Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Ruben Garcia Gets Things Done

Ruben Garcia of South El Monte is a man with a penchant for accomplishing things in a hurry.

In 1970, just back from Vietnam, he got a job as a warehouseman in a motor-home factory for $2.50 an hour. Today, at 39, he is president of R&R; Custom Coachworks, Inc., in South El Monte, where he did a $32-million business last year selling Suncrest Motorhomes.

In 1984, after having not raced for five years--and only occasionally before that--Garcia decided to enter NASCAR’s Winston West Grand National stock car series.

He finished second to Derrike Cope of Spanaway, Wash., in Rookie-of-the-Year standings, and this year, he won his first race, June 8 at Mesa Marin Speedway in Bakersfield.

Now, with three races left, Garcia is third in the standings, behind veterans Jim Robinson of North Hollywood, the defending series champion, and Hershel McGriff of Bridal Veil, Ore., who won his first race before Garcia was born.

The race Garcia won was sponsored by the company he owns. This Sunday afternoon, at Willow Springs Raceway, a 2.5-mile road course about 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, his company is sponsoring another 200-kilometer race with a $37,290 purse.

“There would be no race at Willow Springs this year if I hadn’t got my group together to put it on,” Garcia said. “There were only 1,900 paid at Willow Springs last year, but I felt the race was important enough to save.

“The public is not aware of Willow Springs, which makes it difficult to obtain a sponsor, but it is probably the finest road-racing course for spectators on the West Coast. And I keep hearing about how far away it is, but it’s not more than a half-hour farther than Riverside, and no one thinks twice about going there for a race.”

Garcia, the promoter-sponsor-driver, would like to win his own race again.

“We have an ’85 Chevy Monte Carlo with a chassis built by Ivan Baldwin that I think is the best in the West,” he said. “I hope to get the pole Saturday, but McGriff is so tough. He’s such a great qualifier, and that has never been my strong point. But I think I can do it. I have a positive attitude about the race Sunday. I know I am capable of winning.”

Garcia did not think that way before his surprising win at Mesa Marin, a half-mile banked, paved oval.

“Before the first race this year I had a talk with myself,” Garcia said. “I said: ‘Ruben, can you really become as good a race driver as Hershel McGriff or Jim Robinson or Jim Bown?’ And the answer was no. I hadn’t reached the stage where I felt that I belonged. Then a strange thing happened, maybe at Mesa Marin, maybe before. I learned to be part of the machine. It was a feeling that was alien to me before this year.”

Three things stand out when Garcia recalls win No. 1.

“When I passed Hershel McGriff that night, I was so overcome that I had tears in my eyes,” Garcia said. “I had never passed a race driver of his caliber before.

“I had been following him for about 40 laps. We were both running fast, and I figured I would just follow him home and finish second. I’d never been better than fourth in my life before.

“I was happy about running second when I realized how easy I was sticking with him. Suddenly, I thought: ‘Hey, I can get by.’ I tried it once, and he shut the door on me, but the next lap I tried it again and got to the front.

“There were still 60 laps to go, and I was hanging on every lap. Jim Bown and Hershel kept the pressure on me all the way. Several times, I thought Bown was going to pass me. I didn’t know it, but he was a lap down.

“I got so tired that I told (crew chief) Ron Esau on the radio that I didn’t know if I could make it or not. You should have heard Ron. He said, ‘You can’t be tired. You’re going to win this race.’

“The fans were going crazy when Bown and I were going at it the last 20 laps. I think it was because we ran such different lines. Bown ran the regular oval-track line, but all my training had been on road courses, so I ran a totally different line. I was breaking earlier, setting up for the turns differently and coming off the corners at a crazy angle. It must have been quite a sight.”

The win was bittersweet for Garcia. His brothers and sisters, who regularly attend his races, were not there because their father was hospitalized with a failing heart. He died three days later.

“Dad wasn’t there, but he got to see the trophy I won,” Garcia said. “I was the last one to see him alive. He died that day, right after I had been there with the trophy.”

Now, a plaque on the dashboard of Garcia’s car reads: “In memory of Frank J. Garcia. My Dad.”

Garcia, whose mother was born in Mexico, has pledged half his winnings Sunday to Mexican earthquake relief.

“I was born in Los Angeles and went to El Monte High School, but I’m a Chicano through and through,” he said. “In the first grade in East Los Angeles, I knew only five words of English.

“When I got to high school, I wanted to be different. I was the only brown face in the dance band and the only brown face in the a cappella choir. That didn’t sit well with the other Mexican kids, and I was little (he’s 5-9 and 152 pounds today) and got beat up a lot.

“I finally had to join a street gang to be accepted. I didn’t like it, but in El Monte in 1964 that was a way of life. After I graduated, I went to Vietnam and found out what it was like to be really scared.

“I always wanted to be an athlete in high school but I was so small I got turned down for the B basketball team. I found my outlet in motorcycles. I found one way to get out of the neighborhood was to take my bike out to the desert and ride.

“I guess my biggest thrill as a racer, before I won at Mesa Marin, was when I finished the Barstow-to-Vegas race in 1973. I was 111th overall but I got my finishers’ pin. That used to be my goal--to finish. Now, it’s to win.”

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Bobby (Boogaloo) Schwartz has returned from England to defend his state speedway championship Saturday night at San Bernardino’s Inland Motorcycle Speedway on the National Orange Show grounds. Schwartz, captain of the U.S. World Cup team that finished second to Denmark by only two points, will be facing one of the strongest fields in the 18-year history of the championship race.

Sam Ermolenko, third-place finisher in the world individual final, has won eight main events at San Bernardino and is the track’s No. 1 rider.

Other Inland Speedway winners this season who are entered include national champion Kelly Moran, Alan Christian, Mike Faria, Steve Lucero, Brad Oxley and Shawn McConnell. Former state champion Lance King of Fountain Valley is also entered.

Three of the 16 qualifiers--Rich Sweaney and Mark Dwyer of Riverside and Bob Ott of Oceanside--will be riding in their first state championship event. Doug (Wheelie King) Domokos will also perform. First race is 8 p.m.

Schwartz will also ride Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds against the Costa Mesa track regulars. Many of the U.S. national qualifiers will compete to get in practice for the national championships Oct. 12 at the same track. . . . The busy speedway riders also will compete tonight at Ascot Park’s South Bay Stadium.

SPRINT CARS--Veteran Dean Thompson will make another bid for his 100th California Racing Assn. win Saturday night in the Kraco-CRA main event at Ascot Park. Thompson finished third behind Eddie Wirth and Rip Williams in last week’s bid at Phoenix, but hopes to get No. 100 on his home oval. Wirth’s win moved him 56 points ahead of Mike Sweeney in their season duel, 1,677 points to 1,621.

STOCK CARS--The Marshall Wilkings Memorial, a 100-lap modified open-competition race, will headline Saugus Speedway’s 11th annual Fall Spectacular Saturday night. Companion events include a 50-lap race for open-comp street stocks, a 50-lap open-comp Figure 8 race, and a destruction derby. . . . Frank Adamo clinched the Bakersfield Speedway pro-mod title last week, but the street-stock division is going down to Saturday night’s final race between David Sweet and Kelly Sawyer.

MIDGETS--While Ron (Sleepy) Tripp was away for a couple of races, Ron Rasmussen narrowed Tripp’s lead in the U.S. Auto Club’s western regional series and now trails the former national champion by 43 points, 632-589. They will go at it Sunday night at Ascot Park. Also on the program will be a National Midget Racing Assn. three-quarter midget main event.