TAKING STOCK

When an ESPN-Chilton sports poll reported this week that there was a decline in interest in NASCAR, was it a warning to the powers at Daytona, was it a flawed method of polling, or was it sour grapes?

Dr. Richard Luker, founder of the ESPN-Chilton poll, told the International Sports Summit in New York that a continuing drop in interest for sports in general had caught auto racing and NASCAR in its slide.

“Our figures [for NASCAR] showed 36.5% interest in 1998 and 32.1% in 1999,” Luker said. Overall interest in 12 major sports showed a 3.25% decline.

NASCAR officials rejected the idea from their headquarters in Daytona Beach, Fla.

“Our numbers say otherwise,” said John Griffin, NASCAR’s director of communications. “Attendance was up last year, as it has been every year since 1980. Our TV ratings were up, and they have been every year since 1990. We’re the only sports league that can say that.

“And our retail sales passed $1.2 billion last year. That’s a lot of TV viewers and a lot of NASCAR fans at races.”

George Pyne, vice president for marketing, said that NASCAR’s TV ratings are second only to the NFL’s.

“If more people are watching, it’s hard to say interest is down,” Pyne said. “In our opinion, [interest] is probably at an all-time high.”

Griffin said the polling method used for the ESPN-Chilton was suspect.

“We have had problems with the Chilton group before,” he said. “They tend to group us with all auto racing, wording their questions so that interest in NASCAR and Winston Cup is not separated from other forms, such as CART, IRL and the World of Outlaws.

“Other than NASCAR, it’s true that interest in auto racing is declining, but I would say that part of that is because we are climbing so significantly. Look at the TV contract we just signed. That’s certainly no indication of a slide.”

NASCAR recently signed a $2.4-billion contract for six years with NBC, TBS and Fox to televise their races, starting in 2001.

ESPN, one of the Chilton poll partners, has been the primary outlet for the last 20 seasons and it will produce 16 of this year’s 32 races, but the new NASCAR contract left ESPN out, beginning in 2001.

As an example of Winston Cup domination on TV, the Joyce Julius Sponsors Report shows that 22 of the 25 most lucrative races for corporate exposure value last year were Winston Cup. Of the remaining three, two were Busch Grand Nationals, NASCAR’s secondary circuit.

The lone exception was the Indy Racing League’s Indianapolis 500, which rated third behind the Daytona 500 and the Pepsi 400, both at Daytona.

DRAG RACING

John Force, drag racing’s driver of the decade, added another award to his collection when he received the Jerry Titus Memorial Trophy as the highlight of last Saturday night’s American Auto Racing & Broadcasters Assn. dinner in Long Beach. It was the second time for Force, who won his ninth National Hot Rod Assn. funny car championship last year.

The Titus Award goes to the driver who gets the most votes in AARWBA All-American team balloting. He also won the award in 1996, the year he became drag racing’s first driver of the year.

Force had an interesting New Year’s Eve. He spent it in Miami, where he was grand marshal of a drag race between Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney--which Muldowney won.

“It was the craziest thing you can imagine. That old man [Garlits] hadn’t been in a car for years, but you should have seen the look in his eyes when the cars staged. Watching the both of them, you’d swear they hadn’t lost a thing--unless you check their birth certificates.”

Garlits was 67--he turned 68 on Jan. 14--and Muldowney 59.

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Drivers will be racing for a record $19 million when the Winston Drag Racing season opens Feb. 3-6 at the Pomona Fairplex.

The NHRA increased its share of the purse $1.5 million to nearly $13 million. Combined with the sportsman categories, the total purse is $15.5 million. The rest comes from the Winston series point fund.

SCHMIDT MOVED

Only six days into 2000, almost a month before auto racing begins competition, tragedy struck when Indy Racing League driver Sam Schmidt slammed into the wall while testing at Walt Disney World Speedway.

The crash paralyzed the fun-loving Las Vegas driver from the collarbone down with a spinal fracture, much like actor Christopher Reeve.

Schmidt has been moved from Orlando, Fla., to the Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine Spinal Cord Injury program in St. Louis.

He is breathing with the aid of a respirator, according to Ruthie Culbertson of Treadway Racing, Schmidt’s team.

Schmidt, who scored his only IRL victory in his hometown of Las Vegas last year, was testing for the season-opening Delphi Indy 200 on Jan. 29 at Walt Disney World.

Cards, letters and donations to CARA Charities, IRL Ministries or Speedway Children’s Charities can be sent to Sam Schmidt, c/o Treadway Racing, 6017 W. 71st St., Indianapolis, Ind., 46278.

CART

The dominoes have begun to fall in place in CART. Bryan Herta, dropped from Bobby Rahal’s team at the end of 1999, has signed to drive for Jerry Forsythe’s McDonald’s team, replacing Tony Kanaan, who was released when he received an offer to drive for a new team owned by Mo Nunn, former consultant for Chip Ganassi’s championship Target team.

Herta, winner of the last two Laguna Seca champ car races, rejoins team manager Steve Horne and chief mechanic Steve Ragan, with whom he won the 1993 Indy Lights championship with Horne’s former Tasman Motorsports team. Herta will drive a Swift-Honda package.

Rahal replaced Herta with Indy 500 winner Kenny Brack, who is leaving the IRL and A.J. Foyt to drive a champ car. After taking his first test in a new Reynard-Ford at Miami Homestead Speedway in Florida, Brack said, “The car felt very much like the IRL car at Indy, so that was familiar with me.”

Brack’s lap time of 26.6 seconds was the fastest of five Ford drivers, among them teammate Max Papis.

Papis will get some early seat time when he joins Elliott Forbes-Robinson, James Weaver and team owner Rob Dyson in a Riley & Scott Ford for the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona Feb. 5-6.

Roberto Moreno, last year’s CART super sub, will make his debut in Pat Patrick’s Reynard-Ford in tests this weekend at Laguna Seca. Last season, he drove 13 races as a replacement for injured drivers, eight for Mark Blundell and five for Christian Fittipaldi, and scored points in eight of them. He will be a teammate of Adrian Fernandez.

MOTORCYCLES

Jeremy McGrath will continue his run toward a seventh AMA Supercross championship Saturday night at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. With his

No. 1 challenger, Ezra Lusk, sidelined because of injuries, McGrath was an easy winner on his Chaparral Yamaha of the first two rounds at Anaheim.

The 30th annual El Trial de Espana observed trials, a fund-raiser to send American trials riders to Trial des Nations competition overseas, is scheduled for April 16 at Reed Valley in Aguanga, 25 miles east of Temecula. For the first time, women will benefit from the event as well as men.

El Trial de Espana helped send Bernie Schreiber of La Crescenta to Europe, where in 1978 he became the only American world observed trials champion.

LAST LAPS

Dick Jordan, longtime U.S. Auto Club publicist, has been appointed vice president of news and communications for the Indianapolis-based sanctioning body. . . . Chris Morgan, Irwindale Speedway’s original race director, is returning to the speedway as director of competition after taking a six-month leave of absence to complete his education at UC Santa Barbara. Morgan, 27, replaces Jeff Schrader, who resigned.

The 2000 SCORE Desert Series will get underway this weekend with the Laughlin Desert Challenge, two days of 85-minute sprints along the banks of the Colorado River at Laughlin, Nev. Featured Trophy Trucks will start at noon Saturday and Sunday. The Terrible Herbst Motorsports team from Las Vegas is expected to dominate. Brothers Ed and Tim are defending Trophy Truck champions, and another brother, Troy, has won three consecutive Class 1 championships in a Ford-powered open-wheel Smithbuilt desert race car.