Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Glover Returns to Racing Saturday

Broc Glover, six-time national motocross champion, will return to action Saturday night at Anaheim Stadium after taking nearly a year off to allow a broken wrist to mend.

Glover, 26, will open his bid for his first stadium championship in the Coors Supercross Kickoff, opening event of the stadium series. The tall, blond Yamaha rider from El Cajon, who ranks second only to Bob Hannah in number of national victories, has won three 125cc and three 500cc national championships, but the stadium championship has always eluded him.

Glover’s pursuit of the stadium championship in 1985 was partly why he missed most of last season. He started ’85 by winning at Anaheim and was leading with the season about three-quarters over when he fell and broke his wrist during a race in Michigan. Early X-rays did not show a break, so Glover continued riding and aggravated the injury.

He also lost the championship to Kawasaki’s Jeff Ward in the final moto in the Rose Bowl.

“The doctors told me I’d made a mistake riding, but I wanted that championship so I didn’t listen to them,” Glover said.

“During practice early last year, I landed hard after a jump and the jar when I hit broke the bone again. This time the doctors insisted I lay out completely. In fact, they only gave me a 10% of having it heal enough to ever ride. I’ve been riding the last couple of months, though, and it feels as strong as ever.”

To stay in shape when he couldn’t ride motorcycles, Glover spent most of the year racing bicycles. He won seven or eight races, including the 89-mile Tour de Idaho.

“I raced just about every weekend, sometimes in the middle of the week, too. I learned one thing, that a novice rider (as he was) can come closer to riding with the top riders on a bicycle than he can on a motorcycle. I could actually challenge some of the good guys, but a novice in a motocross wouldn’t have a chance riding with the pros.”

Glover will be facing a formidable group of riders, headed by national supercross champion Ricky Johnson, his El Cajon neighbor. Johnson, on a Honda, is trying to become the first rider to repeat as stadium champion since Hannah’s three-year reign in 1977, 1978 and 1979.

“I’m going into this season with the same attitude that I had last year,” Johnson said. “I want to race really bad and winning is the most important thing to me right now.”

Hannah is planning to ride only selected events this year and is not entered at Anaheim.

Two other former supercross champions, Johnny O’Mara of Simi Valley, who won in 1984, and Ward, the 1985 winner from Mission Viejo, are entered.

O’Mara, who has switched from Honda to Suzuki, earned international acclaim at the Motocross des Nations in Italy last year when he rode a 125cc bike in defeating 500cc world champion David Thorpe of England, who was riding his 500cc machine.

David Bailey, who edged Johnson in last year’s Anaheim supercross, is paralyzed from the chest down after crashing during practice Jan. 10 at Huron Park, near Fresno. Bailey won the national supercross championship in 1983 and finished second to Johnson last year.

“Bailey getting hurt like that really bugs me,” Glover said. “His injury can’t help but put sort of a damper on this race. He and I have been such close competitors for so long, and I know what a talented rider he was. To have something like that happen to him makes you wonder. I know I’ve thought about it every day since it happened.”

Also scheduled Saturday is the first round of the Suzuki Quadracers championship. On Sunday the Anaheim track will be open to amateur motocross riders in all classes.

Influenced by turn-away crowds at the World Finals last fall and an 11% increase in attendance over the 1986 season, National Hot Rod Assn. officials are adding 10,000 seats for this weekend’s 27th annual Chief Winternationals at the L. A. County Fairgrounds in Pomona.

This will increase seating to 42,500, making Pomona the largest drag racing facility in the country.

As a sideshow to the regular sportsman and professional drag racing, the NHRA has scheduled a celebrity race Sunday. Competing will be actors Tony Curtis, Lorenzo Lamas, Robert Hays, Perry King and Dan Haggerty. They will drive identically prepared Oldsmobile Calais GTs.

Qualifying for the $851,325 Winternationals will start today at 8 a.m., with the professional categories at 2 p.m. The pros will have another qualifying session Friday at 2 and two more Saturday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. to set the fields for Sunday’s eliminations.

OFF ROAD--The High Desert Racing Assn./SCORE International season will open Saturday with the Parker 400, a grueling race that includes 110 miles in the California desert west of Parker, Ariz., and 200 miles on the Arizona side of the Colorado River. The Bureau of Land Management has ordered a limit of 425 entries and that number was filled a week ago. Television actor Larry Wilcox has entered an already potent pickup truck class that includes series champion Walker Evans, Steve Kelley, Dave Shoppe, John Clark Gable, Frank Vessels and Stan Gilbert. Racing will start at 6 a.m. Saturday for the first of the eight HDRA/SCORE races.

ROAD RACING--When the International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GT season gets under way this weekend with the Sun Bank 24-hour race at Daytona, there will be some intriguing driver combinations. Al Holbert, winner in both the Daytona and LeMans 24-hour races last year, is sitting out the Saturday-Sunday event to direct his defending champion Lowenbrau Porsche team of Derek Bell, Chip Robinson and Al Unser Jr. Four-time Daytona winner Hurley Haywood will go for No. 5 in the Group 44 Jaguar with Bob Tullius and John Morton. A trio of Indy car winners--A. J. Foyt, Al Unser and Danny Sullivan--will be in a Porsche 962. NASCAR veteran Darrell Waltrip, who was replaced on Junior Johnson’s stock car team by Terry Labonte, will join Labonte and sports car driver Tommy Riggins in a Chevrolet Camaro in the GTO category. Ice race champions Bobby and Tommy Archer will be in another Camaro with Finnish sedan champion Robert Lappalainen.

INDY CARS--Danny Ongais will drive in the Indianapolis 500 as a third member of Roger Penske’s team with former winners Rick Mears and Danny Sullivan. The car will be sponsored by Panavision Corp., which is owned by Ted Field, who sponsored Ongais for many years with his Santa Ana-based Interscope team. The deal is for the one race. . . . Fabrizio Barbazza of Italy, winner of the American Racing Series last year, has been signed by Frank Arciero to drive the entire Indy car CART season, starting with the Long Beach Grand Prix April 5. . . . Tony George, grandson of the late Tony Hulman, has been elected to the United States Auto Club’s board of directors.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Motosport Club’s Golden State Nationals will be held at Glen Helen Park near San Bernardino this weekend with sportsman races Saturday and professionals Sunday. . . . Dane Wigington, 24, received a Dodge four-wheel-drive truck for accumulating the most points in the CMC season last year. Wigington, an Apple Valley contractor, came out of an injury-caused retirement to win the 500cc championship--and then retired as champion.

IROC--Stock car drivers Darrell Waltrip, Bill Elliott and Geoff Bodine have been added to the International Race of Champions, which will open its four-race series Feb. 13 at Daytona International Raceway.