Friday, July 28, 2000 | 10:56 a.m.
SUN STAFF REPORT
The spectacular race-ending duel between Juan Montoya and Michael Andretti last Sunday in the Michigan 500 may simply be a preview of the final nine races of the CART season.
Both drivers have had their problems this season with mechanical ills and bad luck. But heading into Sunday's Target Grand Prix at Chicago Motor Speedway, Andretti is at the top of the season standings and Montoya is just 30 points behind in fifth.
"Juan is going to be the guy, I think," said Andretti, who lost to the defending series champion by less than a car-length after 17 laps of breathtaking, 225-mph, wheel-to-wheel battling last weekend.
"He's the only other guy besides me who can really complain about the problems he's been having this year," the 1991 series champion added. "We both gave away a lot of points early in the year. But, if we hadn't, I think we'd probably still be pretty close."
Montoya, who won seven races last year on the way to the FedEx Series championship as a rookie, got only his second CART win of this year at Michigan -- although he also won the rival Indy Racing League's Indianapolis 500 in May.
But the 24-year-old Colombian driver has led a series-high 580 laps this season without much to show for it. By contrast, Helio Castroneves is second with 194 laps led.
The Michigan victory was a big boost for Montoya and the entire Target/Chip Ganassi Racing team.
"The timing for that win was perfect," he said. "We had a few difficult races in a row, so that big win was great for our confidence.
"Now we're in Chicago, where we had a good run last year and really got some momentum for the championship."
It isn't likely to be a two-man show on Sunday, considering there have been eight different winners already this year. The only two-time winners have been Montoya, Andretti and Gil de Ferran, who is one point ahead of Montoya in the standings and trails second-place Roberto Moreno by 19.
Practice begins on the one-mile Chicago oval today and the first of a maximum 22 points available this week will go to the pole winner on Saturday. Points are awarded to the top 12 finishers in the race, with the winner getting 20 and the driver who leads the most laps one.
The championship is so tight, with the top 10 drivers separated by just 42 points, that very few drivers consider themselves out of the title race.
Las Vegas' Jimmy Vasser, Montoya's teammate and last year's third-place finisher in Chicago, is ninth in the standings -- and hopeful.
"There are too many races left to get discouraged, and we're only 41 points off the lead," said Vasser, the 1996 series champ. "We have to score points in the remaining nine races in order to give us a shot at the title, and there's not one person on this team who thinks we can't do it."
* NASCAR: Michael Waltrip will return to the No. 7 car next year, and the Jim Smith-owned NASCAR Winston Cup team will switch from Chevrolets to Fords late this season.
The new cars will be powered by Penske engines, the motors that have carried Rusty Wallace and Jeremy Mayfield to a combined eight poles and four victories this year.
Waltrip is winless in 447 Winston Cup races. ...
Winston Cup regular Sterling Marlin will drive the late Kenny Irwin's Busch Series car for the six remaining races on the team's schedule.
Irwin was killed July 7 in a crash while practicing one of the team's Winston Cup cars at New Hampshire International Speedway. He drove the BellSouth Mobility Chevrolet in 10 Busch races this season.
Team SABCO and BellSouth Mobility have changed the Busch car's number from 42 to 01, duplicating the move they made on Irwin's Winston Cup car, driven to a 16th-place finish Sunday by Ted Musgrave in Long Pond, Pa.
* IRL: Kentucky Speedway is drawing rave reviews from Indy Racing League drivers as they prepare for the Aug. 27 Belterra Resort Indy 300 on the new 1 1/2-mile oval.
"It's a first-class facility all the way," said IRL champion Greg Ray. "The track is very wide, very smooth, and it has a speed rhythm to it. It's going to be a very racy place.
"When you come off of Turn 4, the banking really holds you. It's very, very wide there. It's going to make for some incredible passing because it is so wide. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to see a last-lap, last-corner pass for the lead."
Ray won the Midas 500 Classic on July 15 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
* CART: Formula One driver Johnny Herbert will leave the Jaguar team to drive in the CART series next season.
The 36-year-old British driver, preparing for the German Grand Prix this weekend, said Wednesday he expected to sign with a CART team shortly, but would not say which one.
Jaguar team boss Colin Cook said it was too early to announce Herbert's successor. Herbert's desire to drive in the CART series had long been known by Jaguar, which tested CART driver Dario Franchitti last week.
Franchitti was second in the FedEx CART Championship with Team KOOL Green last year. The 27-year-old Scotsman said he would consider switching to Formula One if the opportunity arose.
* BACKMARKERS: The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will feature the excitement of Pro Mod drag racing tonight and Saturday besides the weekly racing program.
The Pro Mods are set to make three qualifying passes at The Strip today at 7, 9 and 11 p.m. Pro Mod eliminations are set to begin at 8 p.m. Saturday. ...
With two wins in 12 races this season and a Competition Performance Index of .7708, Dick Cobb retained his lead this week in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series Sunbelt Region point standings. The index is used to rank the track leaders in each of the 10 regions across the country.
The regional champions will be decided following the conclusion of the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series season on Sept. 9. ...
Increasing its involvement significantly to help cap the first year of the new millennium, Duralast Battery has signed a title sponsorship agreement for the SCORE Duralast Desert Series, it was announced by SCORE International, the Los Angeles-based sanctioning body and producer of America's Foremost Desert Racing Series.
Continuing as the official battery of SCORE International as it has been since the brand was introduced by Johnson Controls of Milwaukee, Wisc., five years ago, Duralast has agreed to the title sponsorship of the balance of the 2000 SCORE season with options for future years. Remaining on this year's SCORE Duralast Desert Series five-race schedule are the 5th Annual SCORE Las Vegas Primm 300 (Aug. 4-5) and the once-in-a-lifetime Tecate SCORE Baja 2000-A Race for the Ages (Nov. 10-16). ...
Second generation racer Troy Herbst will return to the Southern Nevada desert he grew up around next weekend to defend his overall title in the SCORE Las Vegas Primm 300 desert race.
Nearly 150 vehicles, from 12 States and Mexico, competing in 16 classes for cars and trucks, will begin taking the green flag at 6:30 a.m. Aug. 5, as America's Foremost Desert Racing Series makes its only visit to the Las Vegas area for round 4 of the five-race 2000 SCORE Duralast Desert Series.
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