Motor Racing / Shav Glick : This May Not Be the Last Endurance-Car Race to Be Run at Riverside

This weekend’s eighth annual Los Angeles Times/Ford Grand Prix of Endurance may--or may not--be the last time exotic prototype sports cars of the International Motor Sports Assn. run at Riverside International Raceway.

The three-day show, a $164,000 extravaganza starting Friday with qualifying and ending Sunday with a six-hour endurance race, has drawn a record 72 entries for the fifth event of the IMSA Camel GT season.

Race cars of all types--from sleek Porsche 962s, the dominant car of the series, through the challenging Ford Probe, Chevy Corvette, Buick Hawk, Jaguars and Nissan ZX-T to antique cars of the Vintage Racing Club--will be on parade.

An announcement that the Riverside facility, one of the most famous road racing circuits in the United States, would close at the end of the 1986 season was made early in 1984 by Fritz Duda, chairman of the board and chief stockholder. There is a strong indication, however, that the track may remain open through 1987 while Duda and president Dan Greenwood continue their search for a substitute site.

Porsches have won five of the seven previous Times races at Riverside, including last year’s, when John Morton and Pete Halsmer drove a turbocharged 962 to victory over teammates Jim Busby and Rick Knoop.

Porsches have finished 1-2-3 in three of the four Camel GT races this year and had won 16 straight before a Chevy Corvette, driven by South African Serel van der Merwe and Georgian Doc Bundy, won two weeks ago at Road Atlanta. In the Atlanta 500-kilometer race, Porsche was pushed back to third when a Buick Hawk, driven by John Paul Jr. and Whitney Ganz, finished second.

When GTP qualifying is held Friday, the man to watch will be van der Merwe, who has been the fastest qualifier at the last four races the car has been entered, the final race of 1985 and the Daytona, Miami and Atlanta races this year. The Corvette was not entered at Sebring, and although van der Merwe had the pole for the 24-hour race at Daytona, team owner Rick Hendrick withdrew the car after drivers reported vibration during practice.

Al Holbert of Warrington, Pa., and Derek Bell of England are the favorites in Holbert’s Lowenbrau Porsche 962. They won last year’s IMSA series, winning 9 of the 17 races the team entered, and they are leading this year’s standings with 50 points each, followed by Darin Brassfield with 33.

Holbert, a four-time IMSA champion, has won more GT races than any other driver, but he has yet to win at Riverside. When he and Bell won at Daytona in the year’s first race, it was Holbert’s 42nd win, bettering the record he had shared with the late Peter Gregg.

Other Porsche favorites include the cars of Busby-Morton and Brassfield-Jochen Mass, Miami GP winners Bob Wollek and Paolo Barilla, and Sebring winner Bob Akin with a new teammate, Englishman James Weaver. Akins’ Sebring drivers, Hans Stuck and Jo Gartner, have a conflicting race in Europe.

Although the favored 962s have a variety of sponsors and owners, all have one thing in common--their engines were all build by Andial, an independent engine business in Santa Ana. The name Andial is an acronym that was made up in 1972 from the first names of the three German immigrants who founded the firm: Arnold (AN) Wagner, Dieter (DI) Inzenhofer and Alwin (AL) Springer.

BMW, which had the winning car in IMSA’s first Riverside race in 1975 with Stuck and Dieter Quester, will be missing from the race for the first time Sunday because their racing program has been suspended temporarily. David Hobbs and John Watson had been entered in a BMW but will now sit this one out.

The Ford Mustang Probe, which missed last year’s race, will be back with a potent two-car entry of Klaus Ludwig-Tom Gloy and Lyn St. James-Pete Halsmer.

In 1984 Ludwig put the Probe on the pole with a record lap at 124.387 m.p.h. St. James drove the Probe to 13 national and international closed-course speed records last November at Talladega, Ala., including a 204.233-m.p.h. lap that was the fastest ever for a woman.

The Times/Ford GP is the 617th race in IMSA’s 17-year history, which started with a Formula Ford race in October of 1969 that attracted only 384 spectators. Sunday’s race is expected to attract more than 50,000 racing enthusiasts.

Hurley Haywood, who will make his 151st GT start in one of the two Jaguar XJR-7s, is far and away the all-time leader for most races. Next is Holbert with 114 starts.

Haywood will team with Brian Redman in one Jag, with team manager Bob Tullius and Chip Robinson in the other. A third Jag was destroyed a week ago when Robinson was testing at Charlotte. A gust of wind caught the ground effects car and sent it slamming into the fourth turn concrete wall backward, totaling the $250,000 car. Robinson, who was not seriously injured, will be in a backup car.

The noon start of Sunday’s enduro will be preceded by two shorter races, one for Sports 2000s and the other for the Champion Spark Plug Challenge.

In addition to practice and qualifying Saturday, there will be two SCCA club races and two vintage races.

RALLY--The Rim of the World pro rally, 12 hours of day and night driving over treacherous mountain roads and sandy desert trails, will start at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Lancaster and finish about 1:30 a.m. at the Desert Inn in Lancaster. The route will include portions of the old ridge route and service stops at Lake Hughes around 6 and 10:30 p.m. Defending champions Topi Hynynen of Finland and Adrian Crane of England will be challenged by SCCA divisional champions Scott Childs of Santa Ana, in a new turbocharged Omni, and Dean Blagowski of Alamagordo, N.M. Brian Stewart, son of off-road champion Ivan Stewart, will make his rally debut in one of his father’s trucks. . . . Carroll Shelby and Bob Estes are listed among drivers in the Ensenada-to-San Felipe vintage car rally May 10. Former motorcycle champions Dick Mann, Mark Brelsford and Gary Nixon are entered in the two-wheel class.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Bobby Schwartz, fresh from an outstanding start in the British League, is in Southern California for cameo appearances tonight at Ascot Park and Friday night at Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Schwartz and Shawn Moran were recently selected to ride in the World Best Pairs semifinal May 11 in Lonigo, Italy. While here, Schwartz will race U.S. champion Alan Christian, Brad Oxley, Shawn McConnell and Mike Faria. . . . The Inland Speedway in San Bernardino will be dark next Wednesday because of a fair at the Orange Showgrounds.

STOCK CARS--Three-time champion Jim Robinson of North Hollywood will open defense of his Winston West championship Sunday at Sears Point, north of San Francisco. Robinson’s main competition in the 300-kilometer race over the 2.52-mile course is again expected to come from veteran Hershel McGriff, 58, of Bridal Veil, Ore., winner of last year’s Sears Point race, and Ruben Garcia of South El Monte. . . . Saugus Speedway has added a destruction derby this week to its regular Saturday night mix of modifieds, NASCAR sportsmen, street stocks and Figure 8s. Hobby stocks and foreign stocks race Friday nights at Saugus. . . . Bakersfield Speedway will open its season Saturday night. . . . The President’s Cup, an open competition invitational featuring Jim Thirkettle and Phoenix winner Gary Collins, will be run Sunday at 5 p.m. at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino.

OFF-ROAD--Mickey Thompson is designing a two-in-one course for the Rose Bowl that will accommodate both off-road vehicles and motocross bikes for his Gran Prix May 3. The course is being planned so that off-road trucks and buggies will run in one direction and the bikes in the other. . . . California schools did not fare well in the mini-Baja competition for student-built equipment at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The winning car came from Texas Arlington with the second and third place winners from University of Maryland. Top California places among the 28 entries were Cal State Northridge, 15th, and UC Irvine, 17th.

SPRINT CARS--The newly formed combination of driver Bubby Jones, 44, and car owner Alex Morales, 78, is proving difficult to beat in the California Racing Assn. series. Jones, now driving Morales’ latest version of the Tamale Wagon, will go for his third CRA win Saturday night at Ascot Park. Jones’ victory last Saturday made him the first to win two races this season.

MIDGETS--Ron (Sleepy) Tripp, defending champion in the United States Auto Club’s western regional series, will be trying for his first win this year in Sunday night’s rain-delayed feature at Ascot Park. After Ascot’s opening night was washed out, Robby Flock won at Las Vegas and Ron Rasmussen at Visalia. . . . Three-quarter midgets of the National Midget Racing Assn., will race Saturday night at Ventura Raceway and Sunday night at Ascot Park as a companion feature to the USAC full midgets. Both NMRA races will be dedicated to Ron Kruseman, a Ventura driver who was killed in a race at the Mid-Winter Fair in Imperial in 1984.

MOTOCROSS--The U.S. Suzuki spring series will enter its next-to-last weekend with races Friday night at Ascot Park and Sunday afternoon at Perris Raceway. . . . Danny (Magoo) Chandler, who was paralyzed after a crash in a stadium race in Paris, France, last year, has returned home from a long hospitalization. A benefit race is being planned for Chandler June 15 at the Prairie City OHV Park, site of the Hangtown Classic, near Sacramento.