Could CART Indy 500 road race solve IRL-CART feud?
The posturing is over for another year, as the racers from CART (the Championship Auto Racing Teams) goes on after their FedEx Champ Car series stops, including this weekend at Milwaukee’s State Fair park mile, and the IRL (Indy Racing League) packs up to head for its next venue.
While battling for the past three years, the fledgling IRL has gone through some growing pains, with its first-year cars not up to CART’s safety, technical or competitive standards, and its more-recent private formula spending two years becoming adequate from a safety standpoint and very competitive, at least with each other.
Last weekend’s races were both outstanding, with Michael Andretti winning Saturday’s CART’s Motorola 300 at Madison, Ill., before about 40,000 fans — television broadcasts showed a massive empty grandstand, but that is a new stand that won’t be open until the NASCAR Busch race later this summer — and Kenny Brack winning Sunday’s Indy 500 before an estimate 350,000.
The two races show that both the IRL and CART have their distinct assets and clear liabilities in this battle, in which neither side is as strong as both could be by reuniting. Here is a rough overview of both sides:
Indy Racing League
Strengths: Having the Indianapolis 500 as its centerpiece, with its record purse of $9,047,150, including a record winner’s share of $1,465,190 to race winner Kenny Brack. The concept of trying to control runaway costs with standardized chassis from Aurora, G-Force and Riley & Scott, and stock-based 4.0-liter engines which can be bought by any competitor. The foresight to mandate contemporary an engine formula that uses stock bases (from Aurora and Infiniti engines) but also allows high-tech dual overhead camshafts and multiple valves. Using the theme of lower costs to open the ranks to new drivers, particularly U.S. circle-track racers.
Weaknesses: Other than the Indy 500, the IRL is seen as a minor-league spec-racing show at all its other venues. While cost-control is worthy, chassis and engine limitations mean that at this point, it is a spec-racing series. While cost-control does allow a lot of new and eager racers to get into the IRL, inexperienced drivers and low-budget teams are the motorsports equivalent of the Minnesota Twins trying to compete with the New York Yankees. Despite its intentions for circle-track graduates, the IRL’s best drivers are former road-racers (Kenny Brack, Eddie Cheever, Arie Luyendyk, Robby Gordon, Greg Ray and Scott Goodyear), and the teams that spend the most from the biggest budgets (John Menard, for example), tend to be dominant. The oval-track concept means the IRL doesn’t run road-races, so all other races have a sameness that can’t possibly be as impressive as the Indy prototype. A loss of supporting revenue from the biggest sponsors, who are with the bigger budget CART teams.
CART
Strengths: Competition that is at the peak of the sport, with Honda, Ford-Cosworth and Mercedes all with completely different engines that are virtually identical in performance (each had four of the top 12 finishers), and Toyota closing fast, plus body styles from Reynard, Swift and Lola that are also very competitive. Extremely skilled young drivers, such as Juan Montoya, Greg Moore, Helio Castro-Neves, Dario Franchitti, Patrick Carpentier and Tony Kanaan, who make veterans such as Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Paul Tracy and Christian Fittipaldi seem old. The engines are all leased, not bought, to allow manufacturers to retain their secrets of success instead of sharing them with every after-market high-performance part shop. A guaranteed exciting show that is the biggest attraction to appear at those tracks and road courses where it runs. Big budget sponsors who have allowed CART to be positioned somewhere between the costliest Formula 1 series and the low-budget IRL, but with a good blend of skill, sophistication and technology.
Weaknesses: The lack of its logical centerpiece — the Indianapolis 500. Exorbitant costs, although the high cost of cars comes mostly because of evolving safety concepts that can’t be retrofit onto year-old cars. The comparative lack of identity of its top young drivers, who dazzle all who see them, but who need a venue like the Indy 500 to be properly appreciated by the masses. A diminishing number of adequate race tracks, such as Elkhart Lake’s Road America in Wisconsin, or Laguna Seca in California, for cars and drivers who can’t show their full measure of skill on flat-out ovals better suited to NASCAR stock cars. All the drivers, team owners and sponsors would love to be running in the Indy 500, and are frustrated by being effectively boycotted.
Both series put on good races, and, presumably, will continue to do so. But even when CART chairman Andrew Craig and IRL boss Tony George met a couple of weeks ago, George’s camp denied there was such a meeting the same day that Craig acknowledged there had been. George then issued several vitriolic missives about CART just trying to cut in on Indy’s popularity, while Leo Mehl, the IRL’s tech boss, said that there would be no compromise on such IRL rules as leasing engines and engine rules.
The political hassle has overshadowed some technical problems of reunification. Indy’s 4.0-liter stock-based V8s have rev-limiters that were lowered to 10,300 RPMs for reliability sake, and will next be dropped to 10,000 revs. The more exotic, purpose-built CART engines rev to around 15,000 RPMs and competition has spurred their development and sophistication.
It is extremely unlikely that Roger Penske will give up his multi-million-dollar association with Ilmor Engineering and Mercedes, or that Chip Ganassi and various other teams will relinquish their alliance with Honda, or that Newman-Haas and others will break up with Ford-Cosworth arrangements, to run less-sophisticated and restricted IRL engines in CART’s series. It is equally unlikely that the IRL would allow CART engine suppliers to come in with IRL-spec engines, unless they could be bought by any and every team.
While every CART team would love to race at Indy — still the biggest race in the world — not many IRL teams would welcome the CART racers back. Team Menard owner John Menard said: “I’m all for reunification.” And his driver, Robby Gordon, did compete in both events — because Menard can afford to help enter two such different cars in the different races. Other teams said similar things after the Indy 500 ended. But most of them — and all the low-budget teams — know that if the CART teams came in, their drivers and budgets would bump a lot of current IRL teams out of the Indy 500.
It is ironic that now that the IRL has seemed to bring its car/engine levels up to full competitiveness, it is calling for new car designs and a new engine formula — 3.5-liters instead of 4.0 — for next year. That will rule all the current race cars obsolete, and will cause every team, including the low-budget, limited-sponsor outfits, to spend a lot for the new cars. That seems completely opposite of the IRL’s basic premise.
Still, that could lead to a potential compromise. CART engine builders could produce a nonturbocharged 3.5-liter V8, although it undoubtedly would not meet the IRL’s price limits, and those manufacturers would probably be unwilling to sell them on the open market.
Another suggestion is to have the war continue during the overall seasons, but to have CART purchase and set up a half-dozen IRL cars, then allow its point-leaders to go to Indy and try to prove their superiority.
But here’s one more idea. Tony George is renovating the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and installing a road-racing course that will use part of the straightaway and Turns 1 and 2 and the infield twisty parts to hold a U.S.Grand Prix for Formula 1 cars next year, in September. Forget the irony of George, who has been so outspoken against foreign drivers, road-racers and high-budget racing, to now embrace the world’s highest-budget road-racing series with all foreign drivers.
That will give the Indy Motor Speedway the 500 in May, the Brickyard NASCAR race in August, and the Formula 1 race in September. What would be better than to run a CART 500-mile race, on the new road course, on, say, the Fourth of July?
It could be the Indianapolis 500-Roman-Numeral-II. It would allow CART to return to Indy without disrupting the IRL’s future, and it would allow George to bring back the high-buck CART folks he so clearly dislikes, and make a few million dollars off them.
Brack captures Indy 500 on last lap
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—
Kenny Brack was one of the primary challengers throughout Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, but in a racefull of unpredictable incidents it took the most unpredictable turnabout to send Brack speeding to the checkered flag in the 83rd running of the 500-mile classic.
Brack had battled pole-sitter Arie Luyendyk, Greg Ray and defending Indy winner Eddie Cheever through a race that shaped up as being fast and exciting to the finish. But after Luyendyk, Ray and Cheever were eliminated in a sudden and bizarre series of plot twists, Brack seemed a reluctant but certain runner-up to Robby Gordon at the end.
However, Gordon, who gambled along with his Team Menard crew, on having enough fuel to bring his car through the final 31 laps, ran out of fuel with one lap to go. As Gordon coasted into the pits after 199 laps, Brack sped past and led the last lap around the legendary 2.5-mile oval. A crowd of 350,000 celebrated the first Indy victory for Brack, and the first Indy victory as car-owner for A.J. Foyt, a four-time winner as a driver.
When Gordon coasted into the pits, yielding first place, Foyt radioed Brack and said: “Bring it home, you’ve won it.”
“As a matter of fact, I thought the race was over when he said that, even though I didn’t see any checkered flag,” said Brack, after taking the traditional few gulps of milk in Victory Circle.
Jeff Ward wound up second, with Billy Boat third and Gordon, who returned to the track after getting a splash of fuel, was fourth. Rookie Robby McGehee was fifth, after starting 27th, and Robbie Buhl was sixth. That made it a particularly memorable day for Foyt, who not only owned the Brack car, but also the cars of Boat and Buhl, giving him all three cars among the top six.
The Indy Racing League was formed to give U.S. circle-track racers a place to aspire to, instead of allowing road-racers, and particularly foreign road-racers, to dominate at Indianapolis. The fact that Brack is a road-racer from Sweden, who won the IRL season championship last year, was an irony that wasn’t lost on Foyt, who proved at age 63 that switching from driver to owner hasn’t caused him to lose his ability to captivate a roomful of people.
“Everybody laughed when I brought a foreigner here,” said Foyt. “But I got his papers changed and made him move to Texas.”
That makes it OK, then. “I got as much thrill out of this as winning myself,” Foyt added, sharing the post-race interview podium with Brack. “But this is his day — talk to him.”
With that, a questioner in the interview room started to ask Brack a question. “Let me finish,” Foyt interrupted, then went on to explain how he had gone 10 years between his third and fourth victories as a driver. “But I waited 22 years before winning as an owner.”
Gordon, who spun out and crashed after only 11 laps in the rival Motorola 300 CART race in St. Louis on Saturday, almost made up for that misfortune in the biggest possible way. Both he and car-owner John Menard knew they were gambling on reaching the finish, and Menard said he told Gordon not to worry about fuel, that there was enough.
“It’s frustrating, but what are you going to do?” said Gordon. “My fuel meter said we were getting 2 miles to the gallon, and it indicated we had 2.3 gallons left, coming out of Turn 4 on the next-to-last lap.”
The race started badly, with Eliseo Salazar crashing after eight laps. Most of the drivers decided to make an early pit stop during that yellow-flag clean-up period, and the scene turned chaotic. Johnny Unser came in he found he had no brakes, and a moment later, rookie Jeret Schroeder and Jimmy Kite collided on pit lane. Kite, who was leaving his pit, suddenly found his car veering into McGehee’s pit, striking Steve Fried, a McGehee crewman from Mentor, Ohio. Fried was the day’s only serious casualty; he was taken to Methodist Hospital where he was reported in critical condition with head and chest injuries.
Luyendyk, competing in his only race of 1999 and having announced he would retire after the race, had to contend with Team Menard’s Greg Ray and Brack from the start, but, except for fluctuations during pit-stop exchanges, Luyendyk was in command until Ray passed him after 45 laps. Brack then passed both of them for the lead and the three were joined by Sam Schmidt, until he crashed on Lap 62, and then by Scott Goodyear, who stayed a close fourth while the top three put on a dazzling show.
At the 100-lap midpoint of the race, Cheever had moved up to challenge Luyendyk, Ray and Brack, just as Goodyear’s engine expired in Turn 2. There were all indications of a scintillating four-car duel through the second 100 laps, but then things got strange for the leaders.
On the 118th lap, Luyendyk, leading the chain, tried to pass tail-ender Tyce Carlson on the inside at Turn 3. Luyendyk stuck the nose of his car up next to Carlson’s left rear, but Carlson, who later said his radio was out and he hadn’t been informed that the leaders were right on him, started to pull down to the inside groove for the turn. Luyendyk slammed on his brakes, and the sudden move caused him to spin out, and his day — and his career — wound up against the wall.
“I feel stupid,” said Luyendyk. “I should have known better than to try to go underneath that car. I had the best car here, and it gave me so much confidence, and that was part of my demise. Maybe I got greedy and tried to get more. When I slammed on the brakes, it upset the car and made me spin out.”
Ray, Cheever and Brack were 1-2-3, and all the leaders made their usual dash for the pits on the yellow caused by Luyendyk’s crash. But when Ray pulled out of the Menard’s pit, his right front struck the left rear of Mark Dismore’s car, which was just entering the next pit. The impact wiped out the wings and front suspension on Ray’s car, costing Menard one of his contenders.
That left Cheever in the lead, but on the Lap 125 restart, Brack vaulted past Cheever for the lead. Cheever seemed to be slowing, as Ward also got past him, and on lap 140 the reason became clear, when Cheever’s engine blew.
With 40 laps to go, Brack led Ward, with Gordon back in seventh place. Gordon stopped for fuel on Lap 169, just as Dismore hit the wall. All the leaders pitted with 27 laps to go, giving them enough fuel to finish. But as Brack and Ward rushed out of the pits, their duel was suddenly for second place, because Gordon had stayed out on the track and inherited the lead. The gamble to try to go for it was worth it, leaving his challengers to only hope he couldn’t make it 31 laps.
They were right, but only because the fuel pickup wouldn’t deliver the last two gallons to Gordon’s Aurora engine.
Menard enjoys race despite double disappointment
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—
It was easy to summon good feelings for A.J. Foyt, whose name is synonymous with the Indianapolis 500, after his Swedish protege, Kenny Brack, won Sunday’s 83rd running of the Indy 500. But it was easier to summon sympathy for John Menard, whose perseverence at Indy is laudable, given the number of times he’s felt the sting of frustration and near misses at the legendary old track.
This was the 20th anniversary of Menard’s annual disappointment. His cars have qualified fastest, have looked dominant, and have led large stretches of the 500. But they’ve never won. Still, Sunday’s setbacks had to be particularly devastating for the Eau Claire, Wis., owner of home-improvement supply stores.
You could choose which was more of a blow:
First, Greg Ray, the No. 2 qualifier and a driver who led four different times for a total of 32 laps and was up front all the way, inherited the lead when Arie Luyendyk crashed on the 118th lap. But when he pulled out of his pit two laps later, his bright yellow No. 2 race car bumped Mark Dismore’s car. Dismore was able to get fixed and keep going; Ray’s car suffered wing and suspension damage and was through for the day.
Second, Robby Gordon had a shot at glory when he stayed on the track when everybody else pitted when, of all people, Dismore hit the wall to bring out another caution. Having just pitted, Gordon had only to stretch his fuel over the final 31 laps, while the rest of the field was certain to go the distance by pitting with only 27 laps left. Gordon almost made it, but he ran out of fuel as he came around Turn 4 at the end of the 199th of 200 laps.
Heartbreaking? It had to be. But Menard would have no sympathy.
“Don’t feel too sorry for us,” said Menard. “We had a great time racing today. This is what racing is all about. I haven’t had this much fun at a 500 in a long time. If I live long enough, one of these days I’m gonna win this race.”
Gordon knew it would be a close call on fuel, but when he radioed in, he was told: “Your fuel is OK, just drive…drive!”
“That was me,” said Menard. “There is still probably enough fuel in the car, but maybe there was something wrong with the pickup.”
Gordon said the only mistake the team made was not going with a big enough downforce wicker on his rear wing at the start, which caused some instability. “I was holding onto my rear end the first 20 laps, because she was trying to pass me,” Gordon said. “I got lapped because of it, but after we got the bigger wicker on a pit stop, we were OK.
“Kenny Brack didn’t have enough speed to catch us at the end. I was leading him by 4.6 seconds when I went to sixth gear to conserve fuel. He caught up a couple of seconds, so I clicked back to fifth gear and went right back to a 4-second lead. I knew I had the fastest race car on the track the last 100 laps.”
The other thing that would have surely won it for Gordon was if there had been one final caution slowdown, allowing the cars to save fuel by the mandatory pace.
“I was praying for a yellow,” said Menard. “How many times do you go 25 laps without a yellow at this place? If we’d had one more yellow, we’d be drinking milk.”
MILK, YES; YOGURT, NO
Kenny Brack won the IRL season title last year, and now has won the Indy 500. “If you had to choose one of the two, you would have to focus on the Indy 500,” Brack said.
He disputed Gordon’s claim that he didn’t have enough speed to catch up had Gordon not run out of fuel on the last lap.
“When I was racing with Arie and Greg Ray earlier I the race, it was hard, but we didn’t go down to fifth gear and go all-out,” Brack said. “I was going to go all-out at the end, and I caught right up to him in traffic. I think I could have caught him.”
In the interview room, reporters asked Brack whether he felt better for himself or for Foyt. “I feel better for me, he’s already won this four times,” Brack said.
After the post-race interviews, Brack received a long-distance telephone call of congratulations. It was from Sweden’s King Carl Gustav XVI, who is a racing fan, and Brack had just provided Sweden with its ultimate motorsports moment.
Brack said he had thought about winning the Indy 500 since he was a young man in Sweden. His attention to detail even included the traditional milk-drinking for the winner at Indy. “I’ve been practicing my milk-drinking all week,” he said.
Foyt confirmed that. “I’ve been eating breakfast with him every day, and we have cereal and milk,” Foyt said. “But I’m not going to say what else he eats.”
The “unmentionable” is yogurt. Foyt scrunched up his face in disgust at the thought of eating such a thing. It’s OK that Brack is from Sweden, and that he’s a road-racer, but yogurt? No way.
KNAPP CRASHES, RETURNS
One of the mysteries of the Indy 500 was the reappearance of Car 35, which had crashed before the midpoint of the race and appeared to be pretty wiped out. But there it was, late in the race, making a few more laps.
Steve Knapp, the Minnesota native transplanted to Wisconsin, fought some handling problems all day, but thought with one more pit stop worth of adjustments, his crew might get his race car set for a strong second-half.
Then he crashed on Lap 93. He came around Turn 1 and his rear-end came loose. Knapp caught it with an adroit move by snapping the steering wheel to the right. But the car bit too hard, and the rear end spun all the way around to the inside, sending him up into the wall in the chute between Turns 1 and 2.
“I was already concentrating on Turn 2 when I was instantly going backwards,” Knapp said. “I whipped the steering wheel around and I thought I caught it, but I had flat-spotted all four tires and I skidded right into the wall.”
While a wrecker towed his disabled car in, with its left-side tires and suspension parts all gone, Knapp made the mandatory trip to the medical center. Then he was interviewed on ABC-TV. “Then they wanted me back in the car,” said Knapp.
Amazingly, Knapp’s ISM Team crew had reassembled the car with spare suspension parts and wheels, and mounted new tires, and the car was driveable. Well, sort of.
“We didn’t get a chance to align it, but we wanted to gain a few spots in the finishing order,” said Knapp. “I went out there and I had to hold my hands at 12 and 6 on the steering wheel, but I got one spot back before they black-flagged me for not getting up to speed. I was aware of what was going on, and staying out of everybody’s way, and one more lap would have improved us by two more positions.”
Instead, he was credited with 104 laps, for 26th place.
FAREWELL TO ARIE
Arie Luyendyk, the popular veteran driver who was driving in his last career race, went out with a crash on the 118th lap, but he, too shrugged off sympathy. He took the blame for taking an unnecessary risk by trying to squeeze by on the inside of Tyce Carlson, and then, when Carlson didn’t realize he was trying to pass and started to cut down, Luyendyk had to hit the brakes so hard that he spun into the wall.
“It doesn’t matter how you go out,” said Luyendyk, a two-time winner of previous 500s. “If you get the breaks, you win. If you get enough breaks here, you could win four or five of these. I had the best car today. My car was so unbelievable it was the most fun at an Indy 500 I’ve ever had.
“But that’s what this race is all about, and that’s what makes this place so great.”
Andretti wins at Gateway in tight 1-2-3 finish
Madison, Ill.—
Everytime the Championship Auto Racing Teams holds a race on Memorial Day weekend, the inevitable comparisons to the Indianapolis 500 are made. But there was great reason for some parallels on Saturday, after Michael Andretti’s victory in the Motorola 300 at Gateway International Raceway had 50,000 fans standing and cheering through the closing 30 laps.
Michael Andretti didn’t realize it, but 30 years ago this weekend, his father, Mario Andretti, won the Indianapolis 500. Michael found out from his father, right after Saturday afternoon’s race.
“I’m very happy to win at Gateway because I’ve never won here,” said Michael, dodging any inference about whether he’d rather be at Indianapolis. “I just found out dad won 30 years ago, and tht makes it nice. He was almost happier than me.”
Andretti’s first victory of the season was decided by the scant margin of 0.329 seconds over Helio Castro-Neves, while Dario Franchitti was just as close behind running in third. Roberto Moreno was fourth, followed by Max Papis, Greg Moore, Tony Kanaan, P.J. Jones, Christian Fittipaldi and Jimmy Vasser to round out the top 10. Series points leader Tony Montoya, Vasser’s Target-Chip Ganassi teammate, was 11th, just ahead of Al Unser Jr.
Montoya was in the thick of contention until he cut the timing between pit stops too close and ran out of fuel. He had to coast in, slowly down the pit lane, and lost a lap on Lap 105. Much of the excitement after that — until the finishing battle for first — was in watching Montoya, the rookie from Colombia — battle back to pass all the leaders, including Franchitti, Paul Tracy and, on a pit stop, Andretti, in an attempt to win his fourth consecutive CART race.
Another interesting tribute to the competitiveness of CART, Andretti had a Swift car with Ford-Cosworth power; Castro-Neves a Lola with a Mercedes engine; Franchitti a Reynard with a Honda engine. Three different chassis and three different engines all running so closely and putting their drivers on the podium. In fact, the top 12 finishers in the 27-car field broke down to be four Fords, four Mercedes and four Hondas.
As for historical significance, both Mario and Michael Andretti had been steadfast users of Goodyear racing tires until this season, when Michael switched to Firestones, which had proven dominant in recent years. That, too, was significant in Michael’s victory.
After 175 of the race’s 236 laps, Michael was in seventh place and Franchitti eighth. Michael moved up two places before the race’s sixth caution slowdown came on lap 185 and sent everyone in for a final pit stop. Andretti’s Newman-Haas crew gambled.
“The crew decided for me not to take on new tires,” Andretti said. “So I went back out and I didn’t know if the tires would last. But we’d done the same thing earlier in the race, so we figured we could go 70 or 80 laps on a set.”
By only splashing in a dose of fuel and not changing tires, Andretti came out of the pits in first place, with Moreno second, Jones third, Papis fourth, Franchitti fifth and Castro-Neves sixth. But Castro-Neves started charging, and Franchitti followed him up until the two were second and third, and closing on Andretti.
“I knew Helio had fresher tires, but I thought I could hold him off for a while and his advantage might go away,” said Andretti. “I was praying that my tires would hold up and they did. I’ve got to give the credit for this one to Firestone — those tires were incredible.”
Castro-Neves said he waited for Andretti to have problems passing slower cars over the last 30 laps. “But Michael is very good and he made his passes perfectly,” said the Brazilian driver. “I was never quite close enough to make a move, and the day was already very exciting, and I didn’t want it to go from second place to zero.”
It got particularly exciting for Castro-Neves when Franchitti closed in behind him, and car-owner Carl Hogan noticed it before his driver did. “Carl was on the radio, and he was screaming ‘Dario is right behind you,’ Castro-Neves said. “I was so focused on passing Michael, I hadn’t noticed, but I looked in the mirror, and sure enough — he was right behind me.”
Franchitti had to survive the latest in a series of bizarre incidents involving his teammate, Paul Tracy, who had driven hard and competitively through the first 147 laps, and was running second to Andretti with Franchitti third. But as Montoya shot past Tracy on the inside, Franchitti had room to try to go by, too. When Franchitti pulled his matching Kool green and white Reynard up alongside Tracy on the backstraight, Tracy went hard and deep into the turn, then veered to his left to claim the inside line, and his left side hit Franchitti’s right front tire.
Both cars went into tire-smoking spinouts as they entered Turn 3 on the egg-shaped oval — Tracy’s car spinning up into the wall and ending his day with the crash. Franchitti fought desperately to hold his car from going past the point of no-return on its spin, and he caught it before it went around, then saved it by driving down on the infield grass.
“I got a run on Paul but he kept me pretty close to the pit lane,” Franchitti said. “He wasn’t going to give any ground. We probably could have made it two-abreast if he’s given me a little more room.”
Menard aims to win — at Indy, in CART, in stores
Indianapolis, Ind.—
Car owners involved in Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 will spend Saturday enjoying the annual 500 Festival Parade and numerous parties and other festivities surrounding the race. Except for John Menard, who will hop a private plane early Saturday morning to fly to St. Louis for the Championship Auto Racing Teams’ Motorola 300, returning Saturday night to finish preparing for Sunday’s Indy 500.
His Menard’s racers are qualified second and fourth at Indy, with Greg Ray in the middle of the first row after qualifying second to Arie Luyendyk, and Robby Gordon on the inside of the second row after grabbing the fourth-best qualifying time in the team’s second Dallara-Oldsmobile.
Meanwhile, Gordon will run in the CART race at Gateway, which has qualifying Friday and a competing 300-mile race on Saturday.
Ordinarily, Menard finds the month of May falls into a nice, rhythmic pattern: He’s home in Eau Claire, Wis., to run the family’s thriving business on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then he’s off Thursday to Indianapolis to supervise his Menard’s racing team on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. “That’s kind of the way it works out,” said Menard. “Especially during this month; it’s the rhythm of Indy.”
This year, Menard is finding things a bit more hectic. He remained loyal to the Indy Racing League when that organization, which runs the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, effectively outlawed the more exotic Championship Auto Racing Teams race cars four years ago. But unlike some of his bitter peers, Menard always has remained objective about the assets and liabilities of both series. This year he finds himself involved in both series.
“I am partners with Robby Gordon in the CART car,” said Menard. “So I’ve made it to all the CART races except Brazil this season, as well as to the IRL races.”
Menard noted that the original split came when Tony George started the IRL in opposition to the extremely high and rising costs of CART racing.
“It costs about $90,000 to get a complete engine, race-ready, for an IRL car, and although you can only lease CART engines and can’t buy them, it would cost you about $250,000 if you could buy one,” Menard said. “And it costs about $275,000 for an IRL race car, and about $500,000 for a CART car.
“The cost of IRL cars has gotten to be more than it should be, and now they’re calling for all-new cars for next year, because the media keeps saying our cars aren’t high-tech enough — even though calling for new cars is counter-productive to what the IRL was originally based on.”
The reason for CART’s engine expense is that they are small, hybrid, turbocharged V8s from Honda, Mercedes (Ilmor), Ford (Cosworth), and Toyota, while the IRL demands normally-aspirated (nonturbocharged) V8s made from Oldsmobile (Aurora) or Nissan (Infiniti). Next season, the IRL will reduce displacement from 4.0 to 3.5 liters.
Menard likes both series. “The IRL has great racing, because the rules make all the cars competitive and they’re all on oval tracks, where fans can watch easier,” said Menard. “The purists among race fans might prefer to go to a road-racing track like Elkhart Lake, where CART races, with their stopwatches and lap-charts. Personally, I’m the type who might prefer to go to Elkhart Lake to watch a race, but most fans find it easier to keep track at an oval like Milwaukee.
“I think the future of both series could be something along the lines of a 3.5-liter limit without the turbocharging,” said Menard, who, as the only owner involved in both series, could be a primary link to the potential reuniting of the feuding factions.
“I keep hearing rumors that meetings were going on, and that they’d get back together,” Menard said. “I suspect something will happen, but I’d guess it won’t take effect until 2001 or beyond.”
Indeed, published reports this week have said that IRL boss Tony George had met with CART president Andrew Craig and NASCAR president Bill France “several times” as recently as last week. Sources close to George said that no such meeting has ever taken place, although Craig has said that he and George have briefly discussed their differences. In recent years, the competition to build or buy tracks had isolated one form of racing or another, but Menard sees more agreeable arrangements in the future, especially now, with France merging with, or buying out, CART car owner Roger Penske’s interest in several race tracks. Their alliance covers about a dozen race tracks.
“With France wanting to get things together, it seems inevitable that something will be worked out,” said Menard. “But I’d also bet that it won’t be simple. It’ll be something like combining for Indy, but with the IRL still focusing on ovals and CART running more road races. It won’t be simple. But the new International Speedway Corporation, in which France pretty much absorbed Penske’s tracks, they’ve now got a huge number of tracks, and they need a lot of dates, with more events.”
Menard is just as competitive in business as he is in racing, which works well, because his home-building-supply chain helps finance his racing. Menard’s stores now number 141, making it the third-largest home-building-supply chain in the country, behind only Home Depot and Lowe’s. “But that’s national, and our stores are all confined to nine midwestern states,” said Menard. “We’re overwhelmingly No. 1 in those nine states.”
The business competition unwittingly got involved in racing this year, because Menard is the owner who put a youthful Tony Stewart in an IRL race car and turned him into a successful young driver. But Stewart, after winning the IRL season title last year, jumped to NASCAR stock cars this year. Except, that is, when he comes back to the Indy 500.
“We hada contract with Tony and felt quite strongly that if he raced in the 1999 Indy 500, it would be with me,” Menard said. “I guess we didn’t have the deal written down well enough, and the judge ruled it was too unclear.”
So Stewart, who races in NASCAR with sponsorship from Home Depot, of all companies, has linked up with a Home Depot-sponsored IRL ride too, and will try to race both in Sunday afternoon’s Indy 500 and then jet away to race in Sunday night’s NASCAR Coca Cola 600.
Menard probably won’t make it to the NASCAR race. He’ll get enough racing, close up, from the pits, at the Motorola 300 and the Indy 500 this weekend. And regardless of whether Menard’s cars can beat Home Depot on the track, he’s got to hustle right back home to Eau Claire to try to also win in the stores.
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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