAV GLICK

Feb. 27, 2004 12 AM PT

Remember when Tony George said he was starting his Indy Racing League to give young Americans a chance to become big-time race car drivers? When he decried the influence of major engine manufacturers in the CART series? When he scraped together remnants of teams with drivers named Buzz Calkins, Jim Guthrie, Mark Dismore and Buddy Lazier to run the 1996 Indianapolis 500?

Well, the 2004 IRL IndyCar season starts Sunday in Homestead-Miami with the Toyota Indy 300, and look at what has happened since then:

* There are only 19 entries for the race and 11 of them are foreign drivers.

* Honda has a potent lineup of four teams and seven drivers, including four entered by Michael Andretti, once the pride of CART. Toyota has seven cars, with teams headed by Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi, once two of the strongest forces in CART. General Motors, which carried the IRL through its growing pains, has only five Chevrolet-powered cars. One is for rookie Ed Carpenter, George’s stepson.

* Calkins, Guthrie, Dismore and Lazier, who won the 1996 Indy 500, and most of the other old IRL drivers are gone to make room for the exodus from CART. Ten of Sunday’s 19 entries are former CART drivers.

All of which makes it confusing when so many CART devotees write scathing letters to the editor about how terrible the IRL is, when in essence, the IRL today is the CART of yesterday. And what is CART now? It is the OWRS, for Open Wheel Racing Series, and the mystery of who is left, besides Paul Tracy, Adrian Fernandez and Bruno Junquiera, will become known when the new organization holds its coming out party March 8-9 in Long Beach.

As long as there is an IRL, however, the road to Indianapolis will go through its schedule, and that means Sunday’s Florida race and the March 21 race in Phoenix.

Gil de Ferran, last year’s Indy 500 winner, has retired.

The field of 19 cars at Homestead-Miami is the smallest ever for an IRL season opener. Last year, there were 21 starters; in 2002, there were 26.

The preseason favorite appears to be the Marlboro Team Penske tandem of Helio Castroneves, a two-time Indy 500 winner and runner-up for the IRL crown two years ago, and his new teammate, Sam Hornish Jr., the 2001-02 IRL champion. Hornish left Panther Racing, with whom he won his two titles, to join Penske as a replacement for De Ferran.

“From the time I was a kid, I admired Penske race car drivers,” said Hornish, 24. “I never actually thought that I would be one of them. So it’s kind of exciting to be able to do that.”

Hornish, a native of Defiance, Ohio, grew up racing in the Midwest and said that a desire to win the 500 influenced his switch.

“The Indianapolis 500 means so much to me,” said Hornish, whose best finish was 14th in 2001. “When you look at the Penske success

Penske cars have won the last three 500s and have won a record 13 times.

There have been other changes in the IRL since New Zealander Scott Dixon won the championship last year after coming over from CART with Ganassi to drive a Toyota.

Andretti is no longer racing, but as a team owner he is putting four drivers in Sunday’s race: Bryan Herta, Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti and Dan Wheldon.

It will be a fresh start for Franchitti, the Scotsman who missed all but three races last year because of a back injury he suffered in a motorcycle accident near his home in Edinburgh.

“It felt so good to be back,” Franchitti said after a test in his Dallara-Honda. “It was really nice being in the car, just driving again.”

Herta, chosen by Andretti to fill in for the injured Franchitti, did such a good job, including winning at Kansas City, that he was retained for 2004.

Making the new season more confusing, the IRL has adopted a new engine formula, downsizing from 3.5 liters to 3.0 in hopes of reducing speeds, but the change will not become effective until Indianapolis.

Because of the midseason change, there is a definite concern that there may not be 33 chassis-engine combinations available for the race. The engine builders have indicated it may be difficult to build enough three-liter engines by May, while also servicing the current 3.5-liter power plants.

World of Outlaws

Steve Kinser has won 498 World of Outlaws main events but never one at Perris Auto Speedway. The 48-year-old “King of the Outlaws” won his 18th series championship last year and with a win Saturday night in the season opener in Phoenix, he seems on his way to his 19th.

Saturday night at Perris, Kinser will try to win on the half-mile clay oval in Riverside County.

Among Kinser’s rivals in the big 410-cubic inch winged sprint cars will be son Kraig, 19, who finished ninth last week; Erin Crocker, 22, the first female driver to qualify for the Knoxville Nationals, sprint car racing’s premier event, and Danny Lasoski, the 2002 champion who drives NASCAR veteran Tony Stewart’s sprinter.

In addition to the Snap-On Tools Shoot-Out main event Saturday night, there will also be the Western Dirt Late Model Invitational for stock cars.

The stock car program wiped out by rain Saturday night at Perris has been rescheduled for Friday night, March 5. The new USAC/CRA sprint car series will debut March 6.

Japanese Drifters

Major league baseball opened its season last year in Japan. Now the Japanese motor sport of drifting will reciprocate by opening its season in the United States. Specifically, Saturday at Irwindale Speedway.

The D1 Grand Prix is Japan’s premier drifting series and most of its top performers will be at Irwindale for the all-day competition. Opening ceremonies will be at 10:30 a.m., with the first round at 11. The finals are scheduled for 8 p.m.

In drifting, speed takes a back seat to style and driver control. Three judges, who are familiar with the capability of each driver and vehicle, look for showmanship, angle of attack and vehicle mastery as competitors match up in a tire-burning game of power sliding through tight turns.

Youichi Imamura, 2003 D1 champion, and Katsuhiro Ueo, winner of the Irwindale exhibition last year, will compete against 27 other Japanese professionals and a small number of Americans.

Stunt driver Rhys Millen of Newport Beach, a veteran of Pikes Peak hill climbs, will drive a Pontiac GTO, the first American car to compete in the series against the Toyota Corollas, turbocharged Nissan Silvias and Mazda RX-7s from Japan.

Last year’s exhibition produced the largest motor sports crowd, estimated at 10,000, since Irwindale opened five years ago.

Last Laps

Saturday night street-legal drag racing will return to California Dragway this week with tech inspection at 2 p.m. and racing from 4-11 p.m. The Dragway is on the California Speedway parking lot.

Riverside veterans Dan Smith and David Ashley will head a near-record entry of more than 260 vehicles in Saturday’s 18th annual Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250. Smith, 40, and Ashley, 49, have nine victories in the feature Trophy Truck class, driving a Ford F-150. Racing will start at 6 a.m. in San Felipe, 210 miles south of the U.S. border on the Sea of Cortes.

Fans looking forward to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will have an opportunity to get a sneak preview of what to expect when officials hold a Champ Car Fan Festival on Tuesday, March 9, from 5-8 p.m. It will be at the Long Beach Arena and drivers and 2004 model cars will be on hand for autographs and picture taking.

The Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, postponed last month amid CART’s financial problems, has been canceled by the new owners of the Champ Car series, according to Dick Eidswick, president of Open Wheel Racing Series.

This Week

NHRA

K&N; Filters Winternationals

* When: Today, qualifying, 2:30 p.m.; Saturday, qualifying, 11:30 a.m. (ESPN2, 1:30 p.m.); Sunday, eliminations, 11 a.m. (ESPN2, 7 p.m.).

* Where: Pomona Raceway.

* 2003 winners: Larry Dixon (top fuel), Tony Pedregon (funny car) and Warren Johnson (pro stock).

* Next race: Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals, March 5, Phoenix.

INDY RACING LEAGUE

Toyota Indy 300

* When: Saturday, qualifying, 10:15 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 11 a.m.).

* Where: Homestead-Miami Speedway (oval, 1.5 miles, 18-degree banking at bottom, 19-degree banking in middle, 20-degree banking at top).

* Race distance: 300 miles, 200 laps.