Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: IRL drivers not buying Unser’s ‘rookie’ tag

Friday, Jan. 28, 2000 | 12:10 p.m.

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

As he prepared for his first race in the Indy Racing League this weekend, Al Unser Jr. likened his position in the new series to 1983 -- his rookie season in Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART).

"We've got some races under our belt and we kind of know what to expect down there," Unser said, "but it's a different chassis and you run the cars differently (than in CART) so we're going to be learning just as much as everybody else down there.

"When you go out and practice with these guys, the lap times are so close to each other -- we're talking in the hundredths of seconds. When you start talking about a pack that's that tight, the race is open to just about anybody."

But not everybody is buying Unser's attempt to sell himself as an IRL "rookie" going into Saturday's Delphi Indy 200 at Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Fla.

"To call Al a rookie is a bit of an oxymoron," fellow IRL driver Eddie Cheever said. "Don't try that rookie b.s. on me because it ain't going to work. The other drivers might believe that ... but (I don't)."

Scott Goodyear, who, like Cheever, raced against Unser in CART, said you can't overlook the fact that Unser had 273 career starts -- and 31 wins -- in the rival CART series.

"I wouldn't call him a rookie," Goodyear said of the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. "I'd call him a sly old fox."

But Unser's father, Al Unser Sr., said his son's experience and success in CART does not automatically mean he will come in and win races right off the bat in the IRL.

"Everybody thinks he's going to kick butt," Al Sr., a consultant with the IRL, said. "He's not going to do it. The IRL guys are not asleep; they run hard and they've got good teams.

"He'll have to sit back and study things. He has got to learn the drivers, learn the cars, learn the tracks. It's not going to be an easy chore. ... He'll be starting over."

The younger Unser, who will drive the Tickets.com-sponsored G-Force/Aurora for Galles ECR Racing, said his primary goal this season is to return to victory lane -- something he hasn't done since 1995.

"It has been three or fours years since I've won a race so the main thrust is to win," Unser said of his goals for this season. "That means everywhere we go, we need to get out there and do what we can to qualify well and then get to the end of the race.

"In order to win Indy, you've got to start knocking down some races prior to that and it's a whole package and a whole team effort. It's kind of like the domino theory: once you start knocking a couple of them down, hopefully Indy falls right in there. Our main job is to win a race before we get to Indianapolis and then just try to treat Indy as another race and go out there and win it."

* NASCAR: Seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be among the 18 Winston Cup and Busch Series drivers who will be testing next Monday through Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The testing will be open to the public for a $5 donation to Speedway Children's Charities. ...

Team owner Cal Wells III announced that Scott Pruett will be the substitute driver for the McDonald's/PPI Motorsports entry at the NASCAR Busch Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Pruett, whose main ride is with the Cal Wells-owned Tide Ford on the Winston Cup circuit, is substituting for PPI teammate Anthony Lazzaro, who sustained a fracture of the thoracic T-3 vertebra in last October's ARCA race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Lazzaro is required to sit out the Daytona opener due to a racing injury and a six-week recovery period that prevented him from meeting NASCAR's eligibility requirements for rookie entry in a superspeedway race. ...

The 12-driver field for the 2000 International Race of Champions was set with the addition of Winston Cup standouts Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin and Jeff Burton.

Previously named to the field were Eddie Cheever Jr., Mark Dismore and Greg Ray from the Indy Racing League and Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Rusty Wallace from Winston Cup.

* CART: Jimmy Vasser of Las Vegas was scheduled to undergo laser eye surgery this week to eliminate the need for him to wear glasses during races.

"Omit the goggles from my kit list," Vasser said in an interview with Speedvision.com "There's probably some distortion with the bumps and the correction of the lenses, and a little extra vision certainly won't hurt. I think it's time. I've seen Bobby Rahal and Bryan Herta benefit from the surgery, among others, so I figured it was time I did it.

"I'm pulling out all the stops. I certainly don't want to have another year like last year, so I figure anything I can do ... it can't hurt."

Vasser, the 1996 CART series champion, was winless in 20 starts last season and had only two podium finishes. ...

Forsythe Championship Racing Team's new driver, Bryan Herta, didn't have the most successful of debuts in his new Honda-powered Swift last week at Laguna Seca Raceway in Northern California.

The first day of testing was shortened by rain and the second test day was canceled by fog.

"The weather conditions were not very accommodating for our first day, but we accomplished all our systems and mechanical checks," Herta said.

"This is a different car quite clearly than what I've driven in the past. We haven't even begun to tap its potential. In terms of the engine, the Honda is quite smooth. It has a nice, wide power band. I'm really impressed with that."

* IRL: Indy Racing League veteran Billy Boat will drive for Team Pelfrey at Saturday's Delphi Indy 200 at Walt Disney World Speedway.

Boat will drive the No. 81 Team Pelfrey Dallara/Aurora in a one-race deal. Boat parted company during the off-season with team owner A.J. Foyt, for whom he drove full time in the Indy Racing League in 1998-99.

If additional sponsorship contacts materialize, Pelfrey will run a second car at Phoenix for Boat, a team official said. ...

Al Unser Jr. has been nominated for an ESPY Award in the Auto Racing Performer of the Decade category. During the 1990s, Unser scored 22 victories -- including the 1992 and 1994 Indianapolis 500 -- and CART season championships in 1990 and 1994. The eighth annual ESPY Awards will be held Feb. 14 at the MGM Grand and will be televised live on ESPN beginning at 5 p.m. (PST).

* NHRA: Defending Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher closed out NHRA pre-season testing last weekend at Southwestern International Raceway in strong fashion, recording the quickest Top Fuel run of the day (4.666 seconds at 314.53 mph).

Nine-time Funny Car champ John Force solidified his position as driver of the weekend's quickest and fastest Funny Car with a 4.890-second burst at 317.79 mph in his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang. ...

"NHRA Heat," the National Hot Rod Association's new 30-minute magazine show, will debut Thursday, Feb. 3, at 3 p.m. (PST) on ESPN2 during the first day of qualifying at the season-opening AutoZone Winternationals.

Veteran racing commentator Bill Stephens will be the in-studio host for all 24 episodes of the show. Joining Stephens will be long-time NHRA commentator Bob Frey who will serve as the on-site reporter at each event.

A total of 24 shows are scheduled to air each Thursday of race week. One show will be produced for each NHRA national event, including the inaugural Las Vegas Nationals in April, and the Winston Showdown, NHRA's all-star event.

* BACKMARKERS: Formula One team Williams-BMW officially has ended its relationship with driver Alex Zanardi after one season and signed Britain's Jenson Button, who has just turned 20, to replace Zanardi. ...

The NASCAR Southwest Series will return to Las Vegas Motor Speedway's 3/8-mile paved oval on Sept. 23.

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