Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Morales, Bromme Stage Own Race

Interest in the California Racing Assn. sprint car driving championship may be overshadowed this year by the battle for car owner supremacy between two pioneers of the sport--Alex Morales, 79, of Anaheim, and Bruce Bromme, 69, of Gardena.

When Ascot Park opens its 30th year of night racing Saturday with a 30-lap CRA main event, Morales will be there with 1985 champion Eddie Wirth of Hermosa Beach in his familiar Tamale Wagon, and Bromme will have 1983-84 champion Bubby Jones of Glen Avon in his car.

Jones’ victory two weeks ago when the Parnelli Jones Firestone/CRA season opened at El Centro was Bromme’s 126th as a CRA sprint car owner. Morales’ cars have won 117. Both have won five championships.

Morales, a distributor of Mexican food, won in 1959 with Chuck Hulse, 1963 and 1968 with Bob Hogle, 1975 with Bobby Olivero, and 1978 with Rick Goudy.

Bromme, a retired Hughes Aircraft engineer, won in 1965 with Paul Jones, Parnelli’s brother, as his primary driver, and in 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1985 with Dean Thompson.

Thompson, in fact, won 103 of Bromme’s 126 CRA victories.

Wirth and Jones each won eight races last season. Ironically, Jones won six for Morales before a late-season switch to Bromme, for whom he won two more.

Both Morales and Bromme have taken Southern California drivers back to Indianapolis for the 500, and both have sons--Andy Morales and Bruce Bromme Jr.--as their sprint car crew chiefs.

Rodger Ward, who later won two Indianapolis 500s, was given his first ride at the Speedway in 1951 by Bromme and his father, Louie. Other drivers given an opportunity by the Brommes included Spider Webb, Bob Scott and Bud Rose. Bromme has not had a driver in the 500 since 1953, when Scott and Webb both drove.

Morales has had an Alex Foods Special at Indy every year since 1975 when he sponsored the late Jimmy Caruthers in one of his last rides. Caruthers died six months later of cancer. Others who have driven for Morales are Bill Vukovich Jr., Olivero, Mike Mosley, Pancho Carter, Al Holbert and Johnny Rutherford. Carter’s third in 1982 was the best finish for a Morales car.

Although car owner Jack Gardner is far behind Morales and Bromme in wins with only 17, the Anaheim plumbing contractor has a potent lineup at Ascot in defending champion Brad Noffsinger and John Andretti, a nephew of Mario Andretti.

Andretti, 24, who won the 1983 United States Auto Club regional midget championship, will drive Gardner’s Shrike, which won 13 races and the championship for Noffsinger last year. Noffsinger will be in a new Shrike.

Gardner, incidentally, won the CRA championship as a driver in 1954 and is the only person to have won first the driver’s title and then the owner’s championship.

Mike Sweeney, who also won one of the El Centro races, is the CRA points leader and will continue to race at Ascot Park for another month before leaving to join the World of Outlaws sprint car circuit. Sweeney, runner-up to Noffsinger last season, has 252 points to 241 for Jones and Jerry Meyer, the 1985 CRA rookie of the year.

MOTORCYCLES--United States speedway champion Bobby Schwartz will take a commanding lead of 11 points into the final race of the Spring Classic series Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Schwartz, who won the opener at Long Beach and finished second to Mike Faria last Sunday at San Bernardino, has 48 points to 37 for former national champion Shawn Moran, 34 for Faria, 33 for Lance King and 31 for Brad Oxley. Faria is the defending SoCal leader and Oxley was the leading rider last year at Costa Mesa. . . . The weekly speedway season at Victorville will start Saturday night, April 25, not April 26 as earlier reported.

ROAD RACING--The California Sports Car Club will open its 1987 season this weekend with regional championship races at Riverside International Raceway. Practice and qualifying will be Saturday, with seven races Sunday. . . . Two-time Trans-Am champion Wally Dallenbach Jr. is reportedly moving into the IMSA GTP program to drive a Porsche for Bob Akin. . . . The April 4-5 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will include a 60-lap Bendix Trans-Am and a 37-lap Bosch-Volkswagen Super Vee Cup race besides the 95-lap Indy car main event.

INDY 500--Car owner Rick Galles has entered a pair of Honda-powered Marches for veteran driver Geoff Brabham and rookie Jeff MacPherson in the May 24 Indianapolis 500. Brabham has been in the past six 500s. MacPherson, from Rancho Santa Margarita, is the second rookie entered from Orange County, joining former New Zealander Steve Millen, who is noted more for his stadium off-road racing success. Millen, who now lives in Irvine, will drive for Hemelgarn Racing in a March-Cosworth.

OFF-ROAD RACING--Arcadia’s Spencer Low, who drove his two-wheel-drive Nissan to victory in the Parker 400 last month, has been invited to compete in the Schevenigen Auto Races on Veronica Beach in the Netherlands March 21. Low will drive a V6-powered, four-wheel-drive Nissan truck.