Indy Starter Waves the Flag for Ascot

INDIANAPOLIS —  Parnelli Jones, Rodger Ward, Sam Hanks, Johnnie Parsons and many other Indianapolis 500 champions and challengers used Ascot Park as a springboard to their success at the Speedway.

Ascot, the legendary half-mile dirt track in Gardena, closed in 1992 but one of its “graduates,” Bryan Howard, will be one of the most prominent players in Sunday’s 84th Indy 500.

Howard, 38, isn’t one of the 33 drivers, nor one of the car owners, but he will be in the spotlight as chief starter. It is Howard who will wave the green flag to start the race, yellow flags to signal caution on the track, and the checkered flag to the winner.

Howard, who follows in the tradition of Indy flag-waving favorites such as Pat Vidan and Duane Sweeney, will be starting the 500 for the fourth time. Vidan, who had a flamboyant style and did the job from down on the track, handled the flags from 1962 to 1979. When Sweeney took over, he stood in a platform above the track on the start-finish line, as will Howard.

“Racing is something I’ve been around all my life,” said Howard, whose father, the late Chuck Howard, built sprint cars for drivers such as Lee James, Hal Minyard and Clark Templeman, all prominent at Ascot in the 1970s. “I used to hang around the pits with my dad, but I never had any desire to drive race cars. I used to watch the starter wave those colorful flags and that looked like fun. It was just something that appealed to me.”

When Howard was 17, he worked as an assistant starter to Steve Vodden during the summer for midget races at Ascot. The next year he started flagging sprint car races.

“The first year I was doing it, I would get knots in my stomach on the way to the track each week,” he said. “Ascot’s history was just about as great as you could get for short tracks. It was almost like being at Indianapolis in terms of prestige.”

In 1986, Howard became chief starter for the California Racing Assn. and three years later left to do the same job for USAC Western States events, a position he held for 10 years. When the Indy Racing League was formed in 1996, John Capels, USAC president, asked Howard if he would like to flag some of the events.

“It didn’t take me two seconds to say yes,” he recalled. At first he was an assistant to Sweeney, but when Sweeney retired, Howard took over from the man he called his idol.

Howard does most of his flag work in Southern California at USAC events. He was there the final night at Ascot when Stan Fox won the 1992 Thanksgiving night race, and he was there opening night at Irwindale Speedway last year.

Between races, Howard is an engineer with Boeing Aircraft in Long Beach.

SAME OLD ANDY

All you need to know about Andy Granatelli is that he titled his autobiography, “They Call Me Mister 500,” and he never drove in the 500.

In his only trip to the Speedway as a driver, in 1946, he called himself Antonio the Great, claiming he was an Italian rocket car driver. In reality, he owned a small garage in Chicago. His Indy career ended when he crashed into the Turn 2 guardrail during practice.

Still, when legends of the Speedway were honored this week, along with driving champions Emerson Fittipaldi, Duke Nalon, Rick Mears, Joe Leonard and Mario Andretti, there was Granatelli.

It’s a worthy honor.

Granatelli, all 300 pounds of him, ran ear-splitting Novis and silent turbine “Whooshmobiles,” kissed Mario Andretti in the winner’s circle and made STP such a familiar name that when Neil Armstrong was about to walk on the moon, it was rumored the first thing he might see would be an STP sticker.

Granatelli isn’t hustling STP these days, but at 77 he hasn’t shown any signs of slowing. He lives in Montecito, an upscale Santa Barbara suburb, with Dolly, his wife of 43 years, where he spends his time in charity work, fund-raising and making motivational speeches. He is also a director of the Santa Barbara sheriff’s department and on the advisory board of the Boys & Girls Club of America.

“This is my 54th year here and it brings tears to my eyes to see so many old friends who remember me,” he said. “I’m very pleased with the way Tony George is putting money back into the track and making improvements. It’s a far cry from when I first came here in 1946 and the track was all brick, grass was growing up in the corners and the wooden grandstands were a shambles.”

Granatelli praised George for starting the IRL, but said the split with CART was hurting both sides. He also said one problem was that there was not enough innovation these days, which, of course, was his trademark.

“One of the reasons why the grandstands are not full right now is because there is no innovation,” he said. “You can’t have just one engine like they do now and expect people to like what they see. What’s an Aurora anyway? And don’t talk about Infiniti, because who owns an Infiniti? Six people [actually, two will be in the 500].”

Age plays funny tricks on your mind, though. Granatelli has forgotten that Indy was a one-engine track for many years. Four times, in 1954, ‘55, ’59 and ‘60, there were 33 Offy engines in the race. As recently as 1983, there were 32 Cosworths and one Chevrolet.

Granatelli was asked who he believed was the greatest driver at Indy. He didn’t hesitate in naming Andretti, who drove Granatelli’s Brawner-Hawk to Victory Lane in 1969 where he was rewarded with an old-fashioned Italian smooch.

“The truth was I was whispering in his ear to tell the TV interviewer that he won because our car had more STP in it than the others,” said the ultimate huckster.

SOUTHLAND SCENE

Memorial Day weekend at short tracks around the country almost always means a “Salute to Indy” Saturday night program.

Irwindale Speedway and Perris Auto Speedway are no different. Both will present top-of-the-line shows for fans who want to get in the mood for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

Irwindale will have four NASCAR stock car main events, climaxed by twin 50-lap races for the Food 4 Less super late models. Points leader Greg Voigt of Goleta will be attempting to fend off 19-year-old Ben Walker of North Hills in the two races.

When Walker won last week he took Irwindale’s first “reverse victory lap” in which he drove around the track in the opposite direction. “It was something I wanted to do for Adam Petty because his loss really touched me and we were both the same age,” Walker said. Petty died of injuries from a crash in practice at Loudon, N.H.

Also on the card are main events for super stocks and mini-stocks.

Perris will host Sprint Car Racing Assn. cars in a 50-lap main event in which Troy Rutherford of Ojai is defending champion. But the favorite will be Richard Griffin, the “Gas Man” from Silver City, N.M., who has won five of 12 sprint car feature races, including last week’s at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix.

LAST LAPS

Jay Drake of Val Verde has won two of the three big events of U.S. Auto Club midget racing, the Turkey Night Grand Prix and the 4-Crown Nationals at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. Saturday night he is going for the other, the Night Before the 500 at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Drake leads Dave Darland, USAC sprint car champion, 107-96.

Kenny Brack is the defending Indy 500 champion and he will be racing this weekend--but not at Indy. He will be in Nazareth, Pa., Saturday where CART will hold a race postponed from April because of snow. He will drive the Shell Ford Reynard for car owner Bobby Rahal, himself a former 500 winner. “I feel bad for Kenny, I know how much he would like to race there,” Rahal said, “but our sponsors felt it was a necessity for us to concentrate on winning the CART championship.”