Friday, March 14, 2003 | 10:24 a.m.
Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at [email protected] or (702) 259-4089.
This weekend's GM Performance NHRA Sport Compact Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be as much about style as it will be about substance.
Besides on-track racing for domestic and imported compact cars, the weekend will feature a car show, car audio competition and bikini contest -- what the NHRA refers to as "lifestyle elements" that appeal to a younger demographic.
Clearly, this is not your father's drag racing.
"The NHRA always has and will be about drag racing," Gary Darcy, NHRA's vice president of marketing, said. "However, we are not blind to the fact that one of the main reasons the sport compact market has grown so rapidly is because of the many entertainment opportunities that are available to fan through the lifestyle portion of an event.
"We recognize the lifestyle elements are a key ingredient to a successful sport compact event."
And those events, said one Sport Compact competitor, are what separate a traditional NHRA national event from a Sport Compact Series weekend.
"This is a whole different atmosphere (than a traditional NHRA event)," said Nelson Hoyos, a 44-year-old who competes in the Pro Front-Wheel Drive category. "Because of our young market, this is more of a lifestyle event and NHRA has really made a huge commitment to go after the lifestyle element this year.
"We're catering to a younger market ... and you have to cater to them a little differently. Where the older group goes to the races to see the cars go down the track, the kids are not there just to see the race; they're there to party, to show their cars off and to have a good time."
In reality, Hoyos said, the three-year-old Sport Compact Series is attracting younger people to racing in much the same way the NHRA did in its infancy half a century ago.
"This is the hot-rod craze of the '50s and '60s all over again," Hoyos said. "You've got to remember, these kids have grown up not with '57 Chevrolets and '69 Camaros like (my generation) did; they've grown up with Mitsubishis, Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans, so that is their hot rod."
The growing market for sporty compact vehicles, Hoyos said, is why domestic automakers such as General Motors, Saturn and Dodge have jumped onto the Sport Compact drag racing bandwagon. Hoyos drives for a two-car GM factory team while Saturn and Dodge both are supporting three-car efforts in the series this season.
"For General Motors to hop into this market as aggressively as they have, obviously they see a huge market potential," Hoyos said. "They see the number of kids (who are driving sport compact cars) and they want to market an alternative to a Toyota or a Nissan or a Honda and that's why they have taken the Cavalier and the Sunfire into this market so heavily."
Not only has GM invested heavily in its two-car factory effort with Hoyos in Pro FWD and Marty Ladwig in the Hot Rod category, the automaker is the title sponsor for this weekend's season opener at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. That, Hoyos said, will give him added incentive to pick up his first Sport Compact victory this weekend.
"I must do well this weekend," Hoyos said. "There's no pressure -- I'm going into it as just another race because I don't try to put any undue pressure on myself -- but I need to do well for (GM) because we're going to have over 100 people from the corporation here this weekend."
Hoyos, driving a front-wheel drive Cavalier for Bothwell Motorsports, finished third in points in the Modified category last season despite being at a competitive disadvantage against those in the class who were driving rear-wheel drive racecars. This season, the NHRA formed separate Pro classes for front-wheel and rear-wheel drive racecars.
Time trials will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, with heads-up qualifying session at 2, 4 and 6 p.m. On Sunday, ET time trials will be from 10 a.m. to noon and final eliminations will begin at 12:30 p.m.
Roush said overly aggressive engine tuning in cars driven by Mark Martin, Kurt Busch and Ricky Rudd (who drives for Wood Brothers Racing but uses Roush's engines) and a new oil pan used in Jeff Burton's car triggered the failures.
"The good news is that none of the very substantial horsepower gains that we have been making caused any of our problems," Roush said. "The bad news is that the tuning mistake was my own.
"I hurt pistons on (Martin's, Busch's and Rudd's engines) by tuning for fuel economy that just wasn't attainable for Atlanta and (Burton's) problem derived from a new oil pan that resulted in oil starvation."
James Ince, crew chief for Johnny Benson, was fined $1,000 for an unapproved fuel filler check valve assembly and Mike Ford, crew chief Bill Elliott, was fined $1,000 for altering the car on pit road after the car had passed template inspection.
Mowlem toured the 3.7-mile road course in 2 minutes, 7.613 seconds in the Westward Ho Casino/MMPIE/PAWS/Justice Brothers Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Nic Jonsson and Craig Stanton will co-drive with Mowlem in Saturday's race, which begin at 7:30 a.m. (PST) Saturday.
SCORE Trophy Truck drivers Dan Smith and Dave Ashley of Riverside, Calif., are the defending overall and class champions in San Felipe. Last year, Smith and Ashley broke a three-year run by Las Vegas brothers Ed and Tim Herbst as overall and class champions in the event.
The race also will mark the return to SCORE of Las Vegas' Bekki Wik (nee Freeman). Wik, the 1998 and 2000 SCORE Class 1-2/1600 points champion, is entered in Class 1 and making her first SCORE start since the 2000 season.
The 40-lap Freedom 100 will be one day before the final day of qualifying for the Indy 500, which is scheduled for May 25.
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