Indy-fatigable Stewart, Gordon Are Planning a Hectic Weekend

The usual cast of Indy Racing League drivers will line up at Indianapolis Motor Speedway today--with two notable “invaders,” Tony Stewart from NASCAR’s Winston Cup and Robby Gordon from CART’s champ car series--in hopes of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 May 30.

Neither Stewart nor Gordon is a newcomer to the Indy 500, but each also has another race next weekend. Gordon will be in Madison, Ill., near St. Louis, the day before the 500 to drive in CART’s Motorola 300 at Gateway Raceway. Stewart will fly from here to Charlotte, N.C., after the 500 to race in the Coca-Cola 600 the same night.

Gordon’s cars, a Reynard-Toyota in CART and a G Force-Aurora at Indy, are similar, both open-wheel, open-cockpit racing machines.

Stewart, on the other hand, will jump from an open-wheel Dallara-Aurora in the afternoon to a Pontiac stock car in the evening.

“I think a race car driver is a race car driver and a good driver can drive anything,” Stewart said when asked how difficult it would be to switch. “Once you leave pit road, you remember which car you’re in.”

Greg Ray, surprise front-row qualifier last year, has taken over the favorite’s role for the pole dash today. The Texas driver, who replaced Stewart on John Menard’s team after driving last year with the low-budget Thomas Knapp team, had the week’s fastest speed of 227.192 mph on Thursday, then came back Friday with the day’s fastest, 227.175.

Stewart, who grew up a few miles from here in Columbus, Ind., drove in the IRL for its first three seasons before moving to NASCAR to drive for former NFL football coach Joe Gibbs. He won the IRL championship in 1997 and led the Indy 500 all three times he ran, but his best finish was a fifth in 1997.

“I’m going to make one wish before blowing out the candles today and that’s to win the Indy 500,” Stewart said Thursday on his 28th birthday. “Mom made a cake that’s shaped like the No. 22 Home Depot Indy car and we’re all going to have a little celebration in the garage.

“Being a young race car driver who grew up in Indiana, it isn’t hard for most people to understand when I say that this is the single most important race to me. If I could guarantee a win at any race in the world, I’d pick the Indy 500.

“Winning Indy has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. I think I’ve got my best shot this time. [Crew chief] Larry Curry and I have been practicing downing our milk for a month now.”

The Indy 500 winner traditionally drinks a slug of milk in Victory Lane, a swallow worth about $10,000.

Gordon, although he has had problems getting his car up to speed in practice, said he has similar thoughts, even though he grew up in Orange.

“I’m hoping our month of May ends with a wreath around my neck, a bottle of milk in one hand, and the Borg-Warner Trophy in the other,” he said. “That’d be a dream come true, wouldn’t it?”

After seven in-and-out seasons in CART, plus an aborted season in Winston Cup, Gordon formed his own team this year, with Mike Held and IRL team owner Menard, to run the CART schedule and the Indy 500.

At 30, Gordon is the youngest team owner in CART history, and now that Bobby Rahal has retired, the only owner-driver in the series.

“I’ve been running my own off-road teams since I was 15, so being an owner, even of such a major project as CART and Indy, is not new to me,” said Gordon, who won four of seven events in SCORE’s off-road series last year. “I may be on the books as the owner, but when I’m sitting in the car, I’m a hired gun. Even if I’m the guy doing the hiring.

“I’ll be running both those cars like I stole ‘em.”

Menard, who runs a Midwestern chain of lumber-home improvement stores, is part of Gordon’s operation, but if he had his way, he’d also still have Stewart driving for him. Stewart drove for Menard during his three years in IRL and Menard expected him to drive for him here.

However, part of Stewart’s contract with Gibbs was to drive for him at Indy if the car had a sponsor. When Stewart did so well with his orange and white Home Depot stock car, sitting on the front row at the Daytona 500, the company said it would sponsor Stewart at Indianapolis too.

Menard, whose stores are Home Depot rivals, sued for breach of contract and got a restraining order preventing Stewart from driving for Gibbs. However, a judge in Menard’s hometown, Eau Claire, Wis., later ruled that the contract between Menard and Stewart was not clear enough to prevent Stewart from driving for someone else.

Curry, Stewart’s crew chief with Menard, also jumped ship and is Stewart’s partner in the Indy 500 project.

“Tony just might get his wish this year,” Curry said of his driver’s 500 hopes. “I just think he’s got that natural, God-given talent. Everything he sits in, he’s competitive. He is a unique talent, really incredible.”

Together, Stewart and Curry won three races, nine poles and had 10 top-five finishes in their three IRL years.

Before that, Stewart, in 1995, became the only driver to have won three U.S. Auto Club major division championships--midget, sprint and Silver Crown--in the same year.

He moved to NASCAR this year and after 11 Winston Cup races is seventh in points.

“Winston Cup is a whole new ballgame when it comes to the physical requirements on the driver,” he said. “I went from running 1,500-pound open-cockpit Indy cars a dozen times a year to racing 3,400-pound stock cars every weekend. The biggest adjustment has been the heat. It really gets hot in a Cup car and the heat takes a lot out of you.”

Gibbs, taking a page from his NFL play book, set up a training regimen for Stewart that was totally different from anything the driver had done before.

One exercise was to ride a stationary bike inside the sauna at Gibbs Racing headquarters in Huntersville, N.C., to simulate 110-degree racing conditions. Stewart, complete with helmet, slowly worked his way up from 15 minutes at a time to an hour in the makeshift cockpit.

“I thought he was crazy at first but it’s really worked to improve my stamina,” Stewart said. “I feel stronger and more alert throughout a race and I’m definitely not as drained afterwards. The strength training has helped, too. I’m not wrestling with the car as much and it’s helped my reflexes.”

Stewart will be the third driver to try the Indy-Charlotte one-day double of 1,100 racing miles. John Andretti did it in 1994, but after finishing Indy, he crashed on Lap 220 at Charlotte. Gordon trained for an attempt in 1997, but the effort was halted by rain at Indianapolis.

“One of the first things I did after deciding to run Indy is to get with John Andretti,” Stewart said. “I wanted to know how he approached it because he came close to actually doing it.

“I’ll be racing to win so there’s even more reason for me to prepare myself both mentally and physically. I’ve got to keep a level head and I’ve got to make sure my body holds up. I’ll lose a lot of fluid the week leading up to the two races because of my schedule and all of the travel, but I’m trying to get as fit as possible beforehand. My trainer has me loaded up on carbohydrates with two weeks to go to help with my endurance.”

Stewart will try to qualify today for the Indy 500, then fly to Charlotte to race in the Winston Open on Saturday night in hopes of earning a position in Sunday’s the Winston, a NASCAR non-points race.

If he fails to make the Winston, he will be here Sunday to practice, then fly back to Charlotte Monday, where he will try to qualify Wednesday for the Coca-Cola 600. On Thursday he will be back at Indy for Carburetion Day, but will return to Charlotte for night practice Friday and Saturday.

After that, he will return to Indianapolis late Saturday night and be at the Speedway on Sunday for the 500. If he finishes the race, it will be a helicopter ride to the Indianapolis airport, a jet to Charlotte and another helicopter ride to Lowe’s Speedway.

“Now you can see why Joe [Gibbs] wanted me in shape,” he said with a laugh, after outlining the schedule.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Indy Qualifying

* When: Today (pole day), Sunday (bump day).

* Where: Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

* TV: Today, 9 a.m. ESPN, 1 p.m. Channel 7, 3 p.m. ESPN2; Sunday, 9 a.m. ESPN2, 1 p.m. Channel 7, 3 p.m. ESPN.

* Procedure: Fastest of today’s qualifiers--average speed for four laps on 2.5-mile track--wins pole position for race May 30. Other drivers fall in according to speeds. Sunday’s qualifiers fall in behind today’s, again according to speeds, until 33-car field is filled. Drivers who have not yet qualified may then try to “bump” slower qualifiers by posting faster speeds.