Harris Regroups to Contend : Picks Up Pieces of His Pickup to Compete at Off-Road Grand Prix

Sometimes it’s educational to have a lousy year.

Every sort of disaster plagued Glenn Harris in his bid for last season’s Mickey Thompson Off-Road Championship Grand Prix crown. A crash here and a busted part there led the Camarillo racer to a fifth-place finish in the standings.

So Harris gathered up the broken parts, regrouped and took plenty of time in preparing for this season.

It may have paid off. Harris is sitting in second place going into tonight’s fifth installment of Thompson’s Off-Road Championship Grand Prix at the Rose Bowl. Racing starts at 6:30 p.m.

“We’re a little better prepared this season,” Harris said. “We were developing parts during the season last year and just running as is. We learned from last year and used the knowledge we gained for this year.

“The competition isn’t any less, we’ve just learned to keep up with them.”

And even pass most of it. The only driver Harris trails in Class 7 (light trucks) is veteran racer Steve Millen of Santa Ana. Millen, originally from New Zealand, has won three of four races and leads the series by a substantial amount.

Despite that, Harris remains confident. He’s done well in the trophy dashes and heat races, but his best finish in the main event was second at Houston’s Astrodome.

Harris will take a break--of sorts--from the indoor racing and run the Mint 400 around Las Vegas next weekend, co-driving with Ron Clyborne of Washington in a Class 8 (heavyweight pickup).

It will be one of the few outdoor races he’ll run this season. Harris, a Camarillo High graduate who grew up tearing around the hills of Camarillo in a modified Volkswagen Beetle, has chosen to concentrate on the indoor circuit this season.

“The short course is our priority,” Harris said. “The indoor program started back east, so it just wasn’t feasible to run the outdoor races.”

Thompson’s series sort of takes the qualities of the great outdoors and traps them within the confines of a stadium. Tons of dirt have been hauled inside the Rose Bowl and 12 jumps have been built. It’s the first time cars have raced inside the Rose Bowl since midgets raced there in 1948.

Twenty races will be run in four four-wheeled classes: Mini trucks, ultra-stocks, single-seat and ATV’s. A race for 250cc motorcycles will run the course in the opposite direction as part of the show.