Columnist Ron Kantowski: Search is on here for next American F1 driver

Monday, May 2, 2005 | 10:42 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Although most in the NASCAR Nation refuse to acknowledge its existence, the world's most popular form of auto racing is still Formula One. Its annual television viewership of 54 billion is second only to soccer, another sport that most Americans find about as relevant as the price of tea at the Chinese Grand Prix.

That said, there still is a minuscule minority of Las Vegas gearheads that get up at 4:30 a.m. to watch the F1 races on Speed Channel and wonder what the next great world driving champion will look like.

My prediction is he will be tall, dark and handsome and speak Portuguese, because it seems like all of the good racecar drivers not named Dale or Rusty come from Brazil. Senna. Fittipaldi. Piquet. And all those guys now running around in circles at the Indianapolis 500. They must treat the water in Sao Paulo with motor oil.

There's a smaller chance that the successor to Michael Schumacher's throne may be a diminutive, soft-spoken lad from the San Fernanando Valley whose passion for fast cars began when he was 9 years old and took an Oldsmobile belonging to a family friend for a joy ride, as Phil Hill did.

Or he might be a naturalized U.S. citizen from Italy who left his homeland just as Benito Mussolini was getting ready to bump draft with Adolph Hitler and would wind up spewing gravel around the dirt tracks of Pennsylvania, as Mario Andretti did.

Hill won the Formula One title in 1961 while driving for Ferrari. Andretti won in 1978 while racing for Lotus. They are the only two Americans in our country's long and celebrated automobile racing history who can call themselves World Champion.

In fact, Formula One is such a difficult nut to crack that since Andretti quit racing on the other side of the pond a quarter-century ago, there have been only two Americans who have even sat behind the wheel of a Formula One car, considered the most technically advanced and sophisticated racing machine that man has ever laid a wrench on.

Michael Andretti, Mario's son, was the most recent, landing a ride as Senna's teammate in 1993. He didn't even make it to the end of the season before returning to the United States. In the early 1980s, dashing Danny Sullivan was trumpeted as the pride of the yankee drivers, but he, too, would have to settle for winning the Indy 500 and a cover story in Playgirl magazine upon spinning his wheels in Formula One.

Nowadays, the best American drivers are trading paint in NASCAR hot rods, that Southern tradition having lapped Indy-style racing as our nation's most popular form of motor sport. But in that Formula One is big business and nobody does big business like America, the search continues for an American driver with talent and charisma who will get American fans excited about Formula One. Or at least CEOs of giant American corporations excited about Formula One.

So it's still possible that the next great American Formula One driver will wear braces and a pink driving suit, which 15-year-old Mike Herda did Sunday night in winning a 20-lap feature race at the Fast Lap Indoor Kart Racing track in the finals of the local Red Bull Driver Search, the 4-year-old program whose stated purpose is to develop the next American Formula One driver.

Herda, a sophomore at Sierra Vista High School, will represent Las Vegas along with Aaron McMorran and Michele Wells, who finished second and third, at the upcoming Red Bull West Coast run-offs at Infineon Raceway at Sonoma, Calif. The top six there advance to the semifinals at Sebring International Raceway with the pacesetters in Florida traveling to the Estoril Formula One circuit in Portugal to determine who gets a fully supported Red Bull ride and contract.

Wells and McMorran are Formula One fans who idolize Schumacher, which is a big story itself in a town that lives and breathes NASCAR exhaust fumes. Wells even shares a first name with the late Michele Alboreto, who won the 1982 Caesars Palace Grand Prix.

Herda, the son of Las Vegas appliance store owner Nick Herda, admittedly isn't a big F-1 enthusiast like the two rivals he beat to the checkered flag. But he said he was willing to become one, if that's where the Red Bull program takes him.

"I want to try to go as far as I can and if it happens, it happens," said Herda, one of two young drivers to represent the U.S. in the Rotax Grand Nationals world karting championship in Spain last year. In addition to that pink driving suit, Herda also has a personal mechanic and sidekick who travels with him. So it appears he is quite serious about his racing, although he has only been doing it for a year.

"If not," he says about the likelihood of coming up short, "I'll try something else. But I want to try for the best."

He's off to a flying start -- Herda started from pole position and won Sunday's race in Schumacher fashion -- but there's a long, long, long way between the Fast Lap kart track and the grid at Monaco. Just ask Las Vegan Matt Jaskol.