Racing Briefs: Indy 500 taking part in medical project

Seven drivers in Sunday's Indianapolis 500 will be doing more than simply driving a race car. Each of them will also be taking part in a medical research project.

Scott Goodyear, Roberto Guerrero, Davey Hamilton, Sam Schmidt, Jim Guthrie, Jeff Ward and Buzz Calkins all will be wearing monitors to gauge how their heart rate is affected by the mental and physical stresses of driving at speeds over 200 mph, dodging through highspeed traffic and making pressure-packed pit stops for three hours.

"As drivers begin to show fatigue, their alertness decreases and they don't drive as effectively," said Jeff Champion of Winning Edge Laboratories, the company that will administer the tests.

"By monitoring the heart rate of the drivers, we can accurately measure the physiological stresses placed on them throughout the race," he added. "From this information, we can personalize training programs to address specific weaknesses."

Each monitor is a wireless transmitter encased in a waterproof chest strap containing two electrodes and attached to a watchlike device on the driver's wrist.

The heart rate of each driver will be transmitted to the watch monitor that records and displays it. Immediately following the race, the heart rate information will be downloaded onto a special program using a laptop computer.

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ROLLING ON: Morgan Shepherd, at 56 years old, is not looking for a rocking chair.

Shepherd, who has bounced from ride to ride in recent years, says he's confident he can still drive competitively. His latest ride is in Team Sabco's No. 46 Chevrolet, which started the season with Wally Dallenbach Jr. at the wheel.

But the most attention the four-time race winner has gotten in years came at last month's 50th anniversary party for NASCAR in Hollywood, Calif.

Shepherd took part in a star-studded stage show by putting on a roller-skating exhibition.

"ESPN had called me and asked me if I'd do this thing for the 50th anniversary," Shepherd said. "I told them I'd do it. I got out there on Thursday and got over to the studio and all these Hollywood people were there, and all these professional dancers.

"I was wondering what I got myself into. I had never got up on stage in front of an audience, and now the whole world is going to be watching. I was really nervous. All I wanted to do was get up there and not fall in front of the whole world and be embarrassed."

Shepherd danced to the Beach Boys' "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" and brought down the house.

"The little old lady was a guy," he said. "I went out and went around and around and did my own thing a little bit. Then I went out and the girls followed me around. I wiggled around a little big more and then went off stage."

Shepherd, who turned to religion at 33 after a wild youth, took up skating "because I needed somewhere to go that was more family oriented."

"Skating gives you a real good workout," he said. "A lot of people don't realize it, but they say one hard song of dancing is like a football player playing a whole game. This is my workout, how I get my exercise, and it's a fun way of doing it."

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SCORING BIG: If anybody needs proof that the competition in CART's FedEx Championship Series is fierce this season, all they have to do is look at the points distribution from the first five races.

The top 11 finishers in each CART race score points, and so far 26 of the 33 drivers who have raced have scored at least one point this season.

That's the most since 1995, when 27 of 33 scored during the first five events. Nineteen of 30 earned points in the first five races last year.

The 19-race open-wheel series continues Saturday at Madison, Ill., with the Motorola 300.

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GETTING THERE: Jeremy Mayfield is 28 years old and leading the Winston Cup points going into Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In his fifth season of Winston Cup racing, the youngster from Owensboro, Ky., has come a long way in a short time.

"I think it's a lot about desire and determination," Mayfield said. "If I had to give any young racer advice, I would say, 'You've got to make things happen.' You can't sit around at your local short track waiting for someone to come and give you a ride.

"You've got to get out and take chances and move to a different part of the United States or wherever it takes to make it. To do that, you've got to be determined that you're going to do it and know what you want and not let anything stand in your way."

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TOOL MAN: Rusty Wallace knows something about racing, and the 1989 Winston Cup champion says TV funny man Tim Allen could have made a living in the stock car sport.

Wallace and Allen, who stars in the weekly sitcom "Home Improvement" as Tim "Tool Man" Taylor, made a video that was shown during last month's ESPN's NASCAR Hollywood special.

"He's a cool guy, kind of cocky and sure of himself," Wallace said. "We hit it off from the start.

"The theme of the video had us talk about racing, with me giving him some pointers. Then we had race cars to drive around the track. I had one of our Miller Lite show cars and he had one of the driving school cars all painted up with "Home Improvement" on it.

"I'll tell you what, Tim Allen didn't need any pointers when it came to driving that car. He's pretty good at the wheel. Had he chosen to be a racer, I think he could have been successful from what I saw.

"But, I guess since Tim is raking in $1.2 million per episode, you could say that he made the right decision with his career."

Allen has done some racing with the Sports Car Club of America, including a few professional events.

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