Brickyard 400 Notebook -- Four-Hour Rain Delay Strains Patience Of Drivers, Fans, TV

INDIANAPOLIS - Gentle raindrops nearly drowned out the roar of the 600-horsepower Winston Cup race cars yesterday.

A steady drizzle, all that was left of Hurricane Erin as it moved into the nation's midsection, delayed the second running of the Brickyard 400 for four hours.

About 300,000 fans, praised as "patient souls" by Indianapolis Motor Speedway track announcer Tom Carnegie, looked for a silver lining in the gray, soggy sky.

"This is my Lower 48 tan. I won't have to go back pale," said Richard Burmeister of Nome, Alaska, dodging the rain and holding out an arm bronzed under long-gone midweek sunshine.

"Are there any umbrellas left?" muffler shop owner Tom Bailey of Naperville, Ill., yelled into a souvenir shop as he stood outside in the drizzle.

Shop manager A.J. Ploughe had barely a dozen of the $22 umbrellas remaining from the 2,000 he started with. "I should have charged $35," he said.

Ploughe's $10 ponchos sold out Friday, when rain washed out the second day of qualifying. "Better luck next year," he said.

The stop-and-go rain left a stream of water washing down the pit lane while an advertising blimp bumped against a 600-foot cloud ceiling in the late morning.

Fans got only a glimpse of the 41 drivers when each dashed out, sheltered by umbrellas, to pose briefly on a makeshift stand and wave to the crowd during pre-race introductions.

"It's a great disappointment to see the clouds and rain," said Jeff Gordon, winner of 1994's inaugural Brickyard 400, the first non-IndyCar race held at the Speedway in more than 80 years.

Six turbine engine blowers on hand to dry the 2 1/2-mile track with 850-degree exhaust sat parked at the south edge of the pits as the scheduled start time came and passed.

"We went out three times Friday," said Jack Finney, a volunteer driver who pulled a blower around the track. "We had it almost dry, and it started raining again."

Finney pulled his blower onto the track during a lull in the showers yesterday an hour after the scheduled start, but the confounding drizzle started up again almost immediately.

"The rain is here to stay for the day," National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Zimmerman predicted, a little too pessimistically as it turned out.

ABC-TV began its race telecast as scheduled, but with no race to show, "We're tap dancing to the gills," an ABC staffer said.

The rainfall by early afternoon, though, was barely deep enough to float a minnow. Only one-third of an inch had fallen at the nearby Indianapolis International Airport by 1 p.m. EST.

Blue skies began drifting over the Speedway at mid-afternoon, and the blowers began winning the battle against the damp track.

Finally, under sunshine and white clouds, Speedway chairman Mari Hulman George said: "Gentlemen, start your engines."

TV coverage upsets fans

RALEIGH - ABC was forced to cancel coverage of the rain-delayed Brickyard 400, prompting a deluge of angry phone calls to its North Carolina affiliates.

At WGHP-TV in High Point, weekend anchor Kent Bates had received so many calls that he opened the station's 6 p.m. newscast with an explanation that the decision not to show the race was made by ABC and not by the station.