Scorecard

Roger...and Out

Astoundingly, this year's Indianapolis 500 will have no Emerson Fittipaldi, no Al Unser Jr., no Roger Penske. The failure of America's most powerful, best-financed racing team to qualify a car for this Sunday's race constitutes nothing less than the most monumental flop in the history of motor racing. The best thing that can be said for the performance of Team Penske during the two weeks of time trials, which ended on Sunday, is that Penske didn't pull a Dennis Conner by attempting to buy himself a spot in the 500, a shady but perfectly legal ploy.

Fans would have no doubt welcomed such a strategem, if only to get Unser and Fittipaldi, winners of the last two Indys, in the field. And even rival drivers were wondering whether any victory would be cheapened by Team Penske's absence. The shutout was particularly painful for Unser, who became the first defending champion in the 84-year history of Indy to compete unsuccessfully in the time trials the following year. His failure to qualify also marks the first time since 1962 that an Unser has not started the 500.

The cause of the failure, however, lay with Penske, who had successfully entered cars in the last 26 consecutive Indys, winning 10 of them. His troubles began during the first weekend of time trails, May 13-14, with maddening handling problems in his new PC-24 cars. Team Penske was encountering such profound mechanical difficulties that Unser didn't even get a chance to qualify. By last Saturday, Penske had abandoned his own cars and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to rent cars from rival teams. But Penske's drivers and engineers could not adjust to them. Late Sunday afternoon, during the final hour of qualifying, Fittipaldi did temporarily make the field with a four-lap average speed of 224.907 mph but was bumped 40 minutes later when Stefan Johansson averaged 225.547. Unser's final attempt on Sunday was only 224.101.

In the past, team owners who failed to qualify their own cars at Indy have sometimes "bought rides" for their drivers in cars already qualified by others. But Penske declined. "We didn't come prepared," he said. "I've got two of the greatest drivers in the world, and they gave it everything they had. I've got to take the responsibility for not getting a package here that would get us in the race."

Indeed, the man who is so powerful that he is known throughout auto racing as the Captain showed overconfidence by testing his new PC-24 cars only once at Indy before the trials. Rather than spell the end of the Penske reign, his disaster at the Brickyard, most insiders believe, will serve as a resounding wake-up call.

In the Dark
As one of college basketball's most fearless long-range shooters last season, former Oklahoma State guard Randy Rutherford wore the mad bomber label well. Nonetheless, it's a reputation he would do well to confine to the hardwood. During a recent visit to Stillwater City Hall, Rutherford, upset that the electricity in his apartment had been shut off, raged and raged against the dying of his light. "This better be turned on by five," he told a utility department employee. "If you think what they did in Oklahoma City was bad, I'll blow up this whole block." Considering this regrettable remark, for which Rutherford was charged with a misdemeanor and fined $100, we submit this new moniker for him: The Dim Bulb.

Fall Guys
Timing wasn't the only thing that made last week's firings, two hours apart, of Boston Bruin coach Brian Sutter and Boston Celtic coach Chris Ford eerily similar. Both Sutter and Ford won more than expected in the 1994-95 regular season—the Bruins had the NHL's sixth-best record while the Celtics somehow finished eighth in the NBA's Eastern Conference—but bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. Both coaches were brutally honest to the end, refusing to sugarcoat their dismissals and insisting that they went as far as they could with the talent they were given. Both felt they were taking the fall for the lackluster state of their once mighty franchises, and both could have cited the same factors to explain why their teams had fallen on hard times:

•Money. Bruin president Harry Sinden refused to spend it, while Celtic general manager M.L. Carr spent too much and in the wrong places. The Bruins had the league's fourth-lowest payroll; the Celtics blew $11 million on a three-year deal for Dominique Wilkins, who is to rebuilding what snowshoes are to swimming.

•A paucity of scorers. The Bruins maintained a long-standing tradition of believing that one scorer—in this case, Cam Neely—was plenty. In the playoffs the New Jersey Devils effectively shadowed Neely, and no other Bruin took charge. Wilkins was willing to take charge, but the over-the-hill go-to guy averaged only 17.8 points on a .424 shooting percentage.