Crowded at the Top

The CART Series Fed-Ex Cup won’t be the only championship at stake Sunday at California Speedway.

Three drivers, two from the Southland, are separated by five points in the battle for the Dayton Indy Lights series championship going into the season-ending Dayton Indy Lights 100.

Scott Dixon of New Zealand leads with 134 points, followed by Dorricott Racing teammates Townsend Bell of Costa Mesa with 130 and Casey Mears of Bakersfield at 129.

Mears, son of off-road racing legend Roger Mears and nephew of four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears, is already set to enter his family name into the record books again Sunday by becoming the first driver to compete in an Indy Lights race and a CART race on the same day. He will drive a third Reynard-Ford for Bobby Rahal in the Marlboro 500 after wrapping up his quest for the Indy Lights championship Sunday morning.

The Indy Lights cars are 100 pounds lighter and eight inches shorter than CART cars, and use a normally aspirated production engine that puts out 425 horsepower--half that of the turbocharged champ car engines.

Although the Lights are about 35 mph slower than the CART cars, the series’ fastest official race lap of 193.643 mph--set by Mears at California Speedway in 1999--is more than 13 1/2 mph faster than the speedway’s fastest NASCAR Winston Cup race lap of 180.496, set by Jeff Gordon in 1997.

Mears, who finished second to current CART regular Oriol Servia in the 1999 Lights standings after both drivers posted non-scoring finishes at Fontana, is coming off his first Indy Lights victory in 47 starts. He went wire to wire from the pole Oct. 1 at the Texaco/Havoline Grand Prix of Houston, Bell finishing second to clinch the rookie-of-the-year award.

“I knew that we were aiming for the overall championship, maybe if we fell short, we could still win the rookie [award],” Bell said. “There is certainly no reason why we can’t be at the very top at the end of the season, the way things stand right now.”

During the week before he won, Mears tested one of Rahal’s cars at California Speedway and had an on-track audition for Chip Ganassi’s champ car team at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix. Mears said experiencing the faster cars helped.

“Everything slows down a bit when you get back in the Lights car,’ Mears said. “You feel like you’re on top of your game a little bit more.”

At the race before Mears’ Houston victory, Bell won from the pole at the Gateway International Raceway outside St. Louis in the Motorola 300 Sept. 17.

Dixon crashed in both of those races after having picked up his series-leading fifth victory in the Yahoo Sports Monterey Challenge Sept. 10 at Laguna Seca International Raceway, with Mears finishing second.

“There was oil all over the track from [Jonny] Kane’s car and no caution flags were flying in that corner, so we didn’t know there was a problem,” Dixon said of his crash at Houston.

“We just skidded right through and into the tires and each other. Basically my car wasn’t very good to begin with. We were loose all day. It’s too bad that we have to go to Fontana to decide the championship, but we’re up for the challenge.”

Bell believes that the heaviest pressure will be on Dixon.

“A lot of people just assumed that he was going to score a few more points and just automatically lock up the championship, and I think me and my guys and Casey and his guys just had a sort of never-say-die attitude,” Bell said.

“And here we are now, where anybody can win [among] the three of us going into the last race. So I think there is a lot of pressure on Scott to finish, and get points and win because he was certainly the clear-cut favorite a few races ago.

“For me, it is my first year, and I’m just out there trying to get to the front like everybody else, but it is your first year, so there is less expectation there. And that certainly doesn’t mean I’m going to be trying any less, but I just don’t feel a lot of pressure.”

Mears is looking to make the Fontana race his final appearance in an Indy Lights car. He is still awaiting word from Ganassi regarding the 2001 season, and is also considering the Indy Racing League and NASCAR.

“I think, going into the season, I expected to have a couple better races than I did,” Mears said. “All in all, it has been a great season. We are at the top of the championship again and to be here is a big deal.”