Riverside Off-Road Races : Mears and Millen Feud Continues

Off-road racing’s version of the Hatfields and the McCoys--the Nissans and Toyotas--renew their high-profile racing feud today in the feature event of the Turbo Wash SCORE World Off-road championships at Riverside International Raceway.

The Mini-Metal Challenge for pickup trucks will be the first meeting of Nissan’s Roger Mears and Sherman Balch with Toyota’s Ivan Stewart and Steve Millen since their Coliseum confrontation a month ago in Mickey Thompson’s Gran Prix.

On that occasion, Mears was allegedly blocked by Millen on the last lap, enabling Stewart to win the prestigious race by a fender length. Millen was fined $1,000 by Thompson.

Hours after the race, after both Stewart and Millen had departed, members of the Nissan crew blocked the Coliseum exit when the Toyota transporter--carrying the trucks driven by Stewart and Millen--was leaving. When Mark Cole, the transporter driver, tooted his air horn, members of Mears’ crew responded by pelting the big semi with beer cans and pounding the sides with sticks and tools.

A member of Mears’ family allegedly struck Cole and inflicted a gash on his elbow that bloodied the inside of the transporter cab.

Mears was fined $250 for his crew’s part in the post-race shenanigans.

Sal Fish, president of SCORE, sanctioning body for today’s program, issued an order that any further incidents would result in disqualification from this event and future SCORE desert races and Thompson stadium events.

The first to feel the wrath of Fish and the Rough Driving Committee was former Superbowl of Motocross champion Marty Tripes, who was suspended Saturday for the remainder of the year for “unsportsmanlike conduct.”

According to Fish, Tripes used “excessive vulgarity and threatened to punch my lights out” after the stadium single-seater race in which Tripes flipped his Funco on the first lap.

“He said he never wanted to race in another SCORE event, and I told him he was going to get his wish, that he was suspended for the rest of the season,” Fish said. “It’s time some of these people grow up.”

Tripes, 29, is leading the Gran Prix points race with one event to go, Sept. 14 at San Bernardino’s Orange Show Speedway.

Frank Arciero Jr., one of the stadium car competitors, said Tripes’ complaint was justified--although perhaps not the manner he used--because the course had been changed after morning practice without the drivers being notified.

“Greg George (the race winner), Bob Gordon and myself all nearly lost it when we hit the change in the course, right where Marty (Tripes) did his endo. He definitely had a legitimate beef.”

Fish said he hoped the suspension of Tripes would serve as a warning to the other racers.

“Our sport is a contact sport, whether it is boulders and trees in the desert or cars on the short course,” he said. “But we can’t tolerate incidents that could be avoided. We believe the competitors, the sponsors and the spectators want these incidents to stop.”

Nevertheless, when the Nissan Mini-Metal Challenge gets under way this afternoon, all eyes will be on Mears and Millen, the Coliseum protagonists. Both said Saturday that they wanted to forget about what happened in the past, and get on with today’s race, but there may be a simmering undercurrent when they come hubcap to hubcap in the 10-lap race over a 1 1/2-mile simulated desert course.

Mears: “The last race at the Coliseum is something I really don’t want to remember. When I’m winning a race and a slower driver blocks me on purpose when I’m lapping him, I don’t consider that racing. I have no beef with Ivan (Stewart). He is one of the best drivers in off-road racing. It’s some of the other drivers who decide that if they can’t win neither can you. I’m just tired of that situation. I’m not going to talk anymore about it because it sounds like sour grapes.”

Millen: “It’s all over now, but I have strong feelings about the fines. I’ll admit, I tried to slow the race down, to create more lapping situations because drivers tend to make more mistakes when lapping cars than any other time. The blue flag, which the officials displayed, does not mean ‘move over’ in off-road racing, like it does in other forms of racing. It means ‘hold your line,’ and that is exactly what I did. There is no way anyone can show that I changed my line. I held the line I was driving right through the corner. I can’t believe that I could be fined four times as much for racing as (Mears was) for starting a fight in the pits. It’s very frustrating to me.”

In Saturday’s feature race, the Bilstein Challenge for desert cars, Tim Kennedy of Phoenix came from far behind to win after Larry Ragland’s car stopped while he was leading on Lap 7.