Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Hearn still in search of primary sponsor

Friday, Feb. 11, 2000 | 9:45 a.m.

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

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- For the first time in his four-year CART career, Richie Hearn will start the season with the same engine and chassis combination as the year before -- with one notable exception.

Missing from the Henderson resident's Della Penna Motorsports Reynard/Toyota this season will be the familiar Budweiser logos that have supported Hearn the past two seasons.

So, while most teams and drivers approach the new season with a clean slate and renewed optimism, Hearn enters the 2000 season under somewhat of a dark cloud as a result of losing his primary sponsor.

"We don't have enough money to finish the year out if we don't find (a major sponsor)," Hearn said. "But we're not compromising; we have all new stuff and we're not changing anything in the way we do anything.

"But, hopefully, we'll find the money to replace Budweiser."

He also hopes to find a level of consistency that has eluded him during the past three seasons, when Della Penna went through a dizzying array of changes in engines and chassis.

In 1999, Hearn's third full season with Della Penna, he posted only one top-five finish in 20 starts, did not lead a lap all season, and had an average finish of 15th.

"I'd like to be more competitive than I was last year ... last year sucked," the 29-year-old said. "It's really hard to go to a race and run 20th, 18th, 17th every time. Even though you're giving it your all, it burns you out.

"I'd just like to have a shot at finishing in the top five every weekend. If you can do that, your wins will come and I want to win races; I'm tired of not winning. The ultimate goal is to win, but you've got to get to the top five before you can do that."

In an attempt to help Hearn achieve his first career CART victory, team owner John Della Penna hired noted engineer Diane Holl, who oversaw Adrian Fernandez's and Tony Kanaan's first wins while working for Tasman Motorsports.

"I feel pretty good about things," Hearn said. "For the first time, we're sticking with the same package that we ran last year, and I have a new engineer here in Diane Holl.

"What Diane brings to the team is she has experienced winning and she has experienced working with some good drivers. She has only worked with the Reynard, so she understands their ideas and the dynamics of the Reynard really well. It's a good change for us."

* NASCAR: The 2000 Winston Cup season gets under way this weekend with qualifying Saturday for the first two starting positions for the Feb. 20 Daytona 500, and the 21st annual Bud Shootout for 1999 pole winners on Sunday. CBS will televise both events. ...

Las Vegas native Brendan Gaughan has teamed with noted Winston Cup crew chief Andy Graves and will attempt to qualify for next month's CarsDirect.com 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Graves spent two years as crew chief for Terry Labonte before joining Chip Ganassi's CART team, and will assist the Orleans Motorsports team with building its 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, advise them on race and qualifying setups and act as crew chief on race day.

"I feel extremely fortunate to have Andy Graves helping us," Gaughan said. "This is a phenomenal opportunity that we have to work with someone so high up in the series.

"For the team having someone like that is like having Michael Jordan on your basketball team; he makes you better."

The CarsDirect.com 400 will mark Gaughan's first attempt to qualify for a points race in NASCAR's premier division, although the 24-year-old raced in a Winston Cup exhibition race in Japan in 1998. ...

The Orleans Hotel and Casino will sponsor the March 3 qualifying for the CarsDirect.com 400 NASCAR Winston Cup race.

A limited number of free pole-day tickets will be available beginning Friday, Feb. 25 at the Orleans Hotel and Casino box office.

* CART: Reigning Indy 500 winner Kenny Brack was asked this week to compare working for CART team owner Bobby Rahal after spending the past two seasons with A.J. Foyt in the Indy Racing League.

"It's a walk in the park," Brack said with a laugh. "They're pretty different, but they are both great guys and have both accomplished a lot in racing. It's like the plus and the minus on a battery; they're completely the opposite but they both are necessary to make the light bulb glow.

"I like it with Bobby, I liked it with A.J." ...

Three female drivers have been selected to participate in test sessions marking the inaugural CART Women's Driver Development Program.

The drivers -- Jenny Sheehy of Faribault, Minn., Sara Senske of Kennewick, Wash., and Juliana Chiovitti of Sutton, Ontario, Canada -- have been chosen to test a Toyota Atlantic race car at Buttonwillow (Calif.) Raceway, next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Members of the Cal Wells-owned PPI Motorsports Team, winner of the 1999 CART Toyota Atlantic Championship, will supervise the test.

* IRL: Las Vegas Motor Speedway general manager Chris Powell said he would be interested in talking to the IRL about hosting a second IRL race at the 1.5-mile superspeedway this fall.

The IRL still has a "TBA" on its schedule on Sept. 10 after Nazareth Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway both declined to host the series. The IRL reportedly is holding discussions with The Milwaukee Mile about staging the race there.

LVMS will hold the Las Vegas 500K on April 22, having moved the race to the spring from the fall. ...

Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt underwent surgery last weekend in Houston to remove the surgical-steel hardware installed in his leg nearly 10 years ago after a serious racing accident.

Doctors removed a plate, two bars and more than 24 screws during the surgery. Foyt suffered a badly broken left leg in an accident during a CART event in 1990 at Elkhart Lake, Wis.

"It was some really big hardware," Foyt said. "They showed it to me, and it looked like something you'd find in an Indy car. One of the bars was 7 inches by 1 inch and was an eighth-inch thick.

"No wonder it got to hurting so much when a couple of the screws started backing out; the screws were 3 1/2 inches long."

* NHRA: Las Vegas resident George Marnell advanced to the semifinals in the Pro Stock category at last weekend's season-opening AutoZone Winternationals at Pomona Raceway.

Marnell lost to Warren Johnson in the third round despite posting a faster speed (198.03-197.62 mph) than Johnson, who had the quicker elapsed time (6.940-6.993 seconds).

"We have a relatively new team and we were able to find a few things that we need to work on," Marnell said. "Our performance wasn't completely stellar, but we proved a few things to ourselves and showed that we could win rounds.

"We now know that we can run with the best but we still need to work on our tuneup a little bit. We know what our shortcomings are and I'm happy with how well we worked together. The whole program seems to be coming together." ...

The NHRA drag racing facility at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will officially be called The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It will host the NHRA's top competitors in Las Vegas' first nationals event on April 6-9.

* BACKMARKERS: The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is accepting general admission ticket applications for the inaugural Formula One United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis on Sept. 22-24.

General admission tickets are available for all three days of the event. The price for the practice Friday, Sept. 22, is $10; for the practice/qualifications on Saturday, Sept. 23, $20; and for race day, Sunday, Sept. 24, $30. Combination tickets also are available for $50 (all three days) and $25 (Friday and Saturday).

General admission and reserved seat ticket order forms can be obtained by calling the IMS ticket office at (800) 822-INDY or e-mailing the ticket office at tickets@brickyard.com and requesting a form.

Ticket applications also can be downloaded at the U.S. Grand Prix web site at http://www.usgpindy.com ...

Racing in four divisions will be featured tonight as Las Vegas Motor Speedway opens its 2000 half-mile dirt oval racing season.

The new millennium has brought changes to the speedway's dirt program, including the addition of the IMCA Late Models. LVMS is the first track in Nevada to host IMCA Late Models on dirt.

Spectator gates will open at 6 this evening, with heat races starting at 8. This will be the only Friday night event of the season; all other races will be on Saturday nights.

Adding a class is not the only difference at the dirt track. Possibly the most visible change will be the elimination of the 1/3-mile dirt track. All races will be held on the high-banked half-mile track.

In addition to IMCA Late Models, fans will see IMCA Modifieds, Legends and Thunder Stox.

Admission prices are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and military, $2 for children 6-12 and free for children 5 and under.

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