Motor Racing / Tracy Dodds : Riverside Takes On the Look of Baja for Off-Road Program

Riverside International Raceway will, once again, become a little bit of Baja this weekend for the 13th annual Turbo Wash SCORE Off-Road World Championships.

A 1 1/2-mile course of simulated desert has been built around the Turn 6 grandstand and the esses, including 10 turns, jumps and an off-camber run along Thompson Ridge where trucks and cars fight to keep from sliding down an incline while running at top speed.

The surface will vary from smooth pavement to washboard-like hard-packed dirt to mud holes, although there always seems to be more dust than anything else when the cars, trucks, four-wheel drives, motorcycles and three-wheeled ATVs start running.

To make it even crazier, the races will start with an “Oklahoma land rush,” a side-by-side start, similar to the kind used in motocross.

John Clark Gable, for one, thinks that all adds up to one big bundle of fun. Showing none of the suave haughtiness that his father, the late actor Clark Gable, displayed in playing some of his swashbuckling roles, the young Gable is enthused about making his first start on the Riverside track.

Gable, who will be teamed with Bill Holmes driving a Class 8 (full-size pickup) Ford truck, started off-road racing at the end of the 1983 season when he finished fifth in the SCORE Barstow race. Since then, he and Holmes, a former SCORE motorcycle champion, have finished third in the 1984 Baja 1,000 and the 1985 Mint 400.

The Riverside course is unusual in that it’s longer and wider than the tracks that stadium racers are used to, and yet it’s not the wide-open terrain that the cross-country desert racers are used to. It figures to be a free-for-all with both types of riders sharing the course.

But Gable thinks that will be just great.

“I’ve been to races at Riverside, and I’ve always wanted to drive there,” he said.

Frank Arciero Jr., who drives in both stadium and desert races, believes the stadium veterans will have an advantage.

“The desert driver tries to set a tempo, watch out for rocks and other obstacles, with the object being to finish,” Arciero said. “In a stadium race, you have only about 10 to 15 minutes and it’s over. The guys who run only in the desert are just not used to going as hard as the stadium guys.”

Along with such newcomers as Gable, the drivers scheduled to compete at Riverside include all of the veterans.

In the Heavy Metal Challenge for 4,000-pound pickup trucks, the list includes defending champion Rod Hall, Walker Evans and Steve Kelley. In the Nissan Mini-Metal Challenge for mini-pickups will be defending champion Ivan Stewart, Roger Mears, Willie Valdez, Manny Esquerra and Glen Harris.

In the Bilstein Challenge for desert cars, drivers will include Al Arciero, Vince Tjelmeland, Curt LeDuc and Larry Minor, making a rare appearance in something other than a truck.

After practice Friday, racing will start at 11 a.m. Saturday and noon Sunday. The Bilstein Challenge will be run Saturday, with both the Heavy Metal and Mini-Metal races Sunday.

MOTOCROSS--The closest Supercross series in history will conclude Saturday night in the Rose Bowl with Jeff Ward, Broc Glover and Ron Lechien as potential winners of the season’s $100,000 manufacturers’ bonus. Glover, who won the national 500cc outdoor championship on his Yamaha, and Ward, defending Rose Bowl winner on a Kawasaki, are deadlocked with 211 points. Lechien, who rides a Honda, has 213 points. Glover’s Yamaha teammate, Rick Johnson, still with an outside chance of winning with 209. Glover, who also won the 500cc class in 1981 and 1983, is the first three-time winner of the premier championship. Also entered in the Rose Bowl are Johnny O’Mara, last year’s stadium champion; David Bailey, Mark Barnett, Bob Hannah and Goat Breker. The last round of the 11-race Supercross series will start at 6:30 p.m.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Bobby Schwartz, captain of the U.S. team that was narrowly defeated by Denmark in last week’s World Team Cup in Long Beach, will compete tonight at Ascot Park and Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, along with teammates Shawn Moran, Lance King and Sam Ermolenko. . . . U.S. champion Kelly Moran, who missed the World Team Cup because of a broken bone in his foot, will compete next Wednesday night in a U.S. National qualifier at San Bernardino’s Inland Speedway.

SPRINT CARS--Eddie Wirth, Mike Sweeney and Brad Noffsinger will continue their tight battle for Kraco-California Racing Assn. supremacy Saturday night at Ascot Park. Wirth has 1,396 points, Sweeney 1,366 and Noffsinger 1,333. Rip Williams moved into the top 10 with his win last week at Ascot, his first of 1985.

STOCK CARS--Bill Elliott, winner of 9 of 18 NASCAR Winston Cup Grand Nationals, will try his luck in the Winston West series Sunday at the Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Wash. It will be Elliott’s first race in the Northwest, where there is talk of NASCAR eventually holding a Grand National. Jim Robinson, 39, holds a 29-point edge over Hershel McGriff, 55, who won the last Winston West race at Yakima, Wash. . . . Grand National veteran Joe Ruttman will race against Jim Thirkettle and other West Coast drivers Saturday night in an open competition race at Mesa Marine Speedway in Bakersfield. . . . Pro stocks, claimer Figure 8s and bomber ovals will run Sunday night at Ascot Park. . . . Saugus Speedway will hold an Ego Challenge in which drivers can test their skills against the clock Saturday night, in addition to the regular show of modifieds, sportsman and claimer stocks. There is no Friday night race this week at Saugus.

INDY CARS--Mario Andretti, after missing an Indy car race for the first time in his 28-year career because of injuries, will be back in the Beatrice Lola T-900 for Sunday’s Domino Pizza 500 at Pocono Raceway. Andretti suffered a broken right collarbone and a hairline break of the right hip socket in a crash July 28 during the Michigan 500. He underwent a 90-minute operation that night in Indianapolis and returned to his home in Nazareth, Pa., three days later. During Andretti’s absence, Emerson Fittipaldi of Brazil moved into a first-place tie with Andretti in the PPG Indy Car World Series standings, each with 86 points. Al Unser Sr. is a point behind.

MIDGETS--Three-quarter midgets of the National Midget Racing Assn. will race Sunday afternoon at the San Luis Obispo County Fairgrounds in Paso Robles.