Rideless in CART, Hearn mulls jump to NASCAR

Tuesday, March 21, 2000 | 10:08 a.m.

Richie Hearn had planned on competing in Sunday's CART season opener, the Grand Prix of Miami at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in South Florida.

Instead, the 29-year-old Henderson resident will be a spectator when the green flag drops on the 2000 CART season -- only he won't be at Homestead.

Hearn, who lost his ride Friday with longtime team owner John Della Penna, said he likely would spend Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, watching the Food City 500 NASCAR Winston Cup race.

"I'm looking at all sorts of stuff -- I don't know what I want to do yet," Hearn said Monday. "I'm looking at a lot of different venues to race, not just CART. I'm obviously going to take a look at the NASCAR option ... there might be an opportunity to do a Busch (Series) race here and there.

"I think I might want a change of environment at this point."

Hearn's five-year relationship with Della Penna Motorsports came to an end Friday when Della Penna announced that rookie Norberto Fontana would contest all 20 CART races this season in the No. 10 Reynard/Toyota. Fontana brought sponsorship from an Argentine video company to the DPM team, which had lost its backing from Budweiser after the 1999 season.

"I knew this was going to happen, so it wasn't a complete shock," said Hearn, whose best career finish in CART was fifth at Michigan in 1998. "The last couple of months, it was getting closer and closer to the (season opener) and no money was found so I kind of knew this was going to happen."

Although Della Penna said his goal is to expand to a two-car team that would include Hearn, Hearn said he isn't overly optimistic that such a scenario would come to pass this season.

"John is talking about putting a second car together, but I don't see that happening, to tell you the truth," Hearn said. "The other thing is, I don't want to do it half-ass -- I've been doing that and I don't want to do that anymore. I'm not getting any younger and I don't want to go out there and have a crew that he just hired for a couple races ... forget that, I'm not going to do that.

"Next year, if an honest deal comes around with either him or somebody else in CART, I'm going to have to seriously look at it because that's where I'm established. But I'm also going to have to look at other avenues of racing."

Hearn, who made 56 starts in three full seasons in CART since 1997, also held out hope that he could compete in CART this season as a relief driver in the event of an injury to another driver.

"If somebody gets injured, I'm sure I'll be on the list to replace somebody," Hearn said. "The way it has been the last couple of years, there has always been those opportunities come up.

"I think it would be interesting to do that because I've never driven for anybody else. It would be nice to see how it works with somebody else's operation. I don't want to hope that (another driver gets injured) but if it happens, I would do it."

Hearn insisted he harbors no bitter feelings toward Della Penna, who gave Hearn his first big break in 1994 when he was hired to drive DPM's entry in the Toyota Atlantic series.

"It's just the way it is sometimes," Hearn said. "I'm very disappointed because I planned on having a full year again. On the other side, I don't really blame anybody -- it just happens. I could sit here and get mad but all that does is ruin my day."

Hearn also is not second-guessing his decision to stay with Della Penna after the 1998 season despite getting offers to drive for a couple of more established and well-funded teams, including one to drive Bobby Rahal's Miller Lite Reynard/Ford.

"I had talks with a couple of people (in 1998) and there were a couple of things going on and I was at the end of my first three-year contract," Hearn said. "I decided to stay with John -- I obviously didn't think things were going to work out this way.

"That's just the way it goes; you make decisions with the information you have and you hope for the best. It doesn't mean it would have worked out with Bobby, either ... you just don't know. I was comfortable with where I was at the time."

What does irritate Hearn, a Southern California native, is the fact that no American companies "stepped to the plate" and offered to help out with sponsorship of Della Penna's car.

"The one thing I'm very disappointed in, actually, is the fact that I know John tried very hard to find money for us and that no American company even gave it a thought to help us out," Hearn said. "We weren't asking for that much -- we had half the budget from Toyota.

"It wasn't like we were asking for a full deal; we were asking for $3 million for the whole car, which normally would be about an $8 million deal. The reason why there aren't (more) Americans in CART, I blame corporate America itself because it takes money to race and those (companies) aren't supporting American drivers."

With the departure of Hearn and Forsythe Championship Racing Team driver Bryan Herta over the weekend, only two of CART's 25 drivers are American: Michael Andretti and Las Vegas resident Jimmy Vasser.

And that, Hearn said, is one of the primary reasons he will take a long look at joining other open-wheel stars such as Tony Stewart, Robby Gordon and Scott Pruett in making the jump to NASCAR.

"I think the opportunities these days -- especially for American drivers -- are probably better (in NASCAR) than in CART," he said.