Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Marnell tuning up for big weekend

Friday, April 7, 2000 | 10:11 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand's motor sports notebook appears Friday. Reach him at bh@lasvegassun.com or 259-4089.

Considering he has never advanced to the final round of eliminations in six full NHRA Pro Stock seasons, George Marnell would have to be considered a long shot to grab his first career victory in this weekend's inaugural SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

But that is not the way the 49-year-old Las Vegas resident sees it.

Marnell said he hopes that two days of testing last weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway may give him and his Pontiac Firebird a leg up on the competition this weekend.

"This race track is a little bit unique because of the altitude," Marnell said of the new $10 million facility. "We're about 2,000 feet (above sea level) here and we don't actually race on a race track anywhere in the country that is just like Las Vegas.

"That means a little bit of tuning is needed as far as the clutch is concerned and gear ratios go. If we can figure out what the car wants at the starting line and if we can get a handle on that, we're going to be in good shape. If we qualify well, we've got as good a shot at it on Sunday as anybody else."

Marnell, in his seventh full season in the national touring series, said he is looking forward to the inaugural event at LVMS perhaps more than any other driver on the circuit.

"There's a little bit more pressure to do better here," Marnell said. "We try as hard as we can every week but, obviously, we would really like to do better in front of the hometown crowd and we're going to do everything we can to put on a good show and be there on Sunday."

Marnell said his goal this weekend is to qualify well -- a part of his program that has been lacking through the first three events of the season.

"We haven't been qualifying real good, but we have been qualifying," said Marnell, who has qualified at all three stops coming into Las Vegas. "One of the things that we've been fighting is the carburetors.

"This year, we haven't had a real good set of race carburetors until we got to Gainesville (three weeks ago) and every pass, we picked up and we actually ran faster in the first round of racing than we did in our fastest round of qualifying, which is saying something.

"The first step is going to be to qualify well and then anything can happen on Sunday."

* NASCAR: Jeremy Mayfield, driver of the Mobil 1 Ford Taurus on the Winston Cup circuit, has turned down an interview with Penthouse magazine, which had requested the driver for a personality profile to appear later this year.

"I just wouldn't feel right doing it," Mayfield said about declining the adult magazine's request. "Nothing against the writer or anybody else, I just wouldn't feel right. It just doesn't seem right to me to do an interview with a magazine that a lot of my fans couldn't or wouldn't buy.

"Maybe there are a lot of readers and maybe it is pretty big all over the world (but) one of the best lessons I ever learned was if you never do anything you wouldn't do in front of your Mom, you'll hardly ever get into trouble. This would be on that list of things I can't see telling my Mom about." ...

NASCAR officials announced beginning with this weekend's Winston Cup race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, each team will be responsible for moving its right-side tires during a pit stop. If the right-side tires are left on the outside half of the pit box and impedes the progress of another team, a penalty will be issued at NASCAR's discretion.

* CART: Las Vegas resident Paul Tracy said he will feel right at home when the FedEx Championship Series hits Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway for this weekend's Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix.

"It's kind of like my home track with all the testing I've done there over the years and with the success I've had at the track," said Tracy, who has two wins, two poles and seven top-five finishes in nine starts on the mile oval. "I always go there feeling like I've got a shot at winning the race. It's no different this year, especially since we had a good test there in March."

Tracy is coming off a third-place finish in the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway -- a race in which he started 17th.

"You can never count us out, even if we don't have the best qualifying effort," Tracy said. "Everybody saw that in Miami when we charged up from 17th to finish third. But I certainly expect to be starting a lot closer to the front at Nazareth." ...

Walker Racing driver Shinji Nakano, who suffered several bruises on his brain in a testing accident March 31 at Milwaukee, will sit out the next three CART races, his team announced Friday.

CART Medical Director Dr. Steve Olvey and consulting neurologist Dr. Terry Horner have determined that Nakano should not participate at the Nazareth, Long Beach or the Rio de Janeiro races.

Team owner Derrick Walker said the team would sit out this weekend's race and would announce a replacement driver for Nakano on Monday.

* IRNLS: Davey Hamilton of Las Vegas won the 40-lap USAC Western States Sprint Car main event and finished fourth in the Supermodified main last weekend at Irwindale (Calif.) Speedway.

Hamilton will return to the cockpit of his Indy Racing Northern Light Series G-Force/Aurora for the April 22 Vegas Indy 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. ...

NASCAR Busch Series rookie Jason Leffler will participate in the IRNLS open test next week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a Treadway Racing G-Force/Aurora.

Leffler made his Indy-car debut for Treadway Racing in the 1999 season opener at Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Fla.

* NHRA: Nine-time Funny Car champion John Force will bring his Superman-themed Funny Car out of retirement for this weekend's SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Force ran the specially painted Mustang in last year's Winston Showdown all-star race at Bristol (Tenn.) Dragway as part of a promotional campaign with D.C. Comics and Action Collectibles.

"Superman has been to only one race ever -- we ran it at Bristol -- and we beat the dragsters with it," Force said. "We weren't going to bring it but with some changes in body designs and stuff, we thought with the WWF bringing Kane and The Rock, we figured we may need a little extra help here so we'll bring Superman out of retirement.

"I'm excited about it. There are no collectibles with Action to sell, there are no T-shirts -- that program has been done -- but this was more just a personal thing for me. There are so many fans in Vegas, and fans coming to this race from Los Angeles and Orange County, and they've never seen Superman. So, I said 'Heck, we've got to run him again.' "

Funny Car points leader Jerry Toliver and teammate Jim Epler will debut cars with World Wrestling Federation paint schemes of wrestlers "Kane" and "The Rock" this weekend. ...

Veteran Pro Stock driver Mike Thomas, who wrecked his Matco Tools-sponsored Pontiac Firebird in testing last week, has agreed to a two-race deal with fellow Pro Stock competitor Richie Stevens to run his back-up car.

Thomas was slightly burned but not seriously injured when his car burst into flames and hit both retaining walls during a test run at the Darlington, N.C., track.

* BACKMARKERS: USA Racing Partners of Las Vegas announced this week that Cat Rental Power will serve as an associate sponsor on the U-10 Unlimited Hydroplane race team this season.

The U-10 Unlimited Hydro finished third in national points last season and Mark Weber was second in national driver points.

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