Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Andretti Green model could help keep Lazier in IRL

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 | 10:19 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Buddy Lazier is hoping Andretti Green Racing's success in the Indy Racing League will be his ticket back into the series on a full-time basis.

Lazier, who won the IRL championship in 2000 and the Indianapolis 500 in 1996, has competed in only two IRL races since the end of the 2003 season. He will make his second start of the season Saturday night at Nashville Superspeedway as a third driver for Panther Racing. His other start for the team, in May in the Indy 500, resulted in a fifth-place finish.

"In IndyCar racing, it's pretty clear that multiple-car teams -- looking at what Andretti Green has done over the last two years -- is a formula that helps everybody in the success," Lazier said.

Andretti Green Racing, co-owned by Michael Andretti, has won one championship and 15 (of 40) races in two and a half seasons in the IRL. A four-car team this season, Andretti Green boasts five victories in eight races and all four of its drivers are among the top seven in IRL points.

Lazier will team with Panther Racing's regular drivers, Tomas Scheckter and Tomas Enge, this weekend in Nashville and later this month at Michigan International Speedway in an effort to improve the team's performance. Scheckter is ninth in the IRL standings with one victory and Enge is 18th after eight races.

"My intention is to try to build an opportunity for myself in a third car at Panther," Lazier said. "It's very important that I don't interrupt what is a winning formula because, obviously, what they're doing is winning. My job is, really, to contribute to what they have going and if I can podium or do better, I certainly am going to give it everything I've got.

"When you look at ... the limited amount of time that we have on the racetrack on any given weekend, the more cars that you have, the more engineering and race-driving experience that we can all throw down in our team meetings. The key in my involvement is to help bring more information into that process but not to distract from the successes that the team is having."

After a rough stretch to open the season in which he crashed out of four of the first five races, Scheckter has finished first, fourth and fifth in his past three races. Enge has posted his best finishes of the season -- seventh and 11th -- in his past two races.

MILESTONE WIN: Champ Car World Series co-owner Paul Gentilozzi earned his 30th career Trans-Am victory this past weekend in Toronto and surpassed the legendary Mark Donohue as the all-time winningest driver in the series' history.

"Of all of the things Mark Donohue accomplished, this was just one of a lot of records, but even being mentioned in the same breath as him is a real privilege," Gentilozzi said. "It's also very important for me to extend my respect to Mark's wife and his son, David, who I know really well."

Gentilozzi, 55, won five races last season en route to his fourth Trans-Am championship. Saturday's victory was his first of the season.

PEDREGON'S FIRST: Damion Gardner's wire-to-wire victory in Saturday night's 30-lap USAC Western Midget Series event at Bakersfield Speedway was Cruz Pedregon's first win as a car owner in the series.

Pedregon, who drives the Advance Auto Parts Funny Car in the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series, started the team earlier this year and debuted (and drove) the Midget car at the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in January in Tulsa, Okla.

"Damion drove an awesome race," Pedregon said. "He put in a dominating performance. It was great to see Damion drive that car to victory lane in only our second USAC start together.

"It was so thrilling to see. Even though I have a different role as car owner, I was still nervous when Damion started getting into lap traffic. I have many of the same feelings -- supporting Damion and the Advance Auto Parts Midget -- I do when I strap into my nitro Funny Car. It was an intense and exciting evening."