Scorecard

IMAGE BUILDING

The decision taken last week by the International Lawn Tennis Federation to recognize and promote open tennis is revolutionary and commendable. But ridding tennis of shamateurism is not going to immediately solve all of the sport's problems.

One troop of barnstorming pro players, backed by Texas money and fitted out in razzle-dazzle colors, has been a notable failure. Trouble is, the color has been superficially imposed. What American tennis desperately needs is a tennis hero, an Arnold Palmer or a John Unitas, to evoke a new enthusiasm. It needs the excitement of personal duels and conflicts, the kind that flared for a moment in the Billie Jean King- Nancy Richey grudge match last week (page 83). And sad to say, it probably needs better young athletes—the kind that take up football, baseball and golf because they offer more money. Open tennis is a step toward the revival of the sport, but just a step.

SON OF WHOOSHMOBILE

It happens that sport spectacles often fail to live up to their billing. But if ever a coming event shaped up as a high-winding dandy it is this year's Indianapolis 500. Already, passions are historic, oldtime racing families have been rent asunder and almost everyone involved has a case of mechanical jitters that is not going to get any better before they line up those 33 supercars on Memorial Day.

Consider the subplots: 1) everyone knows that the inimitable Rufus Parnelli Jones showed up in a turbine car last year, led most of the race and scared the carburetors off the piston-engine crowd; 2) then USAC, which sanctions the race, slapped restrictions on turbines. Jones's sponsor, Andy Granatelli, retaliated by suing USAC, and 3) Andy's designer, Ken Wallis, split away and built some turbocars of his own that look a lot like last year's Car 40. Which brought everyone to last week, and guess who showed up at Indy?

There was Colin Chapman with a new STP-Lotus Turbocar, one of five he has built in England for Granatelli, who is not one to let a little old lawsuit stand in the way of racing. The new car is long and wedge-shaped, hung so low that only a bit of exhaust sticks up higher than the wheels. It carries a rear-mounted Pratt & Whitney turbine of unrevealed—but apparently adequate—horsepower. Up stepped ex-world champion and 500 winner Jimmy Clark, who drove a lap ' "right out of the box," as they say at Indy, at 169 mph and later took to flickering down the back straightaway at well over 200 mph. It will go faster, he allowed, when they get it adjusted to the track. Then Chapman crated it up, sent it back to England, and they disappeared, leaving the air full of tension.

As if that were not tantalizing enough. Indy giants A. J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney are toying with brand new turbo-charged Ford engines, blown up to around 900 horsepower and apparently capable of running every bit as fast as the turbines.

All of which sets the stage for the whooshingest 500 ever; certainly the fastest, and clearly the most innovative.

STAMP OF APPROVAL?
Despite their announced intentions to boycott this year's Summer Olympics, at least three African states—Dahomey, Togo and Mauritania—are issuing stamps commemorating the Mexico City Games, this being one way to lick expenses. And Chad, Gabon, Mali, Algeria, Niger and Upper Volta are continuing to market Winter Olympic issues. To date, 50 countries have printed Olympic stamps. Among the most noteworthy are the Winter Games stamps produced by the desert Sheikdom of Sharajah (pop. 5,000) on the Persian Gulf. They depict bobsledders and skiers in action. The gold medal for Grenoble, however, must go to the Himalayan country of Bhutan. It found itself with many copies of an old abominable snowman stamp, so it printed the Olympic symbol across his stomach, and the abominable snowman skis again.