No Magic Formula for Beating Schumacher

By SHAV GLICK

May 14, 2004 12 AM PT

Formula One’s marquee race, the Monaco Grand Prix, will be run through the ritzy streets of Monte Carlo next week, but it promises to be as boring as the first five F1 races this year -- parades of noncompetitive cars in a futile chase of Michael Schumacher and his red Ferrari.

How bad has it been? After the San Marino GP last month at Imola, Italy, the Associated Press article featured Jenson Button’s second-place finish in the first paragraph and mentioned Schumacher’s winning several paragraphs later, as if it had been a foregone conclusion.

And last week, during the telecast of the Spanish GP, cameras spent much of the latter part of the race on the third-place duel between Renault teammates Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso, rather than focus on the all-alone Ferraris of Schumacher and Rubens Barricello.

A victory at Monaco would move Schumacher to record F1 heights. Besides Schumacher, only Nigel Mansell, in 1992, won five in a row to start a season, and only Jack Brabham in 1960 and Jimmy Clark in 1965 won five in succession in the same year.

Is it possible that the six-time champion could win every race this year?

“I don’t want to have anything to do with such speculation, not only because it is too early, but also because I believe it is totally unrealistic,” the German superstar said on his website. “Racing is unpredictable.”

He also pointed out that Mansell’s streak ended at Monaco.

Faced with accelerating costs and diminishing competition in Formula One, FIA, racing’s international governing body, has proposed wide-ranging rule changes, hoping, as President Max Mosley said, to make racing “closer and more interesting.” He could also have said “cheaper.”

Spiraling costs have caused two teams to fold in the last three years, and a growing lack of interest, as evidenced by falling ticket sales, has cut revenue from sponsors.

The projection calls for the current three-liter V-10 engines to be replaced by 2.4-liter V-8s, with power steering and traction control replaced by manual systems, and a single tire supplier to prevent escalating tire war costs.

Mosley said engine costs for the teams needed to be reduced by 50% from the estimated $1.2 billion a year at present.

That’s all fine and good, but the changes are not expected to be made before 2008. By that time, Schumacher will be sitting at home with his Grand Prix trophies, reading speculation about who will be “the next Schumacher.” And Ferrari still will be the team to beat.

Carmichael Back

After sitting out the entire stadium supercross season because of knee surgery, four-time U.S. motocross champion Ricky Carmichael will be back on his Honda this weekend for the start of the AMA Chevrolet Motocross Championship in the Hangtown Classic at Prairie City Park, east of Sacramento.

For the first time since 1997, the season opener will not be at Glen Helen Raceway, near San Bernardino. The race over Glen Helen’s world-championship hillside course will end the season Sept. 12.

Besides making a comeback from a torn knee ligament, Carmichael will be riding a four-stroke Honda for the first time after riding two-stroke motocross bikes his entire career. It also will be the start of his last season with Honda, after he shocked the motorcycle industry by announcing last month that he would be switching to a Suzuki for next year’s AMA supercross season.

The 5-foot-8 rider from Havana, Fla., won his first two motocross titles in 2000 and ’01 on a Kawasaki and the last two on a Honda. No other rider has won more than three outdoor championships.

“It’s going to be tough, coming back after such a long layoff,” Carmichael said. “But I have been working hard the last couple of months, and I think I am completely recovered.”

Carmichael has won the last two Hangtown Classics.

Carmichael’s main challengers are expected to be Chad Reed, the Australian who won the supercross championship in Carmichael’s absence, and Kevin Windham, the only rider who beat Carmichael in last year’s outdoor season. Another contender might be South African Grant Langston, the 125cc champion who is moving up to the top-of-the-line 250cc class.

One rider not moving up yet is James “Bubba” Stewart, the precocious 18-year-old from Haines City, Fla., who won the 125cc title as a 16-year-old in 2002 but sat out the first four motos last season because of a shoulder injury. He then won the final seven and finished third behind Langston and Ryan Hughes of Temecula.

Stewart is big in England, four stories high in fact. Oakley sunglasses has a huge billboard in East London of the Kawasaki rider -- and he hasn’t even ridden in a 250cc race, the major league of motocross.

Anthony Paggio, Oakley marketing manager, said he believed that Stewart, an African American in a mostly white sport, could be the equivalent of Tiger Woods in golf if he dominates the sport the way most observers believe he will.

Indy Prologue

Robby Gordon, who will try to race in both the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, N.C., on May 30, will get a tuneup of sorts this weekend, on vastly different tracks.

Today, he will practice and qualify for NASCAR’s Nextel Cup race Saturday night on the three-quarter-mile track at Richmond International Raceway, then tonight he will drive his Fruit of the Loom Chevrolet there in the Funai 250 Busch series race. Afterward, he will fly to Indianapolis to qualify for the 500 Saturday morning on the 2.5-mile rectangular oval before returning to Richmond in the afternoon to drive his Cingular Chevrolet in the Chevy American Revolution 400. “It’s going to be a crazy few days,” Gordon said. “At Richmond, there is no time to relax. Generally, you are in for a night of close, intense side-by-side racing, doing about 20-second laps. I once heard somebody say you can crack a can of soda on the backstretch at Indy. I wouldn’t say that exactly, but at times you can really relax a bit, since the straightaways are so long.”

Gordon has never won at Richmond, a fourth-place last year his best finish. At Indy, he has never been on the pole but has been in the front row two of the last three years.

“Two out of three wouldn’t be bad,” he said of winning the two Richmond races and the Indy pole.

Last Laps

Patrick and Nathalie Richard, in a Subaru Impreza, overcame early leaders Leon Styles and John Dillon, in a Mitsubishi Evo, to win the Subaru Rim of the World Rally last week in Angeles National Forest.

Motocross and freestyle motorcycle champion Travis Pastrana finished fourth, paired with Christian Edstrom in a Subaru WRX. Third were Ramana Lagemann and Michael Orr, in an Impreza.

Ventura Racing Assn. will take its sprint car division to Perris Auto Speedway for a main event Saturday night. Steve Ostling of Corona, who won the last VRA event at Perris, will drive Buzz Shoemaker’s Florescent 0 in the 30-lap feature. VRA senior sprinters will be the feature attraction the same night at Ventura Raceway.

Coming off a remarkable weekend, Josh Wise of Riverside will be at Bakersfield Speedway on Saturday night for a 30-lap U.S. Auto Club Western midget car feature on the one-third-mile dirt oval. Last Friday night, Wise won his first national sprint car feature at Memphis Motorsports Park, then flew to Hanford, Calif., where he won a USAC midget race Saturday night.

At Memphis, Wise beat Cory Kruseman, who also flew west and won Saturday night’s USAC/CRA feature at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix.

Official pre-running will begin Saturday for entrants in the 36th Tecate SCORE Baja 500 desert race scheduled for June 5. Teammates Troy Herbst, 37, of Las Vegas, and Larry Roeseler, 47, of Hesperia, will be favored to win their third consecutive overall title. They will split driving duties in the Terrible Herbst Motorsports Ford-Smithbuilt open-wheel desert car.

“Pre-running is what these races in Mexico are all about,” Roeseler said.

“The beauty and the success of racing in Baja is all about practice, practice, practice. By pre-running extensively, we will memorize much of the course and put ourselves in a position to be out front again.”

This Week

*--* NASCAR Chevy Amer. Revolution 400

*--*

* When: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, noon); Saturday, race (FX, 4:30 p.m.).

* Where: Richmond (Va.) International Raceway (tri-oval, .75 miles, 14 degrees banking in turns).

* Race distance: 300 miles, 400 laps.

* 2003 winner: Joe Nemechek.

* Next race: Coca-Cola 600, May 30, Concord, N.C.

*--* NASCAR Busch Funai 250

*--*

* When: Today, race (FX, 5 p.m.).

* Where: Richmond International Raceway.