Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Vasser: Indy opens arms to CART

Brian Hilderbrand's motor sports notebook appears Friday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4089.

There has been speculation that some CART teams had reservations about returning to the Indianapolis 500 this year for fear of the reception they might have received from fans and Indy Racing League officials.

But Las Vegas resident Jimmy Vasser said that has been a non-issue the past two weeks.

"The reception has been fantastic from the fans and the officials," Vasser said after returning to Indy after a four-year absence. "I have worked with (IRL technical director) Phil Casey before, he was my team manager in 1994 with the Hayhoe team and you know, he's just a great guy. He's been real kind and everybody's been real nice."

Vasser and Target/Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Juan Montoya are the only CART regulars competing in Sunday's race, but there is speculation that most of the bigger CART teams will join Ganassi in returning to Indy next year.

Ganassi would not speculate on what his CART colleagues might do next year, but he agreed with Vasser that he and his team have been welcomed at the Brickyard with open arms.

"It's nice to come back here in the respect that I think our team has had a very good reception here from the fans and the officials alike and certainly from the media," he said. "Everyone has treated us ... very well; I couldn't be happier with how we've been treated."

Al Unser Jr., who is in the process of moving to Henderson, said it would be to a CART team's advantage to race at Indy. CART teams and drivers have not competed at Indy since the 1995 CART-IRL split.

"Everybody's trying to get back to the Indy 500 -- all the (CART) drivers, all the crews," Unser said. "The people that aren't is the board (of directors) in CART; those are the people that are not coming back to Indy and why? Who knows why?

"It would be to their advantage no matter how you look at. The sponsors they have on their race cars -- Marlboro, K-Mart, all of these big, major companies -- will benefit from being here at the Indy 500 because it is the largest spectacle in racing and so, for them not to be is a big, bad business decision for the sponsors."

Despite the rift in open-wheel racing, Unser said the Indy 500 remains the biggest race in motor sports.

"To be a sponsor on the winning car at the Indy 500 is huge," Unser said. "It's way bigger than winning Long Beach, I can tell you that and I think ... it's bigger than the U.S. 500 and it's bigger than the Marlboro 500 in Fontana. I mean, you just don't get this anywhere else in the world. It's bigger than a Formula One race and for the sponsors not to be here is bad business for them."

Petty's 19-year-old son, Adam, was killed May 12 at New Hampshire International Speedway when his red-and-blue Sprint Chevy crashed during practice for a Busch Series race.

"Our organization is an extremely close-knit group of people," Petty said. "Our relationship with Sprint is the same way and we've worked hand-in-hand with them to get to this point.

"Right now, the best thing for our team and for Sprint is to work toward getting the No. 45 car back on the racetrack. Racing is our business and has been at Petty Enterprises for more than 50 years. It's important that we get back on the track."

No determination has been made regarding plans for Petty Enterprises' Busch car beyond the Dover race.

Kyle Petty, who has not raced since his son's death, will make his return to Winston Cup in the No. 44 Hot Wheels Pontiac for the race June 4 at Dover. ...

Ray Evernham made it official Thursday, naming 19-year-old Casey Atwood to drive his No. 19 Dodges in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series next season. In 56 NASCAR Busch Series starts, Atwood has two wins, five poles and 13 top-10 finishes. ...

Joe Nemechek was fined $15,000 by NASCAR for rough driving during last weekend's The Winston all-star race at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"I'm not over-confident, but I've got to say I like the way things are going for Team Kool Green at the moment," said Tracy, who owns two wins at each track. "Life is good when you're leading the championship after four rounds, starting fourth this week at Nazareth and heading into Milwaukee as the defending race winner.

"It's no secret I've run as well as anybody at Nazareth over the years and we'll be looking to score some big points there this Saturday. We qualified well last month and we have a good race setup, so it's just a matter of running a smart race."

Tracy qualified fourth for Saturday's Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix back on Apirl 8 but the race, scheduled for the next day, was postponed due to snow.

Montoya said he and Target/Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Jimmy Vasser will have an advantage by running a race (Saturday's CART Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix at Nazareth Speedway) before the Indy 500.

"Everyone from the 500 is just going to be parked just waiting for the race," Montoya said. "By ourselves driving on Saturday, it's going to be an advantage."

Montoya's father, Pablo, will be a commentator for the Indy 500 telecast that will be sent to his native Colombia.

Last year's inaugural Winston Showdown became the first NHRA-sanctioned event to feature Top Fuel dragsters competing against Funny Cars in an elimination format, but featured only one day of eliminations. The 2000 Winston Showdown, the richest single event on the NHRA schedule, will feature a purse of $782,000, an increase of $55,000 over last year's total. The Top Fuel-Funny Car winner will collect $200,000. The event also will feature Pro Stock, Pro Stock Motorcycle and Pro Stock Truck elimination ladders, with the winners of each receiving some of the biggest paydays in NHRA Winston Drag Racing. ...

Cold and rainy weather conditions forced NHRA officials to reschedule eliminations for last Sunday's Matco Tools Spring SuperNationals in Englishtown, N.J., for the weekend of Sept. 8-9.

LVMS will host a racing tripleheader this weekend with drag racing tonight and Saturday night at The Strip and dirt-track racing on the half-mile dirt oval Saturday night.

The weekend begins with Friday Night Drags at The Strip, which includes High School and Import racers competing in eliminations. On Saturday, Pro Star Motorcycles will make an appearance on the quarter-mile with competition in Funny Bike, Pro Stock, Pro Mods, Top Gas, Super Comp, Super Gas, Street E.T. and V-Twin E.T.

Besides the Pro Star Motorcycles, The Strip will host the NHRA Summit Racing E.T. Bracket Racing Series Saturday night. Racing will start at 6 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Saturday.

On the half-mile dirt track, IMCA Late Models, IMCA Modifieds, Legends Cars and Thunder Stox will compete beginning at 7:30 p.m.

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