Fans get only glimpses of Canadian Grand Prix
To an auto-racing zealot, the plan seemed worthwhile. With Formula 1 racing making its long-overdue return to the United States next year for a September date at the revised road course inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, what better time to cover the Canadian Grand Prix to get a first-hand handle on what is in store for U.S. motorsports fans?
My older son, Jack, and I planned to do a marathon drive to Montreal for the 31st running of Canada’s Grand Prix, the only one in North America. We got lucky and found the last room at an obscure but very nice little hotel a block from the old Forum, where I used to stay during some Stanley Cup final trips. It was expensive, because hotels go for the maximum on big weekends.
Only one problem. Formula 1 racing is conducted by Bernie Ecclestone, almost as a private and very exclusive club. Credentials are given out as though race officials were giving up their firstborn. I have covered two such events in past years — the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and the last Canadian Grand Prix in which the late Ayrton Senna competed. This time, the three-page stipulations state requests must be submitted at least three weeks prior to an event, and must be mailed to Geneva, Switzerland.
We did that. And it took just long enough for the mail to go from Duluth to Geneva that the request apparently arrived a day late. Even though postmarked before the three-week stipulation, the request was denied. We learned of that 10 days before the race, and since the hotel had a two-week nonrefundable deal, we decided to go for it, anyway. Always one to look for the upside in such situations, I figured what could be better than to observe the race amid grassroots fans?
I hadn’t worried about the constant busy signals at the Montreal office’s ticket center. Every seat at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, on the Isle Notre Dame in midstream of the St. Lawrence River, had been sold out for six weeks, but on my previous trip, I learned that one of the best vantage points was a general admission section just outside the eastern tip of the 13-turn, 2.7-mile track. After approximately 100 calls with busy signals, two days before departure, I got through.
Two general admission tickets? The friendly woman said “No problem.” Only $79 apiece, for the three days.
Welcome to the world of Formula 1.
There can be no question that these cars and these drivers are the ultimate. The best in the world, and the most expensive. The Canadian Grand Prix used to be sponsored by Player’s, a tobacco company. But the Canadian government is in the process of invoking rules preventing tobacco sponsorship from marketing events except at the event itself, so Player’s dropped out and Air Canada jumped at the chance to spend $25 million for a five-year sponsorship deal.
The ongoing feud between CART and the Indy Racing League is partly based on the IRL’s contention that CART cars are too expensive. CART cars are definitely more costly than the IRL’s spec-racing cars, but nothing even close to the outrageous expense of Formula 1 cars. The race teams either have their own chassis builders and buy engines, such as the Williams or McLaren teams, or they have full factory missions, such as Ferrari, and build everything themselves including the secret engines. If the amount could be broken down into what a competitive team spends to prepare one car for one Formula 1 race, it probably would easily pay for a full season’s competition in the IRL. That’s the best reason for the IRL to exist, but there also is an unmistakable mystique about the no-limit expense of the ultimate racing.
As it turned out, the Canadian Grand Prix — in 90-degree heat for the third straight day — was by far the most competitive event of the season. For the first 29 laps, Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari led, in order, Mika Hakkinen in a McLaren-Mercedes, then Eddie Irvine in a matching Team Ferrari, and David Coulthard, Hakkinen’s teammate, in a tidy 1-2-3-4 chain. But several others stayed close, and when Schumacher crashed into a wall at Turn 13 on the 30th lap, Hakkinen had the lead. Former World Champions Damon Hill and hometown hero Jacques Villeneuve extended their luckless seasons by eliminating themselves against the same barrier.
Hakkinen, from Finland, won the race, with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella a surprising second in a Benetton, Ireland’s Eddie Irvine third, Germany’s Ralf Schumacher fourth in a Williams, England’s Johnny Herbert fifth in a Stewart-Ford, Brazilian Pedro Diniz sixth in a Sauber, and Scotland’s Coulthard seventh in the McLaren. The closest thing to a U.S. driver, other than former Indy 500 winner Villeneuve, was Italian Alex Zanardi, who dominated the CART series for two years but also banged a wall in his Williams and has yet to finish a Grand Prix race in a season of learning how to deal with an uncompetitive car.
Heinz-Harald Frantzen was running an impressive second until three laps remained, then his right
front brake seized and he crashed, meaning the last couple of laps were run single-file behind the pace car, securing what was already going to be a clearcut victory for series points leader and defending World Champion Hakkinen.
We had no idea of those happenings until long after the race, by watching highlights back at the hotel on television, and by reading the Montreal Gazette’s coverage, which included a front-page story, some sports section notes, and three full special sections of coverage.
Downtown Montreal was abuzz for three days. Auto traffic was foot by foot, and bumper to bumper, and parking was nonexistent, so we walked all over town to observe the beautiful people visiting barricaded, block-long displays and hitting the numerous restaurants and nightclubs. We found a parking spot one driveway past our hotel, where the sign allowed parking on weekends, and never moved the car from 6 p.m. on Friday until 8 a.m. Monday. We either walked or took the Metro — Montreal’s magically effective subway system.
On race morning, we took the Metro to the island plenty early, arriving in the midst of a record 104,069 fans. I would estimate 100,000 of us were on the same elbow-to-elbow logjam on the Metro, and the vast majority had paid a lot more than $79 for one of those advance seats. But we had scouted out the track during qualifying on Saturday, located my favorite spot outside the west tip of the track, where a couple of little grassy knolls and fence-lining vantage points were located, and so we walked briskly, about two miles, to get there. At the end of the paved walkway, however, a barrier was set up. “Sorry, you need a special pass to go there,” the pleasant security guard said. Sure enough, on race day only, the only good vantage point for general admission types was excluded from access. And the only indication of the blockade came at the end of the long walkway.
We walked all the way back, then to the Casino hairpin at the extreme east end of the track, and found a spot by a guardrail. It was only about 10 feet from the track itself, and even though you could only see about 50 yards of the track between the back of a grandstand and a giant Air Canada sign, we figured the cars would be visible, close-up, as they braked hard for the hairpin.
We were wrong. The cars sped past at about 150 miles per hour, braking much later than I anticipated, and all we saw were flashes of color. Part of the high-budget sellout to sponsors, Formula 1 cars carry only tiny numbers, sometimes not noticeable unless parked. Certainly not at 150, from 10 feet away.
We watched about five laps from there, then set out to tour the infield. We found four or five other vantage points along walkways, but they were crammed with people like ourselves, straining to get a glimpse of these colorful racers as they screamed past, their high-revving engines exceeding the threshold of pain unless you were wearing earplugs, which I was.
We wound up outside the back side of the course, amid a group of amiable but equally helpless fans, for the last 20 laps. When Coulthard pitted, and came back on course almost a lap behind his teammate, Hakkinen, many fans thought he had somehow taken the lead, rather than resumed racing almost a full lap down. On an impromptu survey, nobody in that vicinity, in either English or French, could guess at how many of the following string of racers were on the same lap as Hakkinen.
As Hakkinen went by, waving to the crowd after the victory, we were already in full flight for the mile-long walk back to the Metro. I have never witnessed so many people funneling into such a tight passageway and only the fact that all were amiable made the whole trek amazingly efficient.
Afterward, a restaurant in the old part of Montreal, more walking and more Metro riding, and we were ready for the 25-hour, straight-through, morning-after drive home.
Was it worth it? Race fans used to sitting in the stands and seeing the whole event at Proctor, or Superior, would probably disagree, but the whole scene is what matters at a Formula 1 race. Watching stunningly fashionable people in one of the world’s greatest cities, was spectacular. The sounds and flashes of color were breathtaking, whether in practice, qualifying, warm-ups, or during the race. As for the race-watching itself, it was torturous, and it became evident that in the big-time, corporate world of Formula 1, the actual race fans have been greatly overlooked. But if we could afford it, we’d go back in a minute — or, at least, in 25 hours.
Musuva wins Grandma’s; Makolova wins race and SUV
Andrew Musuva of Kenya surprised everybody but himself Saturday morning with a concerted finishing charge past the three race-long leaders to win the spectacularly close 23rd annual Grandma’s Marathon. Meanwhile, women’s winner Elena Makalova from Belarus surprised herself most of all by breezing to a record-setting victory, and was even more surprised to learn afterward that she had won a Toyota RAV4 for breaking the event record.
Makolova drove herself to victory, but now she may have to learn how to drive a car, as well.
Makolova’s winning time was 2 hours, 29 minutes, 12 seconds, shattering by 24 seconds Lorraine Moller’s 1981 record run of 2:29:36. She also crossed the finish line 50 seconds ahead of runner-up Albina Galliamova, from Russia. Women from countries from the former Soviet Union dominated, as last year’s winner Yelena Plastinina from the Ukraine was third and Lyubov Belvina fro Russia was fourth.
Musuva, who is from Machakos, in the east end of Kenya, surprised leaders and spectators alike to win in his first try at Grandma’s, after he had dropped out of his only previous marathon this year, in Cleveland. His winning time of 2 hours, 13 minutes, 21 seconds was only a minute off his personal best, but not close to Dick Beardsley’s race record of 2:09:37, also set in 1981. The men may have missed a record, but they dazzled a cheering, raucus crowd at the Canal Park finish line, as the top four runners finished the 26.2 miles only 19 seconds apart. It seemed it must be the closest finish ever at Grandma’s, but race officials wouldn’t confirm that.
At the start, it seemed destined to be close, as a three-man battle persisted among Fedor Ryjov of Russia, and Kenyans Patrick Kiptum and Elly Rono. Ryjov pulled away from his two chief pursuers, and appeared to have the race in hand with two miles to go. But by the time the runners made the final turn into Canal Park, instead of the lanky white Russian Rykov, black runners Musuva and Tesfaye Bekele of Ethiopia came around ahead of him, and they finished 1-2 only three seconds apart. Ryjov, faltering from his own strong pace, was third in 2:13:31, and Benedict Ako of Tanzania was a close fourth at 2:13:40.
The race was run from its 7:30 a.m. start in 50-degree temperature and solid overcast in Two Harbors, and finished amid scattered sunshine. It drew a capacity and record turnout of 8,450 runners, but conspicuous by his absence was defending men’s champion Simon Peter, from Tanzania, who had been promoted as race favorite right up through Saturday morning, but was a surprising no-show.
The women’s race had none of the men’s drama, because, after a throng of women ran evenly from the start in Two Harbors through the first seven or eight miles, Makolova put on a burst and immediately opened a 30-second lead.
“I decided to take a risk, and I felt comfortable with the pace,” said Makolova, 31, who had raced in only one other marathong this year, in Hong Kong, where she finished fifth in 2:43. “I was hoping somebody might join me, because then we could push each other to run faster.”
Nobody could keep up with her pace, including Plastinina, who said her training was disrupted by an allergic reaction to a bee sting on her neck that left her with a high fever for 10 days in the last three weeks.
Makolova ran away to a lead that was over a minute and a half at some points, before Galliamova closed it up to within a minute. She said she was surprised by her winning margin but she had no idea. “This is the first time I’ve ever been so far ahead in a marathon,” said Makolova, who last won a marathon two years ago in Macao. “I didn’t know how far ahead I was, because I never looked back.” Both the men’s and women’s winners received $7,500 for their victories, but a bonus of $10,000 and a new Toyota RAV4 were awarded to Makolova for breaking the event record. That news seemed puzzling to Maklova, who needed an interpreter to be interviewed.
“I had no idea there was a vehicle to be given,” she said. “I have no driver’s license, and I’ve never driven. I have a husband, but he has no driver’s license, either.”
Score one for public transportation.
The men’s race was a rarity among marathons for its closeness. At the start, a large clot of runners ran up front, and a lead pack of 19 runners evolved as they covered the first five miles in 26 minutes. By the halfway point, the leaders had thinned out considerably as they made their way down Hwy. 61 along the North Shore of Lake Superior.
Ryjov, Kiptum and Romo put on an outstanding show for the thousands of spectators and water-station workers lining the course, and they often ran three abreast and clocked some sub-5-minute miles as they reached Duluth’s East End. A half-minute back, another group of four runners jogged along, almost anonymously. But that group included Musuva and Bekele.
“I was in the second group, but I knew that even though there was a gap between me and the leaders, I could close it,” said Musuva. “I was feeling comfortable with my pace, and I was confident I could catch them.”
Bekele said: “I wanted to stay behind, to focus. I never worried that I was leaving too big a gap to the leaders, I just waited to run.”
As the runners covered the long straightaway from 40th Av. E. to the abrupt rise of Lemon Drop Hill, Ryjov and Rono pulled away from Kiptum. The second group had closed to within 15 seconds of the leading duo, and the race appeared to have crystalized as a two-man duel up front, with a four-man race for third place.
As the two leaders reached downtown Duluth, Ryjov pulled out to a 25-foot lead on Rono, and appeared to have the race under control. But Musuva thought otherwise.
“When I came to the last four miles, I knew I’d catch the leaders,” Musuva said. “I went up Lemon Drop Hill, and didn’t even feel it. I was about 25 yards behind when we got to the downtown area, and when we turned down the hill (5th Av. W.), I knew I had extra time to catch those guys.”
As the struggling Ryjov circled the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, Musuva moved up steadily, with Bekele right behind him, both passing Rono and closing on the leader. They turned northward, past the moored William A. Irvin ore freighter museum, and both Musuva and Bekele passed Ryjov in the final mile, before they got to the clock tower to turn onto Canal Park Drive for the final 500 yards.
Bekele, who has been training in Cambridge, Mass., for three years, said he had promoted this race to many other runners and was dismayed when he couldn’t get the race promoters to pay his air expenses in return for his impromptu promotion work. “I was running for my plane ticket back to Boston,” he said.
Saul Mendoza of Mexico won the men’s wheelchair bracket at 1:31:06, and, just like in the regular marathon, the women came up with the event record, as Candace Cable of Sacramento, Calif., rolled in at 1:46:31, well under the old 1:50:29 standard. Ryan Meissen, of Hudson, Wis., won the men’s half-marathon preliminary in 1:08:14, and Mary Button, Glendale, Calif., 1:20:53.
Indy 500 has lost the appeal of past years
The first time I ever went to the Indianapolis 500 was in 1969. Mario Andretti was a young hotshot who won that race in his backup car, and owner Andy Granatelli was so excited that he planted a giant kiss on Andretti’s cheek in Victory Lane. More than the race, however, I can remember how astonished I was at the sheer magnitude of that event, 30 years ago this weekend.
In the succeeding years, the Indy 500, which already was the largest single sports event in the world, grew in enormity. Twenty five years ago, a hotel room you could get for $35 a night every day of every other week in the year cost you $150 a night with a three-day minimum, which seemed outrageous at the time. Restaurants such as St. Elmo’s Steakhouse in downtown Indianapolis used to put a strip of white tape over their prices and write in new ones, just for the weekend.
In later years, that would have been a bargain. The three-day minimum increased, up to a package deal of $1,500, and beyond. It got to the point where a lot of journalists found monthly rates that weren’t much more than that, then it made economic sense to also go to Indianapolis for both qualifying weekends.
It is worth little more than an aside to realize that after Andretti won the ’69 race, everybody in the world assumed it would be just the first of several Indy 500 victories for the popular little Italian, but he never won it again. Coincidentally, that 1969 Indy 500 was the first one for the late Mark Donohue, driving for Roger Penske, which joined England’s Team McLaren to lead a new era of threats from road-racing to take on the traditional oval-track racers up from Sprint and Midget competition.
Team McLaren and Penske renovated their own garages in Gasoline Alley, and I can recall strolling around Gasoline Alley a couple days before race day, watching crew members from other teams look on in awe at the tiled floors and brightly lighted quarters these “sporty-car” guys set up. There was some awe, all right, and also some scorn, although the scorn turned to grudging admiration when those invaders wrenched away the tradition of going from dirt sprinters to Indy, for a shot at racing’s Holy Grail. Suddenly, drivers like Donohue and Rick Mears proved that the escalating speed at Indy more required the precise touch of technical road-racers than being muscled around corners by sprint-car champs.
Indy races ranged from sensational to horrible, always unpredictably, during the past 30 years. The worst was the 1973 disaster, when the race was rained out twice, and Swede Savage, a promising young driver, died from burns suffered when his crashed car tumbled down the main straightaway, turning into a hulk of burning rubble in front of the main grandstand. Gordon Johncock finally won that race, which was mercifully rain-shortened on its third try.
Johnny Rutherford and brothers Al and Bobby Unser dominated for over a decade, with Al Sr. winning in 1970, ’71 and ’78, Bobby in ’75 and ’81, Rutherford in ’74, ’78 and 1980. But the tide was turning. Rutherford, a Texan, won his victories in Team McLaren cars, and Al Unser’s 1978 and 1987 victories, and Bobby Unser’s 1981 triumph came in Penske team cars. Penske also won with Donohue in 1972 and Rick Mears in 1979.
In ’81, Bobby Unser won and Mario Andretti was second, but after a protest that Unser had passed some cars illegally during caution slowdowns, Indy officials declared Mario the winner, only to later reverse the call and give it back to Unser.
Mears, the master at Indy for the following decade, won in 1984, ’88 and ’91 in addition to 1979, tying him with Al Unser Jr. and A.J. Foyt for the most Indy victories. Along with his conquests, Mears was involved in one of the Speedway’s most spectacular races, in 1982. Mears caught up to leader Johncock and the two went wheel-to-wheel with two laps to go, but finally Mears yielded to the more aggressive Johncock in Turn 1 and wound up one car-length behind as he tried a final pass attempt on the main straightaway.
That winning margin of 0.81 seconds was the closest Indy finish ever, until 1992, when Al Unser Jr. swerved in a serpentine fashion from Turn 4 to the checkered flag to keep Scott Goodyear from passing, outlasting Goodyear by less than a car-length for a victory by 0.043 seconds.
Al Unser Jr. also was embroiled in a last-lap, tire-bumping duel with Emerson Fittipaldi in 1989, when Fittipaldi moved inside Unser at Turn 3 on the 199th lap, and bunted Unser into a gentle spinout that eliminated him. Fitttipaldi came around for the checkered flag, and the two were so far ahead of the field that Al Jr. still wound up second, two laps in arrears.
In 1995, the last time the powerful contingent from the Championship Auto Racing Teams ran at Indy, Scott Goodyear led until a late-race caution set up one final restart. With Jacques Villeneuve behind him, Goodyear slowed to let the pace car clear, then accelerated hard, passing the pace car as it entered the pits. Goodyear was given the green flag and won the race, but afterward, he was protested for having passed the pace car. Chief steward Tom Binford said he saw Goodyear out of order and penalized Goodyear and awarded the victory to Villeneuve. Overlooked was the technicality that Binford, on the starter’s stand, should never have waved the green flag if Goodyear was out of order on the restart.
Behind the scenes, all this time, the purists at Indy never really accepted the hotshots from road-racing, particularly the European guys.
As the years passed, the sporty-car guys from Championship Auto Racing Teams dominated Indy, and the Indy 500 became the crown jewel in the CART season, leading CART officials to rename their racers “Indy Cars.” CART, which is run by a board of team owners, exerted more and more pressure on Indy, and the time came for rebellion four years ago.
Tony George, grandson of Tony Hulman, had taken over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he decided to try to bring the Indy 500 back to the heartland’s beloved sprint and dirt circle-track racers, and to control the runaway expenses of the too-exotic CART cars. So he effectively outlawed CART entries from participating in 1996 by changing the rules to make illegal the exotic CART cars.
While CART took its faster and more sophisticated cars, and its superior drivers, and raced elsewhere against Indy, that first Indy 500 without CART commanded a full house. Race fans were so used to trekking to Indianapolis over Memorial Day weekend, and being thoroughly gouged by hotels and restaurants, that they did it by rote in 1996 when Buddy Lazier won a very exciting but clearly minor-league Indy 500.
In 1997, when Arie Luyendyk — who had won against all comers in 1990 — won his second Indy 500 in an incredibly close 0.57-second victory over his teammate, Scott Goodyear, visitors learned that the hotels that had held out for three or four day minimums all had a few vacancies at moderate prices the night before the race.
Last year, when Eddie Cheever won the Indy 500, the huge grandstands that used to be filled with 250,000 for one-at-a-time qualifying were virtually empty for time trials, and while the race still drew a crowd of 300,000, many of the fans drove in for a one-night stay the day before the race.
The economic blow to Indianapolis has been staggering, although veteran race-goers might celebrate the more-reasonable prices. This year, you can get a room at almost any hotel on race-day eve.
The IRL cars are better than ever, and while the drivers aren’t as well-known or as experienced at 200-mph racing as CART’s stars, it could be a spectacular race. What has evolved is that CART, which will hold its Motorola 300 at St. Louis’s suburban Gateway track in Madison, Ill., on Saturday, has the stars and the cars, but it no longer has the Indy 500 — its crown jewel; the IRL, without the stars and cars, has the Indy 500.
To recapture the magic of the past 10, 20, or 30 years, the IRL and CART have to reunite. There are some encouraging signs that it could happen, maybe within a couple of years. Both the IRL and CART owe it to the wonderful tradition of the Indianapolis 500 to once again provide race fans with the best race in the world.
Luyendyk leads the field into 83rd Indy 500
Indianapolis, Ind.—
The 83rd running of the Indianapolis 500 will be run Sunday and it may still lay claim to being the largest single-day sports event in the world, when 300,000 fans tumble through the entrances and take up stations around the 2.5-mile oval.
But instead of standing alone as the auto race of Memorial Day weekend, the Indy 500 finds itself intertwined with Saturday’s CART Motorola 300 in St. Louis, and Sunday night’s NASCAR’s Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte.
There are more than enough good story angles to the Indy 500. For one, Arie Luyendyk, who won the 500 both when it was for all-comers in 1990, as well as in 1997, the second of three Indy 500s since the Indy Racing League has effectively boycotted the rivals from CART, is racing only in this event this season, and then he’d retiring. For good measure, Luyendyk qualified No. 1 at 225.179 miles per hour and will start from the pole at 11 a.m. Sunday.
“We’re really happy with the car right now,” said Luyendyk, after running through Thursday’s final on-track runs on “carburetion day.”
This is the closest race in the 83 years of Indy, with only 3.253 mph separating Luyendyk from 33rd qualifier Raul Boesel’s 220.101 mph four-lap average. Steve Knapp, the transplanted Minnesotan now living in Wisconsin, had predicted that it would take 218 to make the field; instead, a 220.066 by Mike Groff was too slow to make it, and he was bumped from a slot last Sunday.
Knapp, who finished third last year, is a definite threat to win the race although his name is rarely mentioned. He has studiously avoided the spotlight, even though he was one of only two drivers whose qualifying lap speeds improved on all four of his laps (rookie John Hollansworth was the other). He paid tribute to Luyendyk as a mentor.
“I’ve watched and admired Arie since 1981, when he and my dad both raced in the Super Vee series,” said Knapp.”Arie was the only driver I could feel comfortable calling up and asking for advice. If he wasn’t there, he’d call me back. Whatever the question, he was always there with an answer for me. The sport won’t be the same without him, and it will lose a great friend and driver when he gets out for the final time.”
Eddie Cheever, last year’s winner, ran a 221.315, but it was only good for 16th — inside the sixth row to start. Buddy Lazier, who won the inaugural IRL-backed Indy race in 1996, is on the inside of the eighth row, meaning all three Indy winners under IRL sanction — Lazier, Luyendyk and Cheever — are in the inside row. Cheever also paid respects to Luyendyk’s last run.
“Arie has a nagtural talent for speed,” Cheever said. “With Arie, you look at him and he’s just smiling away…almost laughing at us all. He is very special. I will personally miss racing with and against him, greatly.”
Another facet to Cheever’s story is that he, like almost all the top runners, had been using the Oldsmobile Aurora race engine for the last two years, but after winning the opener of the IRL series this season, Cheever, who owns his own team, abruptly switched to the Nissan Infiniti engine. The Olds engines have won every IRL race since the 4.0-liter naturally-aspirated formula was instituted, but one of the reasons is that Olds opened its engine program up to various after-market specialists, while Nissan stubbornly insisted on keeping all its engine development in-house.
That means it took longer for Nissan to get its engines up to competitive speed, but if they have, they might prove to have an edge in staying power, which could leave Cheever in excellent position for those final laps. Rookie Jeret Schroeder (starting 21st) and Roberto Guerrero (25th on the grid) are the only other drivers using Infiniti engines in the 33-car field.
The two most successful race teams in IRL are Team Menard and A.J.Foyt’s gang, and both have two drivers up close and in challenging roles. Menard’s ace Greg Ray is the No. 2 qualifier and Robby Gordon is No. 4, putting Ray in the middle of the first row and Gordon on the inside of Row 2. Foyt’s unpredictable Billy Boat captured the outside of Row 1 after crashing three cars leading up to his 223.469 run, and Kenny Brack is in the middle of Row 3 in the other Foyt car.
In Thursday’s final on-track practice, Ray ran his own car 10 laps, running the day’s second-fastest lap of 40.573-seconds around the 2.5-mile oval, a speed of 221.822. Then he got in Gordon’s matching Team Menard’s racer and did 13 laps, clocking the third-quickest lap of the day at 40.579 seconds (221.790 mph). He did that because Gordon, his teammate, had to be in St. Louis for qualifying in the CART Motorola 300, where he and John Menard have an entry that will allow Gordon to take a shot at winning both races on successive days.
The only driver who practiced at a faster lap than Ray was Sam Schmidt, who starts on the inside of Row 3 in the matching team car to Luyendyk. Schmidt had a 40.457-second lap (222.458 mph), while Luyendyk was fourth with a 40.654-second trip around the track (221.380 mph). The reason those last-day practice times are significant is that all cars run full fuel loads, the way they’ll open in the race, so their lap speeds are closer to race-accurate than their slim and trim, all-out qualifying speeds.
While Schmidt had the best last-practice speed, and Brack, who starts next to him, is last year’s IRL season points champion, the best chance for a winner to come from Row 3 might be on the outside, where Scott Goodyear is stationed. Goodyear has been the victim of misfortune at Indy three times — going from a 33rd start to make a passing attempt on Al Unser Jr. at the finish line that was an Indy record 0.043-seconds from winning the checkered flag in 1992; being black-flagged for passing the slowing pace car while accelerating as the leader for a restart with 10 laps to go in 1995; and finishing second to teammate Luyendyk in the IRL’s 1997 event.
In case luck doesn’t seem to be a valid contributor, consider that Goodyear went out in Thursday’s last tests and ran hard — for a while. How does he feel about the start? “We broke a motor,” he said, “so we don’t know.”
Speaking of the unknown, the ongoing dispute with CART that prevents the two series from reuniting adds another dimension with Robby Gordon racing in both the CART race Saturday and Indy on Sunday. And Tony Stewart will race at Indy Sunday, then fly off to Charlotte to drive in the NASCAR race that night. Beyond that, the battle for fans persists.
As for talking about reconciliation with CART, a source close to Indy boss Tony George said there had been no talks last week with CART’s Andrew Craig, even while Craig was acknowledging such talks did occur. George then came back and said they did talk, but his tone was hardly conciliatory. “I think we’ve proven we don’t need CART to have a successful event,” George told the Indianapolis Star. “They’re obviously trying to shift some attention to themselves.”
Problem is, some fan-appeal also seems to have shifted. In the three years of IRL-sanctioned Indy 500s, the comparative unknown drivers and more restricted cars have shattered the mystique of Indy, and television ratings have dropped 35 percent, to a 5.5 rating last May. Meanwhile, since shifting to nightfall’s prime time, the Coca Cola 600’s rating was 5.0 last year.
That shows what NASCAR’s clever marketing has done, because it represents an improvement of 91 percent over six years, and means that this weekend, the NASCAR event could wind up with more viewers than Indy.
Pair of Minnesotans
among honored vets
A pair of Minnesota’s World War II heroes, Mike Colalillo of Duluth and Don Rudolph of Bovey, were among 100 past Congressional Medal of Honor winners who were brought in to Indianapolis for a special Memorial Day celebration, which includes the dedication of a new memorial and two days of special tributes, culminating with a ride around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway in convertibles before Sunday’s 83rd Indy 500.
“We’re going to have a good time all weekend,” said Colalillo, who lives in Rice Lake Township, just north of Duluth. He praised the Indianapolis Power and Light Co., which organized the special weekend, but when asked what he did to earn the Medal of Honor, Colalillo smiled, then shrugged, and said: “I shot a few Germans, that’s all.”
Colalillo earned his medal in Germany, while Rudolph earned his in the Philippines. The two were honored Friday morning at ceremonies at the American Legion Mall that included a vintage aircraft flyover, the laying of wreaths at the memorial, stirring music by the U.S.Navy Band, and a final flyover by the Indiana Air National Guard’s F-16, executing the “Missing man” formation as the band concluded the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Reuniting with CART could restore Indy’s magic
The first time I ever went to the Indianapolis 500 was in 1969. Mario Andretti was a young hotshot who won that race in his backup car, and owner Andy Granatelli was so excited that he planted a giant kiss on Andretti’s cheek in Victory Lane. More than the race, however, I can remember how astonished I was at the sheer magnitude of that event, 30 years ago this weekend.
In the succeeding years, the Indy 500, which already was the largest single sports event in the world, grew in enormity. Twenty five years ago, a hotel room you could get for $35 a night every day of every other week in the year cost you $150 a night with a three-day minimum, which seemed outrageous at the time. Restaurants such as St. Elmo’s Steakhouse in downtown Indianapolis used to put a strip of white tape over their prices and write in new ones, just for the weekend.
In later years, that would have been a bargain. The three-day minimum increased, up to a package deal of $1,500, and beyond. It got to the point where a lot of journalists found monthly rates that weren’t much more than that, then it made economic sense to also go to Indianapolis for both qualifying weekends.
It is worth little more than an aside to realize that after Andretti won the ’69 race, everybody in the world assumed it would be just the first of several Indy 500 victories for the popular little Italian, but he never won it again. Coincidentally, that 1969 Indy 500 was the first one for the late Mark Donohue, driving for Roger Penske, which joined England’s Team McLaren to lead a new era of threats from road-racing to take on the traditional oval-track racers up from Sprint and Midget competition.
Team McLaren and Penske renovated their own garages in Gasoline Alley, and I can recall strolling around Gasoline Alley a couple days before race day, watching crew members from other teams look on in awe at the tiled floors and brightly lighted quarters these “sporty-car” guys set up. There was some awe, all right, and also some scorn, although the scorn turned to grudging admiration when those invaders wrenched away the tradition of going from dirt sprinters to Indy, for a shot at racing’s Holy Grail. Suddenly, drivers like Donohue and Rick Mears proved that the escalating speed at Indy more required the precise touch of technical road-racers than being muscled around corners by sprint-car champs.
Indy races ranged from sensational to horrible, always unpredictably, during the past 30 years. The worst was the 1973 disaster, when the race was rained out twice, and Swede Savage, a promising young driver, died from burns suffered when his crashed car tumbled down the main straightaway, turning into a hulk of burning rubble in front of the main grandstand. Gordon Johncock finally won that race, which was mercifully rain-shortened on its third try.
Johnny Rutherford and brothers Al and Bobby Unser dominated for over a decade, with Al Sr. winning in 1970, ’71 and ’78, Bobby in ’75 and ’81, Rutherford in ’74, ’78 and 1980. But the tide was turning. Rutherford, a Texan, won his victories in Team McLaren cars, and Al Unser’s 1978 and 1987 victories, and Bobby Unser’s 1981 triumph came in Penske team cars. Penske also won with Donohue in 1972 and Rick Mears in 1979.
In ’81, Bobby Unser won and Mario Andretti was second, but after a protest that Unser had passed some cars illegally during caution slowdowns, Indy officials declared Mario the winner, only to later reverse the call and give it back to Unser.
Mears, the master at Indy for the following decade, won in 1984, ’88 and ’91 in addition to 1979, tying him with Al Unser Sr. and A.J. Foyt for the most Indy victories. Along with his conquests, Mears was involved in one of the Speedway’s most spectacular races, in 1982. Mears caught up to leader Johncock and the two went wheel-to-wheel with two laps to go, but finally Mears yielded to the more aggressive Johncock in Turn 1 and wound up one car-length behind as he tried a final pass attempt on the main straightaway.
That winning margin of 0.81 seconds was the closest Indy finish ever, until 1992, when Al Unser Jr. swerved in a serpentine fashion from Turn 4 to the checkered flag to keep Scott Goodyear from passing, outlasting Goodyear by less than a car-length for a victory by 0.043 seconds.
Al Unser Jr. also was embroiled in a last-lap, tire-bumping duel with Emerson Fittipaldi in 1989, when Fittipaldi moved inside Unser at Turn 3 on the 199th lap, and bunted Unser into a gentle spinout that eliminated him. Fitttipaldi came around for the checkered flag, and the two were so far ahead of the field that Al Jr. still wound up second, two laps in arrears. Fittipaldi pulled a fast one — literally — in 1993, when he jumped a late-race restart to pass the leader, Nigel Mansell, a Formula 1 World Champion and season champion as an Indy Car rookie, whose cautious attention to rules protocol left him vulnerable to Fittipaldi’s aggressive move.
In 1995, the last time the powerful contingent from the Championship Auto Racing Teams ran at Indy, Scott Goodyear led until a late-race caution set up one final restart. With Jacques Villeneuve behind him, Goodyear slowed to let the pace car clear, then accelerated hard, passing the pace car as it entered the pits. Goodyear was given the green flag and sped away, but starter and chief steward Tom Binford black-flagged him, which required a mandatory pit stop. Goodyear, realizing a pit stop would cost him the victory, ignored the black flag and continued on through the final few laps. Afterward, Binford disqualified Goodyear, awarding the victory to Villeneuve, and issued a statement saying he saw Goodyear had passed the pace car and was out of order before he threw the green flag, Overlooked was a technicality: If Binford saw Goodyear was out of order, he should have signalled for one more caution lap instead of waving the green flag.
All those years, the biggest names — Donohue, Mears, Al Unser Jr., Mario Andretti, Fittipaldi, Mansell, Goodyear, Villeneuve — all came from road-racing, and they created what is arguably the richest legacy of the Indianapolis 500. But behind the scenes, the grassroots oval-track purists at Indy never really accepted the hotshots from road-racing, particularly the European guys. As the sporty-car guys from Championship Auto Racing Teams dominated Indy, the Indy 500 became the crown jewel in the CART season, leading CART officials to rename their racers “Indy Cars.” CART, which is run by a board of team owners, exerted more and more pressure on Indy, and the time came for rebellion four years ago.
Tony George, grandson of Tony Hulman, had taken over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he decided to try to bring the Indy 500 back to the heartland’s beloved sprint and dirt circle-track racers, and to control the runaway expenses of the too-exotic CART cars. So he effectively outlawed CART entries from participating in 1996 by changing the rules to make illegal the exotic CART cars.
While CART took its faster and more sophisticated cars, and its superior drivers, and raced elsewhere on Memorial Day weekend, Indy’s quality dipped drastically. In 1996, Buddy Lazier won a very exciting but clearly minor-league Indy 500 in the first “downsized” Indy 500.
In 1997, Arie Luyendyk — who had won against all comers in 1990 — won the 500 in an incredibly close 0.57-second victory over his teammate, the still-luckless Scott Goodyear. Race fans still came, but they learned that the hotels that had held out for three or four day minimums all had a few vacancies at moderate prices the night before the race.
Last year, when Eddie Cheever won the Indy 500, the huge grandstands that used to be filled with 250,000 for one-at-a-time qualifying and over 400,000 for the race, were virtually empty for time trials. The race still drew nearly 300,000, but the circus atmosphere was reduced because many fans drove in the day before the race.
The economic blow to Indianapolis has been staggering, although veteran race-goers might celebrate the more-reasonable prices. This year, you can get a room at almost any hotel on race-day eve.
The IRL cars are better than ever, and while the drivers aren’t as well-known or as experienced at 200-mph racing as CART’s stars, it could be a spectacular race. What has evolved is that CART, which will hold its Motorola 300 at St. Louis’s suburban Gateway track in Madison, Ill., on Saturday, has the stars and the cars, but it no longer has the Indy 500 — its crown jewel; the IRL, without the stars and cars, has the Indy 500.
To recapture the magic of the past 10, 20, or 30 years, the IRL and CART have to reunite. There are some encouraging signs that it could happen, maybe within a couple of years. Both the IRL and CART owe it to the wonderful tradition of the Indianapolis 500 to once again provide race fans with the best race in the world.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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