For Menard, Indy Is All or Nothing : Auto racing: His year begins--and ends--with the 500. Other races are considered a waste of money.

INDIANAPOLIS —  Strictly speaking, there are no little-guy, shoestring operations anymore at the Indianapolis 500. If you plan to run a racing team here, you had better have deep pockets or, preferably, a lot of sponsors who are willing to spend, spend and spend.

But there are the super teams, exemplified by Penske Racing, Newman-Haas and Galles Racing, and others that run the Indy car circuit from March to October.

Then there is Team Menard, which runs one race a year. This one.

And Team Menard’s lead driver, Gary Bettenhausen, drives one race a year. This one.

Team Menard has never won here and, if it ever does, everyone will be very surprised.

But it would be an error to suggest that Team Menard has not enjoyed a measure of success here.

In 1991, for instance, Bettenhausen was the fastest qualifier, although not the pole-sitter. Last year, Al Unser, in one of the fluorescently painted Menard cars, came close to scoring his fifth victory here, ultimately finishing third, behind his son, Al Jr., and Scott Goodyear. And this year, Team Menard has four cars qualified for Sunday’s race, more than any other team but Dick Simon’s, which has five.

All of this is the work of John Menard, a 51-year-old businessman from Eau Claire, Wis., who doesn’t mind if people think of him as a fun-loving maverick.

“I enjoy this,” he said Friday. “I enjoy the sport of auto racing, and this is the Super Bowl of auto racing. And if you’re only going to run this race, why not be different?”

In real life, Menard runs a Midwestern-states chain of 75 building-supply, home-center stores that make money, presumably, because he is able to indulge his hobby. His racing team, he confesses, does not.

“I break even most of the time,” he said. “One year you might come out a little short, the next year you might come out a little better, depending on the kind of luck you have.

“Sponsors are all-important. That’s what you rely on, sponsorship. The prize money, while it sounds substantial, really is very inconsequential, compared to your total budget--unless you happen to win it.

“We came pretty close last year, and I’d say we have as good a chance of winning it (Sunday) as a lot of other people, and maybe better than some.”

Menard, though, is not as excited about this year’s Lola-Buick package as he has been in previous years. Although the raging engine battle here for the last several years has been between Ford and Chevy, Team Menard has stayed with Buick, even though the factory has folded its development program.

Bettenhausen has said that, whereas in previous years the Buicks seemed to have a power advantage, that has disappeared this year. Menard agrees.

So why did he stick with them when the factory had given up?

“The Buicks looked real strong last year, and Lola had a good development program to refine the ’92 car, and it looked like it would be a good program again for ‘93,” Menard said.

Instead, it has been a bit of a struggle. Menard’s cars--driven by Bettenhausen, former Formula One champion Nelson Piquet of Brazil, sports car champion Geoff Brabham and veteran Eddie Cheever--are in the race, but they have not been among the fastest or most reliable here this month.

“Obviously, this year hasn’t gone as well as we had hoped, either the chassis side of it or the engine side,” Menard said. “The ’92 cars were actually better than the ’93 cars.”

And since there will be no further development of the Buick racing engine, Menard is uncertain about next year.

“That’s something I’m reviewing right now, trying to figure out what to do,” he said.

He went with the Buicks to begin with because they fit in under Indy rules, which are different from the rules for the rest of the season, and he was interested in racing only here.

Even if he switches engines next year, he doubts that he will field a team for the entire season.

“One of the problems that Indy car racing has is that Indianapolis is 90% of the season, with the possible exception of Long Beach,” he said. “The rest of the races just don’t amount to that much. And sponsorship--it’s easier to raise money for Indianapolis than it is for the whole season. And the costs. It would probably cost our team more to go out and run Long Beach than it costs to run Indianapolis.”

So, Menard apparently will remain an Indy kind of owner, looking for some way to have fun, run a competitive team and tweak the Establishment at the same time.

Cheever was a last-minute addition to the team, offered a ride only after he had been bumped from the race in the car he had qualified for another team. And Cheever, in one of last year’s cars, promptly bumped Bobby Rahal, the defending national champion, from the field.

“That was the most fun I had here all month,” Menard said. “That’s what I like about racing here. You can get your business done and still have that kind of fun.”