The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 38

Fans, Speedway are big losers when skies open up above track el' Rorvior Even Comer is a goner. Jim Nabors is leaving town and bailing out no pun intended of singing Back Home Again in Indiana for today's dow" was not over Terre Haute, but Topeka. Thus, there would be no late-day dash to get the race in, a la the Brickyard 400 two years ago. So the crowd of more than 300,000 filed out and headed for home, hotel, camper or tent. Unfortunately, many of them won't be able to come back today.

Little things like airline reservations and previous commitments tend to get in the way. Although It's an unavoidable circumstance, a lot of those spectators will leave town with a bad case of indigestion. Even Maalox can't soothe eating a $125 ticket. Of course, this is all the fault of the Duke of IRL, Tony George. As a letter-writer suggested In Sunday's newspaper, none of this lousy May weather arrived until George's IRL did.

Never mind the other 500s either shortened or postponed by rain in 1986. 1976, 1975, 1973, 1967. 1950, 1926 and 1915. George will also be found guilty of a lack of foresight. After all, if there were a venue with a retractable domed roof sort of like Jim Irsay wants for the Colts we wouldn't have these problems.

The only risk would be the buildup of fumes from methanol exhaust and belched beer. Seriously, though, the IRL took a big-time hit Sunday when the skies opened. Sure, the money's already in the Speedway's bank, but its premiere event will lose a considerable proportion of the live audience, some of whom might be Just frustrated enough by all the happenings of this month they might not come back. You also can expect a number of TV viewers to be otherwise occupied today. Wives will wrest the remote from their husbands and watch the soaps.

Short of that, the Speedway must sweat out another iffy forecast. A second postponement and the race could go Tuesday, by which time the crowd might be so small they could move the race to the 16th Street Speedway. So keep your eyes on the skies again today. For rain. And locusts.

Staff Photo Mike Fendef STAY BACK: Car owner A.J. Foyt squirts crew members with a water gun while teams wait out the rain at the Speedway. Rain plagued track three times in '70s postponed start of the 81st Indianapolis 500. Allow me to suggest James Taylor as a replacement. And change the song to Fire and Rain.

This week, the big race and its related festivities have seen both. On Wednesday, most of the parade floats were lost In a warehouse fire. On Sunday, the big race was washed out until at least today. What's next? A plague of locusts? How ironic that in the struggle for the control of the highest level of open-wheeled auto racing, the weekend's events may have been decided by the one thing no one can control. The weather.

On Saturday, the rival CART clan dodged a few rain drops and completed its Motorola 300 near St. Louis with an exciting victory by Paul Tracy. But Sunday, with the Indy Racing League hoping to play its big trump card the Indy 500 there was no avoiding the deluge that left a mood as gray and somber as the skies. Shortly before noon, it seemed as if there was a chance to get engines fired and wheels turning. But the clouds darkened, then dumped, and It became a day better suited for boats than Billy Boat.

There Is no truth to the rumor, however, that Roger Penske was piloting that Stealth bomber and seeding clouds over Brownsburg. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway folks, often accused of being incapable of making a decision any more difficult than when to break for lunch (and for the record, that was from 2 to 3:30 on practice days), called the postponement as quickly as they could after learning the nearest "win ed and got it in first gear." Foyt, who won the race in 1961. 1964, 1967 and 1977. finished a disgusted third in 1975 and second in 1976. "Rutherford was running good that day and I was running good that day." Foyt said of '76.

'The rains came and I lost. Naturally, when you're running second, you're damn right you want a restart. Then again, if it went the whole 500 miles, maybe neither one of us would have finished. "You never want this to happen, but it's like something a guy who used to work at my ranch always said. Someone would ask him what the weather was going to do tomorrow and he'd say.

'What in the hell are you going to do about Inclement weather extended a disastrous month of May three days in 1973. Art Pollard died after a crash in practice. A Salt Walther wreck in the main straightaway hospitalized nine spectators. Swede Savage suffered fatal Injuries in a Turn 4 accident. And an STP crew member died when he was struck by an emergency vehicle In pit row.

Gordon Johncock won the race after 133 laps. The next year. Rutherford started from the 25th position and defeated Unser for his first Indy victory. It would be the only race in the four-year span that went the distance. Sure, it's frustrating, but thaVs the way the mop flops." The runner-up finish cost Rutherford a chance at Speedway history.

No driver has won three consecutive Indy 500s he triumphed In 1974 and 1976. The 1976 victory came after the race was red-flagged because of rain after 102 laps. What most fans remember about 75 is the ending. The suddenness of the showers had cars slamming into walls and each other. "That's probably as bad as It ever was," Foyt said.

"When It came down so quick, it took us like five minutes to get back around the track. It's like hitting ice on a bridge. If the tires are real hot and it pours, you're a dead duck." "There were cars all around this race track, spun out on the infield and up against the fence," Rutherford said. Rutherford credited advice from the late Denis Hulme as his salvation. Hulme, a four-time Indy qualifier and Formula One driver, said the secret to driving in the rain was keeping the car in first gear.

"If you think about it, first gear is pretty slow, so you can maintain control," Rutherford said. "I slid Into the first turn, it literally broad sided, but the car got grip again and I straightened it out. By then, I had downshift By Phillip a Wilson STAFF WRITER F1 ohnny Rutherford believed he would I have beaten Bobby Unser when a FV torrential downpour brought 1975's Indy 500 to a screeching halt. A year later, A.J. Foyt was equally convinced he had the car to overtake Rutherford.

The unpredictable forces of nature worked against both In what became a memorable four-year run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that saw three races shortened by rain, one of which was delayed to a third day. As Sunday's rain prompted the first Indy 500 postponement since 1986, Rutherford and Foyt were reminded of sad, soggy days past. "If the race had gone to the end. Bobby was toast," Rutherford said of Unser's 435-mile victory in 1975. "I knew I was faster than Bobby and A.J.

I was leading the race, and we calculated our pit stop and made it so we would be in and back out first, and I was running second to Bobby. I was right there. "He was stretching it because they could see It was really dark In the west. It was raining in Terre Haute. They figured they could luck out and, sure enough, they did.

Indy 500 lineup Todav'S drivers, inrliirlinn MILLER Continued from Page 1 GORDOij Continued from Page 1 The real 500 lineup? Row 1: Michael Andretti. Al Unser Bobby Rahal. Row 2: Paul Tracy, Arie Luyen-dyk, Scott Goodyear. Row 3: Steve Kinser, Alex Zan-ardi, Greg Moore. Row 4: Scott Pruett, Robby Gordon, Jimmy Vasser.

Row 5: Tony Stewart, Gil de Ferran, Buddy Lazier. Row 6: Richie Hearn, Robbie Buhl, Bryan Herta. Row 7: Alessandro Zampedri, Andre Ribeiro, Mauricio Gugel-min. Row 8: Adrian Fernandez, Raul Boesel, Kenny Brack. Row 9: Dario Franchitti, Vin-cenzo Sospiri, Patrick Carpentier.

Row 10: P.J. Jones, Mike Groff, Mark Dismore. Row 11: Roberto Guerrero, Jim Guthrie, Eddie Cheever. IRL (Injured reserve list): Scott Sharp, Christian Fittipaldi and John Paul Jr. pentier look to have great futures, I and they occupy Row 9.

The qualification for the 10th i wave Is that you have to be a good I racer who Is either In a slow situ- ation or has never been in a top-i I shelf ride. That would be P.J. I Jones, Mike Groff and Mark Dis- more. Now, we're down to the last three slots, and this is where you I better hide the family, public rela- tions people and handguns be-' cause it gets nasty. Do you go for the older guard of Roberto Guerrero, Eddie Cheever and Eliseo Salazar? Or give the nod to younger fellas like Buzz Calkins, Billy Boat, Davey Hamil- ton and Gualter Salles? Guerrero's prime has passed, but he's still capable of winning qualification average speed in mph (r-rookie): Row1 1 Arie Luyendyk, No.

5, Force-Aurora, 218.263. 2. Tony Stewart, No. 2, Force-Aurora, 218.021. 3.

r-Vincenzo Sospiri, No. 8, Dallara-Aurora, 216.822. Row 2 4. Robbie Buhl, No. 3, Force-Aurora, 216.102.

5. Scott Goodyear, No. 6, Force-Aurora, 215 811 6. Jim Guthrie, No. 27, Dallara-Aurora, 215.207.

Row 3 7. r-Jeft Ward, No. 52, Force-Aurora, 214 517 8. Davey Hamilton, No. 14, Force-Aurora 214 484 9.

Eliseo Salazar, No. 7, Dallara-Aurora, 214.320. Row 4 10. Buddy Lazier, No. 91, Dallara-Aurora, 214.286 11 Cheever, No.

51, Force-Aurora, 214 073 12. Robby Gordon, No. 42, Force-Aurora, 213.211. in Row 5 13. Stephan Gregoire, No.

77, Force-Aurora, 213 126 14. r-Affonso Giaffone, No. 17, Dallara-Aurora 212 974 15. r-Kenny Brack, No. 4, Force-Aurora, 211 .221 Row 6 16.

Buzz Calkins, No. 12, Force-Aurora, 209.564 17. r-Jack Miller, No. 40, Dallara-lnfiniti, 209.250. 18.

Mike Groff, No. 10, Force-lnfiniti, 208.537. Row 7 19. Roberto Guerrero, No. 21, Dallara-lnfiniti, 207 371 20.

r-Steve Kinser, No. 44, Dallara-Aurora, 210 793 21. r-Robbie Groff, No. 30, Force-Aurora, 207.792. Row 8 22.

r-Billy Boat, No. 11, Dallara-Aurora, 215.544 23. r-Sam Schmidt, No. 16, Dallara-Aurora, 215 141 24. r-Billy Roe, No.

50, Dallara-Aurora, 212.752. Row 9 25. Mark Dismore, No. 28, Dallara-Aurora, 212 423 26. r-Tyce Carlson, No.

18, Dallara-Aurora, 210 852 27. Marco Greco, No. 22, Dallara-Aurora, 210.322. Row 10 28. Dennis Vitolo, No.

54, Dallara-lnfiniti 207 626 29. Fermin Velez, No. 33, Dallara-Aurora, 206 512 30. r-Greg Ray, No. 97, Dallara-Aurora, 213.760 Row 11 31 Alessandro Zampedri, No.

34, Dallara-Aurora, 211 757 32. r-Claude Bourbonnais, No. 72, Dallara-Aurora, 210.523 33. Paul Durant, No. 1, Force-Aurora, 209.149.

Row 12 34. Lyn St. James, No. 90, Dallara-lnfiniti, 210.145 35. Johnny Unser, No.

9, Dallara-lnfiniti, 209.344. Indianapolis, especially these last two years. He gets a spot. Plug In Jim Guthrie, who beat Stewart for the Phoenix win this season and starts sixth today. He's been the IRL's best argument.

Salles has already impressed the CART folks, while nobody has made a smoother transition from midgets to Indy cars (without testing) than Boat. But we haven't seen enough yet. Despite acting like he hates driving a race car, Cheever always runs pretty strong here. Plus, he's the best interview in Gasoline Alley. He gets the last pill.

Even though this is an IRL event and additional starters are always a possibility up until race time, we'll stick with the traditional 33. The final count is 18 CART and 15 IRL drivers. Now remember, this lineup was picked out of the 35 drivers In Indy's grid and CART's grid Saturday at St. Louis. Christian Fittipaldi, Scott Sharp and John Paul Jr.

weren't included because they're on the injured list. But if they were healthy, all three would be inserted and three other drivers would be calling me names. Inflicted by an emotional, rain-soaked morning in Indianapolis. Team Sabco owner Felix Sa-bates could only shrug when the weather didn't cooperate with his game plan. Sabates went so far as to do an impromptu no-rain dance outside the team's garage area.

That was the extent of his fun until the Speedway made the postponement at 1 :30 p.m. "This is very disappointing," Sabates said. "We've put so much time and effort into this plan and then to have the weather ruin it is very frustrating. "I don't think I'd do this again," he added. "It takes too much out of you not to be able to execute the final plan.

I think this Is my first and last attempt at running both races. You simply have to put too much faith in the good Lord that everything will work out." With three planes and four helicopters stationed in Indianapolis and the Charlotte area on Sunday, Sabates had more than $25,000 invested In transportation costs alone. For home delivery 633-9211 111 Sell it quicker in the mm QUIET, SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Post Offices in the Indianapolis District will be offering the Battery Test 470 later this year. Last given in Fall of 1993. This test is given only once every 3-4 years.

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