Lazier Trying to Mix Pleasures With the Pain

ORLANDO, Fla. — The pain persists.

You can see it in Buddy Lazier’s face as the Indianapolis 500 winner walks gingerly, hand in hand with fiancee Kara Flinn, through the pits at Walt Disney World Speedway.

It’s still less than a year since he crashed at Phoenix during practice for an Indy Racing League race and shattered his back.

“My back looked like a hard-boiled egg would look if you dropped it on a cement floor,” Lazier says. “It was like it exploded. There were about 40 different fractures that the doctors had to piece back together.”

Lazier was hospitalized for three weeks, yet came back a little more than a month later and won the IRL’s inaugural Indianapolis 500.

“My first priority is to get healthy, marry Kara, and win some more races,” Lazier said Thursday between practice runs for Saturday’s Indy 200 here. “My biggest problem is that although winning the 500 brought me tremendous recognition, I’ve been in such pain that I’m missing the window of opportunity. Every morning I wake up, I wonder if the pain will ever go away. It’s still very difficult to even get out of bed.”

But the first IRL race of the year will be run here Saturday--two races run last summer count in this year’s standings--with 200 laps on a tricky one-mile tri-oval inside the Magic Kingdom, and Lazier is back in Hemelgarn Racing’s purple No. 91, hoping for a good qualifying run today.

However, he will not be in the Reynard-Ford Cosworth in which he set the Disney World track record and won the Indy 500 last year. Instead, he will be in a Nissan Infinity-powered, Italian-built Dallara, one of the new breed of cars being unveiled by IRL founder Tony George as part of his revamping of the Indy 500.

As if Lazier weren’t in enough physical pain, he is also pained over the lack of testing done in his new car. The team’s first four-liter non-turbocharged Nissan engine did not arrive until last Thursday and the car has been on the track only two days.

“Some of the other guys, like Arie [Luyendyk] and Tony Stewart have been testing for 16 to 20 days, but we’ve only had about a day and a half of serious running,” Lazier said. “I’m not complaining about the package, though. It’s looking very good. But we need more time.”

One thing is certain: Neither Lazier nor anyone else will approach his track record of 181.388 mph, made with a turbocharged engine. Speeds are substantially lower with this year’s normally aspirated power plants.

“We only have one engine, so we have to limit our practice laps because if we blew that one, we’d be out of luck,” Lazier said. “But our main push is for the Indy 500 and by the time we get to Indy, we’ll be in good shape.”

Lazier had hoped to run both IRL and CART races this season, but he estimates it will be at least four more months before he can tackle a heavier schedule.

“I’d like to run some road races with a CART team, but right now it’s out of the question,” he said. “The doctors say my back is healing slower than expected because I ran at Indy last year. It definitely set back my rehabilitation. I am still in absolute awe of how we were able to come back from almost being paralyzed to win that race.

“I’m committed to the IRL for a full season. I am with a great team--they gave me the opportunity to race-- and I think Tony George has the right concept with the new IRL rules. But being a racer, I would like to race every chance I get. I drove with CART for seven years so it wouldn’t be like a new experience for me. When I heal up, I’ll do both, if things work out.”

Marriage is imminent for the 29-year-old Colorado driver. When a reporter asked his fiancee how she spelled her last name, Lazier interrupted, “You can spell it L-A-Z-I-E-R pretty soon.”

The two spend their time between homes in Vail, Colo., and the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood.

“Because my back is so sore and so weak, I can’t work out as much as I’d like, but my best therapy is having my fiancee rub my back,” he said, smiling at Kara.

One of racing’s little ironies is that Lazier got the ride with Ron Hemelgarn’s team last year only because of the career-ending accident to Stan Fox on the first lap of the 1995 Indianapolis 500.

NHRA

If last week’s test report is any indication, record performances can be expected when the Chief Auto Parts Winternationals open next Thursday at Pomona Raceway.

Funny car champion John Force unofficially bettered his own elapsed-time record with a 4.867-second run at 294.11 mph in his Pontiac at Firebird Raceway, near Phoenix. Force set the official mark of 4.889 last July at Topeka, Kan.

Among top fuelers, Joe Amato ran 4.613 at 307.16 mph, Cory McClenathan 4.740 at 310.32 mph and rookie Gary Scalzi, driving the late Blaine Johnson’s dragster, did 4.637 at 309.91.

At Gainesville, Fla., pro stock barriers were broken by Troy Coughlin, who became the first to run in the 6.8-second range with a 6.897 run at 199.60, using a Warren Johnson-prepared engine. Johnson had pro stock’s first 200-mph run.

Most of the leading drivers will be at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield this weekend for the Budweiser Warm-Up, a final testing ground for the season opener at Pomona.

CART

Defending champion Jimmy Vasser and former champions Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal will head a task force of 28 drivers in CART’s annual spring training next week at Metro-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex, south of Miami. The 17-race season will open March 2 on the same 1.3-mile oval track.

Penske driver Paul Tracy, after taking the first test laps on the new California Speedway at Fontana, said, “It should make for some great racing in September.” The Marlboro 500 is scheduled Sept. 28, following the Fontana track opener June 22 with Winston Cup stock cars.

NASCAR

John Andretti, in a Ford, posted the fastest speed of Daytona 500 drivers in winter testing that ended Wednesday. Andretti, winless since he switched to NASCAR from Indy cars several years ago, ran 189.458 mph on Jan. 5 during a Ford test.

Second fastest is two-time Daytona winner Sterling Marlin, 188.620 in a Chevy last Wednesday, followed by Rusty Wallace, Ford, 188.446; Dale Earnhardt, Chevy, 188.324; and Greg Sachs, Ford, 188.222. Pole qualifying is Feb. 8.

FORMULA ONE

World champion Damon Hill, who was dumped by car owner Frank Williams before the Grand Prix season was over, took his first laps in the TWR Arrows-Yamaha he will drive this year and said, “It was a bloody good start.” . . . When Nigel Mansell tested a Jordan car at Barcelona, Spain, it fueled rumors that the former world and Indy car champion might return to racing at 43. Mansell says he will stay retired.

Briefly

OFF ROAD--The SCORE desert racing series opens Saturday with the 24th Parker 400 along the banks of the Colorado River, east of Parker, Ariz., featuring the high-tech Trophy Truck class. Defending champion Robby Gordon is not competing this season to concentrate on Winston Cup racing, leaving the class wide open.

Larry Roessler, winner of a record 10 Baja 1000s on a motorcycle, will replace 1996 Class 7 champion Jerry McDonald in the MacPherson Chevrolet truck. McDonald, who retired to become the team’s director of operations, will be available for relief driving.

RALLY--Jimmy Lewis of Costa Mesa, off-road editor of Cycle World magazine, finished fourth in the 19th Total Dekar Rallye, a 5,428-mile African adventure. Lewis, riding a KTM, won the treacherous Kidal-to-Timbuktu leg, considered the most difficult part of the 15-day event that ran from Dakar, Senegal, to Agades, Niger, and back by a different route.

The only other American entry, former world motocross champion Danny LaPorte, was running second early in the event when he crashed and suffered a dislocated shoulder. Stephane Peterhanse of France won for the fifth time, riding a Yamaha.

NECROLOGY--Jud Phillips, crew chief for Bobby Unser when he won the 1968 Indianapolis 500, died Jan. 15 in Vancouver, Wash., after a long illness. Phillips, 69, a longtime resident of Inglewood, also worked on Indy cars for Mario Andretti, Al Unser, Tom Sneva and others in a career that spanned 30 years. He is survived by his wife, Sally, and daughter, Carol.