Indianapolis 500: Schmidt a decent bet

Friday, May 22, 1998 | 11:08 a.m.

Sam Schmidt has spent the past two weeks doing what every open-wheel driver dreams of: preparing for the Indianapolis 500.

And while there is no place on Earth Schmidt would rather be during the month of May, he does wish he could be a little closer to his Green Valley home prior to Sunday's running of the 82nd Indy 500.

"I was hoping I would be 50 to 1 so I could put some money on myself," Schmidt said before learning one local sports book had listed him at 18-1 to win the 500. "I was 100 to 1 last year and I could not (resist) putting 20 bucks on myself. But 18 to 1 ... darn it."

Schmidt is one of two local drivers who will start Sunday's race. Las Vegas resident Davey Hamilton qualified at 219.748 mph and will start from the middle of the third row.

That the 33-year-old Schmidt is even thinking about wagering on himself to win the Indy Racing League's premier event shows just how much confidence the owner/driver has after qualifying sixth-fastest in the 33-car field.

"We're cautiously optimistic," Schmidt said. "We're on a pretty good roll here and we want to keep it going that way."

Considering his status as one of the IRL's numerous under-funded teams, Schmidt's two-week stint at The Brickyard has taken on a David-and-Goliath flavor. He qualified faster than some of the more financially sound teams and will start the race on the same row -- the second -- as two drivers from the affluent Team Menard.

By virtue of his 219.982 mph qualifying speed, Schmidt will start on the outside of Row Two, next to defending IRL series champion Tony Stewart (220.386) and Stewart's Team Menard teammate, Robbie Buhl (220.236).

Billy Boat sits on the pole after a sizzling 223.503 qualifying run; Greg Ray (221.125) lines up next to him and Boat's A.J. Foyt Racing teammate, Kenny Brack, sits on the outside of the front row with a 220.982 qualifying run.

Schmidt insisted he was not surprised by his showing during last Saturday's qualifying session on the famed 2.5-mile track and said he sees no reason why he and his Best Western Gold Crown Dallara/Aurora can't be a factor in Sunday's 500.

Schmidt has a pair of top-10 finishes in the first two races of the 1998 season and is fifth in IRL points going into this weekend's race. His ninth-place finish in the season opener at Walt Disney World Speedway and seventh-place showing in March in Phoenix marked the first two times in eight IRL starts that Schmidt has been running at the end of the race.

"We've wanted to see the checkered flag at the previous two races but this is the most important one to see the checkered flag," Schmidt said. "That's our first priority; I think if we just be cool and don't make any mistakes in the pit lane, we have hopes of finishing this thing in the top five.

"I think we have a car for it, we've never experimented with anything beyond race setups so I think we can run just as fast in the race, if we have to, as we have in qualifying."

Bolstering Schmidt's confidence going into Sunday's race is the fact that his team has added Indy 500 veteran Gary Bettenhausen as a team advisor.

"Gary has been a pretty big factor in our success," Schmidt said. "We drove around the track in a rental car quite a bit the first day we worked together and he showed me a lot of things, a lot of the idiosyncrasies of the track and it was very good for us ... real good."

Bettenhausen's real value to the team should come on race day, Schmidt said.

"Obviously, we haven't done this very much so I think Gary Bettenhausen is going to be a big advantage from a strategy standpoint, from a patience standpoint and everything else," he said. "With these cars, you're going to see a pretty close race -- there's only six miles an hour (separating the cars) from front to back.

"You've just got to keep your nose clean. A lot of it has to do with strategy -- if you have to get out of it at the wrong time on this track, it can take you a lap and a half to get it back so a lot of that is just keeping your wits about you and not getting out at the wrong place. I think Gary should be able to help with that, too."

Schmidt said his pre-race strategy closely follows that of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears, who maintained that you have to race the track for the first 175 laps and worry about the rest of the field only for the final 25 laps.

"I think for the first 175 laps (you have to run) conservatively," Schmidt said. "The only goal after lap 175 is to be on the lead lap. It doesn't matter, in my opinion, if you're first or seventh because you're going to have a yellow flag sometime after lap 170 -- always have, always will. At that point, they're going to stack up and then it's anybody's ballgame.

"We think we can stay in the top 10. That's kind of our goal: just stay in the top 10 all race and wait for the last 25 laps."

Despite his success this month at The Brickyard, Schmidt only has the funding to field his car for one more race after Indy -- at Texas Motor Speedway in June. A strong finish Sunday by Schmidt might lead to a solid sponsorship package that will allow him to race through the IRL season finale in October at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"I think we've got a pretty good shot, I really do," Schmidt said.

If Schmidt's success so far this month is any indication, don't bet against him.