Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 28, 1990 TAG: 9005280107
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: MIKE HARRIS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: INDIANAPOLIS LENGTH: Long
The 36-year-old Dutchman outwaited defending champion Emerson Fittipaldi, then ran away from 1986 winner Bobby Rahal over the final 33 laps Sunday in a dazzling display of speed and consistency.
The average speed of 185.984 mph not only shattered Rahal's record of 170.722 set in 1986, it also was the fastest 500-mile Indy-car race ever, breaking the mark of 180.654 set by Danny Sullivan at Michigan in 1988.
Luyendyk needed just 2 hours, 41 minutes, 18.248 seconds to complete the 200 laps.
"I don't care if we were doing 60 miles per hour; we got first place and that's what counts," said Luyendyk, who never led a lap in five previous Indys.
What may have counted just as much, though, were blistering tires that cost Fittipaldi the lead and Rahal the race.
"I had to stop twice to change tires on the green, and that was very disappointing to me," said Fittipaldi, who came within eight laps of leading the entire first half of the race only to finish third behind Rahal. "I lost about two laps. . . . It's just a shame."
Rahal's crew gambled not to change tires because of the blistering and had to fight a handling problem to the end.
"The last set of tires we left on because we were concerned about it . . . and it started pushing badly."
That was all Luyendyk needed to earn his first Indy-car win in the Indy 500. England's Graham Hill was the last to do that in 1966. It took Luyendyk 76 races over seven years to find the winner's circle.
After Brazilian Fittipaldi's victory last year, Luyendyk's win also marked the first time since Jimmy Clark of Scotland in 1965 and Hill the next year that foreign drivers have won America's greatest race in consecutive years.
Luyendyk took second in a road race at Portland, Ore., in 1988 in his best previous Indy-car effort. He was the 1985 rookie of the year when he finished seventh in his only previous top 10 finish at Indy.
"I can't believe this is happening," Luyendyk said in Victory Lane. "It's unbelieveable the way that it happened. Emerson looked really strong.
"This is the biggest race in the world, and I was kind of getting emotional being in the front row, and now . . . "
It was the first front-row start in an oval race for Luyendyk, who outraced both record-setting pole-winner Fittipaldi and three-time race winner Rick Mears, the other two front-row starters, as well as the rest of the 33-car field.
Luyendyk passed Rahal on lap 168 and began to pull away, taking laps at more than 220 mph in his Chevrolet-powered Lola whenever he had a clear track. Rahal had handling problems the last 30 laps and, after getting as close as four-tenths of a second, wound up 10.7 seconds behind as the crowd of more than 400,000 cheered the winner.
Luyendyk is expected to earn a payoff of more than $1 million when the total purse, likely more than $6 million, is announced during the victory banquet tonight.
Fittipaldi finished 41.7 seconds behind, after two unplanned pit stops to change the blistered tires. Al Unser Jr., last year's runner-up, was a lap down in fourth, followed another lap behind by Mears and, five laps down, four-time winner A.J. Foyt. Rookie Eddie Cheever, a veteran of Formula One racing, was seventh in the same car in which Fittipaldi won last year.
The six top finishers drove cars powered by the Chevrolet Indy V8 engine, now in the winning car three straight years.
Luyendyk's chances were enhanced considerably this year when he joined the team owned by Doug Shierson and was able to come to the speedway with a Lola-Chevrolet.
"Sometimes you've got to be patient and wait your turn to get your hands on the right equipment," Luyendyk said.
He also had to be patient to catch Fittipaldi, who virtually owned the first three-quarters of the race in his bid to become the first back-to-back winner since Al Unser in 1970-71.
Fittipaldi set a speedway record by leading the first 92 laps, breaking the mark of 81 at the start of the 1927 race by Frank Lockhart, and ended up leading 128. Rahal led 37 laps and Luyendyk the other 35.
Fittipaldi broke his own one-lap race record of 222.469 mph, hitting 222.574 on the 91st lap, a speed Luyendyk would match to the thousandth of a second on lap 162.
Fittipaldi lost the lead for the first time, to Luyendyk, when he made his first green-flag pit stop. He lead again when Luyendyk pitted three laps later and held it until stopping on lap 118. Rahal moved on top for two laps, then Luyendyk for one lap and Fittipaldi again as the green-flag stops continued.
The next series of routine green-flag stops, for fuel and tires, began with Fittipaldi on lap 135, and Rahal inherited the lead. This time, however, a caution flag upset Fittipaldi's strategy, and he never got back to the lead.
Moments before Rahal's scheduled stop, John Andretti spun, making light contact with the wall. The nephew of 1969 winner Mario Andretti had only a bruised knee, but the yellow flag allowed Rahal to pit and keep the lead.
On lap 152, Fittipaldi, running third, darted into the pits for an unscheduled stop to change a right rear tire with a blister the size of a fist. Goodyear tire engineers said several drivers were having problems with blistering tires because of overinflation, and Fittipaldi and others had air let out of their reserve tires as a precaution.
The race started cleanly, with Mears moving slightly ahead of Fittipaldi as the leaders crossed the starting line. But Fittipaldi darted into the lead by the first turn and began to move away.
The Brazilian began lapping slower traffic by the eighth time around the 2 1/2-mile oval and had built a lead of about nine seconds - better than half a mile - when Sullivan, the 1985 Indy winner, spun and hit the wall on lap 20 between turns one and two. The Penske team said Sullivan had radioed in shortly before the accident that his car had a vibration. Later, it was determined that a wheel bearing had broken.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB