Looking Back June 18: From The Archives

Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 90 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 15, 30 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.

15 Years Ago — 2010

News: When IndyCar Series CEO Randy Bernard announced the ICONIC Advisory Committee to IZOD INDYCAR determine the new car and engine formula that will lead the IZOD IndyCar Series into the future beginning in 2012, he set June 30 as the deadline to release the package.

The engine platform was announced earlier this month and the committee continues to review the number of chassis options that have been presented.

“We’ll be close but for sure, no more than a month from now we will be done,” Bernard said of the deadline. “The ICONIC committee has made fantastic progress on the car. We had set June 30 as a date to make a decision. I don’t think we will have a completed decision, but we are making great progress. It’s been very important that technology, relevance, innovations, speed, safety and green are all key attributes to the new car.

“What has been unbelievable to me is to have seven experts with seven different opinions when they came in and after doing the research and seeing our demographics and what is important to the fans, we have seen this huge funnel of ideas to now we have decisions made in unison. It has been remarkable to me to see how they are making well thought out decisions.”

While such chassis manufacturers as Dallara, Lola, Swift and BAT have submitted their designs of what the car that hits the track in 2012 should be, DeltaWing has fueled the debate among the spectators because of its radical design.

“I think DeltaWing has done an unbelievable amount of buzz to the sport,” Bernard said. “It has created a lot of creative thinking and that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Chip Ganassi is an innovator and wants to see this series moving forward.”

Bernard would like to see cost containment with the new design but does not want that to take away from other key areas for the car. He doesn’t want to put a “cheaply made” product on the race course.

Winners: John Force regained the points lead with his NHRA-record 130th-career win Sunday at the 10th annual NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway.

The other winners at the 12^th race in the 23-race NHRA Full Throttle Series season were Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel) and Mike Edwards (Pro Stock).

After qualifying sixth, Force defeated Paul Lee, Matt Hagan and Bob Tasca Ill to reach his 207th career final round where he easily defeated Tim Wilkerson with a 4.317-second pass at 285.59 mph to Wilkerson’s stumbling 12 36 e.t. at 31.80 mph.

“To get this win is really great. I’ll be honest. I was jacked up on so much Full Throttle I thought I was going to explode … oxygen, everything I could take just to keep up with the kids,” said the 61-year-old Force who left Bristol with a 58-point lead over teammate Robert Hight as he seeks to win his NHRA-record 15^th championship. ”I’m going to stay young and thank the fans who keep screaming and giving me the energy.”

Force, who drives the Castrol GTX High Mileage Ford Mustang, had led the point standings after the first nine races before ceding the lead momentarily to Hight for races 10 and 11.

Wilkerson, meanwhile, wasn’t able to gain any positions in the standings —he remained ninth — but he and the Levi, Ray & Shoup Ford team did move 11 points clear of 11^th-place Jeff Arend with five races left int the Countdown to One regular season.

30 Years Ago — 1995

News: Tony Stewart was at the center of a short-track storm all of last week, and it didn’t get any better at week’s end when the midget half of Saturday night’s USAC sprint-midget doubleheader was cancelled for safety reasons.

“I would rather have been somewhere else tonight,” Stewart said after finishing second to Tray House in the sprint car feature. “Every time I climbed into my midget, I felt like I was climbing into a coffin.”

It was Stewart who called the attention of USAC officials and track owners to a pair of problems brought on by the new surface on the banked half-mile oval.

After a right front-wheel failed last week in a tire test on the new pavement, Stewart said he asked for a meeting with those involved to voice some concerns.

“We had this meeting with USAC, and I’ve been a big supporter of USAC ever since I started running with them in 1991,” Stewart said. “The bad thing about it was there were 16 or 17 of us, total, attending this meeting, some pretty respectable people-Ralph Potter, Bob East, Don Kenyon, Glen Niebel-and all of us went in there with a point, saying, ‘Hey, guys, people need time to prepare their race cars for what this track ‘s going to want from them.

“The comeback we got from Roger and Linda Holdeman and USAC was that they had had so many presold tickets, advance sales, that what could they do?

“Obviously they were more worried about ticket sales than they were about drivers’ lives because they decided to go ahead and do this. What USAC basically did tonight was totally embarrass themselves, in my opinion. They brought. 14 midgets and 14 sprint cars and pissed off a lot of people in the grandstands. That could have been avoided.”

Stewart said his recommendation at the meeting was a postponement. “We were lucky enough to have 2 days to come out here and test,” he said of his reason for wanting to call off the program. “A lot of these teams didn’t have a chance to even come here and test, so they didn’t know what to expect. They needed time to come out here and have plenty of practice time for this race track.”

Stewart said his crash in practice on June 19, from a failed right front wheel, was “a wake-up call” for him. It was a crash that was nearly duplicated in qualifications Saturday night by Tracy Hines, whose right-rear wheel failed. “I didn’t see (Hines’s wheel), but I’m sure it was probably the same thing that happened to me,” he said. “We had a center break on us Monday in tire testing, and that’s what made me decide to have a meeting with USAC.

“I told those guys I honestly felt like Monday was a warning to everybody about how fast these cars were going and how stuck they are in the corners right now.”

Winners: The difference between first and second is measured in more than tenths of a second on the 2.45-mile short course at Watkins Glen Int’l. On Sunday, it was measured in the need for relief.

Terry Labonte exited his MW Windows Chevrolet, bounded onto the roof, arms outstretched in victory. Some 200 yards away, Chad Little, exhausted from his efforts, crawled from his Bayer Ford and headed immediately to the team transporter, looking for fluids.

Labonte captured his second consecutive Busch Series victory-third overall-at Watkins Glen, beating Little to the line by 3.88 seconds.

Ricky Craven brought the DuPont Chevrolet home third, followed by Mike McLaughlin and Jeff Green.

Ever humble, Labonte answered the first post-race question with a simple “thank you.” Then, drink in hand, he got down to the business of explaining yet another triumph at the Glen.

“This was tough one,” said Labonte, who battled back and forth with Little for the lead until solidifying the top spot on lap 48. “Chad gave us a real tough run. Our car just handled good.” Strong at the outset, Little charged from his inside second row starting position to take second and then the lead on lap three when Labonte slowed for what looked like oil on the track.

“On the first lap I thought I saw oil and when I slowed down I motioned to the oil but I guess he thought I was motioning him to go on by,” Labonte said. “I thought, ‘I hope you see what I see.’”

60 Years Ago— 1965

News: The National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing, which recently agreed on uniform stock car racing rules with the United State Auto Club, is now seeking a uniformity of

rules throughout the world.

“We hope to have uniform specifications included in Appendix J of the FIA code,” NASCAR president Bill France said. “The first step toward this goal was taken when NASCAR and USAC reached an agreement on car eligibility rules. This was the most forward step ever taken in stock car racing.

“Our next step is to make these rules international in scope.”

Bill Fleming, executive director of ACCUS, American representative on the FIA, said the NASCAR USAC agreement would “ease our job of gaining worldwide recognition of stock car racing through the FlA.”

He added, “I am certain the manufacturers also will undoubtedly be most pleased to see this major consolidation of rules.”

In 1966, a committee consisting of NASCAR and USAC officials, will categorize the American stock production class according to engine size, wheelbase and body dimensions.

Winners: The Raceway Century, a 100-lap race on Indianapolis’ Raceway Park’s fifth-mile asphalt bowl Sunday went to young Greg Weld of Kansas City, and with it the national point lead on the USAC sprint car circuit.

Weld, driving the Chevy-engined Meadowbrook Water Softener Spl. No. 92, qualified fifth fastest. He took the lead on the 24th lap from Arnie Knepper and lapped the field before it was over. Knepper led from the second through the 23rd lap and Mario Andretti headed the initial circuit and was never worse than third all race despite a smoking engine until the 88th lap when he ran out of fuel.

Carl Williams placed second and Roger McCluskey was third. Al Smith took fourth and Bruce Jacobi fifth.

Three of those who finished in the top 10 made pit stops and the race produced more than its normal share of mechanical problems. Only 10 cars of the starting 22 were around to take the checkered flag.

Don Branson set a one-lap qualifying record of 24.14 seconds.

Source: Speed Sport