Notebook : Andretti Likes to Drive on Road-Race Circuits

Mario Andretti says he prefers road courses like Long Beach to oval tracks because of “the atmosphere (and) so much more color. At Indy it’s just a blur.

“(At a road course) it seems like everybody’s participating. You just feel they’re there.

“Sometimes, going into a turn, you’re facing the grandstand. You make a pass you’ve been working on and you see the (crowd’s) reaction right away. It’s quite exhilarating.”

Add Andretti: He prefers to have the first slot on pit row, but this time Roberto Guerrero beat him out of it.

Priority is based on qualifying at the previous race--in this case, Phoenix last week.

Guerrero, sitting on the pit wall, indicated how the choice is particularly important at Long Beach, where the drivers must negotiate a quick right-left turn to enter pit row on Shoreline Drive.

“Being first, you get a clear entry into your pit, without having to cut in between other pits,” Guerrero said, “and since you have to slow down for that turn, you just stop here instead of having to speed up again to reach your pit. Then you can accelerate all the way out.”

By that theory, Andretti got the next best pit. He’s right next door to Guerrero.

Several CART drivers are graduates of the Super Vee series, to be featured this morning before the main event.

One is Scott Atchison, who won the ’87 event. The next may be Ken Murillo of Sonoma, who surprised the field--especially himself--when he won the season opener at Phoenix last week.

“Phoenix was my first time in a Super Vee and my first time on an oval,” said Murillo, 22. “I was just hoping to run up front at my own pace. Then I found myself in the lead, and then an accident behind me eliminated some of the competition, and there I was.”

John Clagett, the Sports Car Club of America’s director of media relations, said, “It was pretty unbelievable. (Murillo) may be a new Scott Pruett.”

For Scott Pruett, driving in Saturday’s Trans-Am and today’s CART race is a demanding double, but not his most demanding.

Once he drove in different events at different tracks on the same day .

“I drove the IROC race in Michigan at 12 o’clock, and chartered two helicopters and a Lear and flew to Hartford (Conn.) to run the Trans-Am at Lime Rock at 4 that afternoon,” Pruett said. “I arrived with about five minutes to go. (The crew) was very nervous.”

But Pruett placed fourth at Michigan and second at Lime Rock.

This weekend Pruett has been jumping back and forth from the Trans-Am sedan to the open-cockpit Indy car, sorting out the different characteristics of the cars.

“All the driving lines are pretty much the same,” he said. “It’s just a matter of (different) braking points.”

Paul Radisich of Auckland, New Zealand, qualified first for this morning’s Super Vee race. With 38 cars entered, he expects traffic to be a problem.

“The (37-lap) race will be OK for probably 6 or 7 laps,” Radisich said.

Radisich, 24, will be driving in only his fifth Super Vee race. He won at Detroit last year and finished second twice, including at Long Beach behind two-time winner Steve Bren of Newport Beach, who is not entered.

Radisich is aware that auto racing isn’t his country’s primary sports focus right now.

“We’ve got a great boat,” he said.

Porsche driver Teo Fabi, who commuted from his home in Italy when he raced the Indy car circuit in 1983, is staying in the United States this season, and with the time he’s saving, he is learning to fly a helicopter.

“I wanted to fly a jet fighter,” he said, “but this would take too much time in the military. So I chose helicopters instead. It is very challenging. It is like driving the race car in that you must be precise with the controls.”

Fabi, his wife, Gloria, and 4-year-old son, Stefano, are living near the Holbert Racing headquarters in Warrington, Pa.