Team Penske Is Ready to Cart Away IRL Titles

The first chapter of the Penske era in the Indy Racing League will be written Saturday when the IRL opens its seventh season with the Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead-Miami Speedway, a 1.5-mile oval in south Florida.

Roger Penske made a temporary foray into the IRL last year when his two Brazilian drivers, Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran, finished one-two in the Indianapolis 500 while still with CART, but this time Marlboro Team Penske is a full-time IRL team.

“I’m glad to see them competing in the IRL,” said owner-driver Eddie Cheever, the 1998 Indy 500 winner. “The Red Bull team is looking forward to competing with Penske. The mistake everybody is making is to say, ‘Oh, oh, the best team from CART is coming over.’ What they should say is, ‘The IRL just got stronger.’”

In two years with Penske--the winningest team in Indy car history--De Ferran won two CART championships, Castroneves won the Indy 500 and the two drivers won 10 races between them.

“Team Penske is the yardstick of success in any form of motor sports,” said Brian Barnhart, IRL vice president. “Their addition is a tremendous asset.”

Facing the Penske invasion will be a strong force of IRL regulars, from young Sam Hornish Jr., the defending series champion, to veteran Al Unser Jr., returning with a new team, Kelley Racing, after Rick Galles, his longtime car owner, dropped out for lack of a sponsor. Unser, who lost 30 pounds in a reconditioning program before signing with Kelley, will be 40 on April 19, but likes to point out that his father, Al, won his fourth Indy 500 in 1987 when he was 47 and his uncle Bobby also was 47 when he won Indy in 1981.

“Right now, I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life, and I’ve got the most experience of my entire life,” he said after signing to become Scott Sharp’s teammate with Kelley Racing.

Hornish won last year’s Homestead race en route to the IRL title in his second season in the series and his first with Pennzoil Panther Racing.

There will be as many missing favorites as there will be newcomers.

Tom Kelley first dropped popular Mark Dismore to make room for 1999 champion Greg Ray, then dropped Ray for Unser Jr. Ray is still looking.

Sarah Fisher, voted most popular driver in the IRL last year, is without a ride because team owner Derrick Walker has been unable to find a sponsor.

“We were close to signing a sponsor, but when it fell through, we were short of money and time,” said Walker, who fields a Toyota-backed CART team with Tora Takagi. “Sarah is under contract to Walker Racing and we hope to have her in a car as soon as possible. The car is ready, the team is ready, Sarah is ready, but there’s no money.”

Fisher’s only 2002 ride at the moment is for the Toyota Pro-Celebrity race during the Long Beach Grand Prix on April 13. In last year’s Homestead race, she finished a close second to Hornish, but after an early-race crash with Scott Goodyear at Indianapolis, she wasn’t a factor the rest of the season.

Buzz Calkins, winner of the inaugural IRL race in 1996, has retired and is looking for a sponsor to run his own team.

Among the newcomers are rookies Tomas Scheckter--son of South African Formula One champion Jody Scheckter--who was selected by Cheever to drive a second Red Bull car, and George Mack of Los Angeles, a former karter who hopes to follow Willy T. Ribbs and become the second African American in Indy car racing.

Formula One

One more championship and Germany’s Michael Schumacher will pull even with the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio for the most Grand Prix titles. The Ferrari driver’s bid will begin this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Schumacher already has the most individual wins, 53, and is an overwhelming favorite to win a third consecutive championship in his red Ferrari. His other two wins came with Benetton in 1994 and 1995.

For the race in Albert Park, a street circuit, Schumacher and teammate Rubens Barrichello will be in last year’s cars, saving the appearance of the 2002 model until later in the 17-race season.

“It wasn’t the plan to start the new year with the old car, but the situation looks very positive,” Schumacher said.

“We haven’t had enough experience [to run the new car] so this is the situation we are faced with, and we just have to get the best out of it.”

Former Indianapolis 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, Schumacher’s chief challenger in a BMW Williams, says the Ferrari decision is a mistake and he hopes to capitalize on it.

“[It is] positive for us and negative for them if you really think about it,” the Colombian driver told Reuters. “If we came here with last year’s car we’d end up 10th on the grid. They’re starting with a car that last year had a lot of potential, but if they didn’t change the car a lot from last year, it might not be the winning car.”

Schumacher had nine wins last year, Montoya one.

An added interest in the 2002 opener will be the appearance of Toyota’s first entry in Formula One in cars driven by Alan McNish of Scotland and Mika Salo of Finland.

Fast Laps

VW Bug-ins, one of the most popular attractions at old Orange County International Raceway, will be revived Saturday at Irwindale Speedway, sponsored by hotVWs magazine. Bug-ins were held at OCIR from 1968 to 1983 when the track closed. Racing will start at 9 a.m. on the eight-mile strip. Also scheduled is a VW swap meet.

After drawing a sellout crowd for the World of Outlaws winged sprint cars last week, Perris Auto Speedway will return to its roots Saturday night when the Sprint Car Racing Assn. holds its first night race of the season for nonwinged sprinters on the half-mile clay oval. Bud Kaeding, winner of last year’s Oval Nationals, will make his first SCRA start of the season, along with two-time USAC sprint car champion Tony Elliott and defending SCRA champion Cory Kruseman.

Wally Parks, founder of the National Hot Rod Assn., received the first Robert E. Petersen Lifetime Achievement Award in ceremonies Thursday at the Hot Rod & Performance Trade Show in Indianapolis. Petersen, a publishing magnate who created Hot Rod Magazine and other publications, made the presentation. The trophy honoring Parks will be displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Patrick Long, the Oak Park driver who finished second in the British Formula Ford series last year, has signed to drive this season in the British Formula Renault series. Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen, last year’s Formula Renault champion, is now driving in Formula One with McLaren as a replacement for former champion Mika Hakkinen, who is taking a sabbatical.

Kyle Busch, 17, who was signed to drive in the Craftsman Truck series for Jack Roush this year until NASCAR mandated an 18-year-age limit, will drive in the ASA series for Roush. The ASA will be at Irwindale Speedway on April 6-7. Kyle is the younger brother of Winston Cup driver Kurt Busch.... The Los Angeles Kart Club, after more than 15 years at Saugus Speedway, is moving to Irwindale Speedway. Its first race will be March 31.

Round 2 of the six-race Duralast SCORE Desert Series will take place Saturday when more than 200 vehicles take off in the 16th annual Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250. Enduro Racing teammates Dan Smith and David Ashley, both of Riverside, will defend their championship in the Trophy-Truck class in a Ford F-150. Although they have four consecutive wins, including this year’s season-opening Laughlin Challenge, Smith and Ashley have never won the San Felipe race.