Hood and Snider in Ascot Field

Ricky Hood, defending U.S. Auto Club sprint car champion from Memphis, and George (Ziggy) Snider of Bakersfield, a 19-time starter in the Indianapolis 500, head a group of invading drivers who will compete Saturday night in 1985’s opening sprint car race at Ascot Park. It will be a combined USAC/California Racing Assn. 30-lap main event on the half-mile clay oval.

Hood, who missed five months of racing with two broken legs suffered in a pit accident, was impressive in his return to USAC competition when he finished first and second in a pair of USAC/CRA races last weekend at Manzanita Park in Phoenix. Ironically, it was at Manzanita that Hood was injured last October when hit by an out-of-control car while standing in the pits.

Snider, who hopes to challenge for USAC championships in both the dirt track car and sprint car divisions, failed to make the main event in one race and finished 11th in the other. At Ascot, the 44-year-old veteran will be in a different car, a Chevy-powered machine owned by Bill Krug that won last Saturday night’s race at Manzanita when it was driven by Lealand McSpadden of Tempe, Ariz. Snider gets the mount because McSpadden is leaving for a barnstorming tour of Australia.

Snider is leading the USAC dirt car standings after winning the year’s opening race last month at Tampa, Fla. In 1982 he won the USAC Gold Crown championship, and in 1971 he won the dirt car championship. His best finish in 19 races at Indy is eighth, in 1975 and again in 1978.

Other USAC drivers entered include Larry Rice of Brownsburg, Ind., former dirt car and midget champion; Jac Haudenschild of Findlay, Ohio, a winner on the USAC trail last year; and John Andretti, Mario’s nephew from Brownsburg, Ind., who was the 1983 USAC Rookie of the Year in midget cars.

Arrayed against these outsiders will be the usual Kraco-CRA cast headed by two-time defending champion Bubby Jones of Glen Avon, who is winless in four races. Jones was the fastest qualifier in both races last weekend but failed to finish either race. Three-time champion Dean Thompson of Carson, who was runner-up to Jones in both 1984 and 1983, is still doubtful because of a flu infection that has kept him sidelined the past two weeks.

Saturday night’s race is the third in an 11-race series that will match the two organizations in Indiana, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, as well as California and Arizona.

The March 31 Dana 150 at Phoenix International Raceway, opening race of the Indy car season, has been canceled because of deteriorating track conditions on the paved mile oval.

The season will now begin April 14 with the Long Beach Grand Prix.

OFF ROAD RACING--Bob Gordon, veteran single-seater driver from Orange, seeks a rare double Saturday night in round two of Mickey Thompson’s Off-Road Gran Prix at the L.A. County Fairgrounds in Pomona. Gordon is the point leader in unlimited single seaters and is only four points back of Jerry Welchel in the Super 1600 class. Al Arciero, who trails Gordon by 10 points in the unlimited class, is also entered in both races. Only one driver, Glenn Harris of Camarillo, has scored the unlimited buggy-Super 1600 double in a Thompson event. Harris, who won both last year at the Silverdome, is now driving a Mazda in the sport truck class against the Nissan of Roger Mears, the Toyotas of Ivan Stewart and Steve Millen and the Mitsubishi of John Baker.

STOCK CARS--The Sonny Easley Memorial 100, a $25,000 race for open comp cars, is Saturday night at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield. Five-time Mesa Marin track champion Jim Thirkettle, winner of the recent Copper Classic in Phoenix, is favored against a field that includes Jimmy Insolo, Ron Esau, Rick Becker, Mike Chase and Dick Cobb. . . . Saugus Speedway holds a preseason opener Saturday night with factory stockers going in a 150-lap enduro followed by a destruction derby. Starting March 29, Saugus will hold Friday night racing for claimers on the first and third Fridays of each month. . . . Dale Earnhardt’s Wrangler crew set a competition record by changing four tires and adding 14 gallons of gasoline from two refueling cans to his Chevrolet in 28.898 seconds during the Union 76 pit stop contest.

SPORTS CARS--Nissan will field a prototype GTP ZX-Turbo with a modified V-6 engine in the International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GT endurance series. The car, now under construction in Eric Broadley’s Lola factory in England, will be campaigned by Don Devendorf of Electramotive Engineering of El Segundo. Its debut is expected during the Nissan/Times Grand Prix of Endurance on April 28 at Riverside International Raceway.

NEWS WORTHY--The late George Cunningham, former racing writer for the Atlanta Constitution, was posthumously awarded the prestigious Henry T. McLemore Motorsports Press Award for 1984. Cunningham died last Dec. 13. . . . The National Hot Rod Assn.’s Chief Auto Parts Winternationals drag races will be shown Sunday at 4 p.m. on Channel 7.