Riverside Off-Road Race : Roger Mears at a Loss For Power Steering as Stewart Wins Easily

The long-awaited mini-truck off-road race between Roger Mears and Ivan Stewart ended abruptly Sunday when Mears lost the power steering on the second lap and Stewart cruised to an easy win in the Mini Metal Challenge at dusty Riverside International Raceway.

The 10-lap race, the feature event of the 13th annual SCORE Off-Road World Championships, turned into a Toyota parade after Mears’ Nissan dropped out. For the third straight year, Toyotas finished 1-2 as Frank Arciero Jr., making his first start for the Japanese manufacturers’ team, ended up second, about 30 seconds back of Stewart.

A third Toyota driver, Steve Millen--who was second to Stewart in 1983 and 1984--was running second when an electrical switch failed on lap 6.

Another off-road veteran, Walker Evans of Riverside, was an easy winner in the Heavy Metal Challenge for heavyweight trucks after Curt LeDuc flipped end-over-end on the seventh lap after leading for the first six laps.

LeDuc, a Massachusetts driver who hopes to move to California to compete in four-wheel-drive trucks, had just lost the lead to Evans and was trying to catch up in the rough part of the course when his truck started catapulting down the track. LeDuc was unhurt, but his hopes of catching Evans were over.

The tight race between Evans and LeDuc stole the spotlight from the Mini Metal, which lost its luster when Mears dropped out.

“It was the same problem that’s plagued us for three years, the power steering,” Mears explained. “It happened after the long straightaway on the first lap. By the time I got off the asphalt and into the big jumps on the second lap, I couldn’t turn the wheel. The way it was set up, two men, a small boy and God couldn’t have turned it.”

The result of the loss of power steering was that Mears went about seven feet in the air over a jump and the 2,550-pound truck landed sideways.

“When it landed, it jerked the wheel out of my hand,” Mears said. “I knew I was helpless then, so there was nothing I could do but park it.”

Mears had won 19 off-road championships at Riverside from 1974 to 1983, but has been shutout the past two years.

Stewart’s win was the sixth at Riverside for the 40-year-old, 6-foot 1-inch Ironman of off-roading from Lakeside, near San Diego.

Glenn Harris of Camarillo came out of the Oklahoma landrush start in the lead, but was quickly passed by Mears in the rough moguls at the south end of the 1.5-mile course.

Harris dropped out with a broken driveshaft. “Maybe I broke it getting off the line so hard,” he said.

Stewart took over almost exactly a lap later when Mears slowed and turned off the track.

“When I saw the way Roger went over some of those high jumps, I knew he couldn’t keep doing that and finish. He seemed to be running a little harder than he should. This isn’t stadium racing, this terrain is too rough for that kind of driving.

“I couldn’t figure out where everyone went. Millen came up alongside me once when I missed a shift, and then he disappeared. I kept looking for Harris, too. I felt all alone out there. The truck ran perfect every lap. I’m proud of that because my son, Brian, who is 21, is my chief mechanic.”

Mears, who often drove inferior equipment while attempting to carve a career in Indy cars, said it felt worse losing while driving first-class equipment.

“This hurts worse because I knew we had the field covered if we could have kept running,” he said. “It’s disheartening to lose when you’re driving the best available machinery. It feels like we keep giving it away, instead of having someone take it from us.”

Stewart and Mears will meet next in the Frontier 500, a desert race from Las Vegas to Gabbs, Nev., and back--about 650 miles. Then comes the final showdown in Mickey Thompson’s Gran Prix, Sept. 14 at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. The two are deadlocked in Gran Prix points and this will be the season’s final race.

Evans’ win was his 11th since Baja-style came to Riverside’s closed course in 1973. The 46-year-old drove a Dodge 150 built in his own shop. It was the truck’s second race.

Veteran Bob Gordon, a feed company executive from Orange who has been racing for 10 years at Riverside without a win, finally got the checkered flag in the Bosch Bash for 1650cc stadium single-seaters.

“It looked closer because I backed off a little to make sure the car wouldn’t break,” Gordon said. “I should have won Saturday (in an unlimited stadium car race), but the shocks went out and we had to settle for second place. Riverside has been bad luck for me. Hopefully I broke the jinx.”