A Double Champion at 19--That’s Tom Kendall : UCLA Junior Will Compete in Two Events of Times Grand Prix at Riverside

Jack Baldwin won consecutive International Motor Sports Assn. GTU driving championships in 1984 and 1985, and Tom Kendall won in 1986.

So, in racing’s version of the rich get richer, they will become teammates Saturday in a Chevrolet Camaro for three hours in the Parnelli Jones Firestone Firehawk race during the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix of Endurance at Riverside International Raceway.

Kendall is only 20, and Baldwin will be 39 next month, but Baldwin is the big kid of the team.

“When I cut myself, I bleed Chevy motor oil,” Baldwin likes to say. “When Chevy asked me if I’d like to drive in the Firehawk series, they told me I could pick my teammate. Well, when I heard that Tom Kendall was switching to a Chevy, who else would I have chosen? I like the idea of having No. 1 on the side of my car.”

Kendall, who, at 19, won last year’s Firehawk championship as well as the GTU title, drove a turbocharged Nissan 300ZX last year with Max Jones. The winning car will also be at Riverside but will be driven by Kendall’s brother Bart and his father Chuck, other members of the family racing team from La Canada-Flintridge.

Both Baldwin and Kendall will be doing double duty this weekend. On Sunday, both will be driving in the combined GTO-GTU race of 300 kilometers. Baldwin will be in a Chevy Camaro, naturally, in the GTO class, while Kendall will be in the winningest car in IMSA history, the red, white and blue No. 75 CCR-prepared Mazda RX-7 that has won four GTU championships (Jim Downing in 1982, Baldwin in 1984 and 1985, and Kendall last year).

An identically prepared Mazda will be driven by older brother Bart, a 21-year-old senior at Stanford majoring in economics and communications.

Tom Kendall, who became the answer to a racing trivia question last year when he (1) became the first driver to win two IMSA championships in a single season, and (2) became the youngest driver to win any IMSA championship, is a junior at UCLA majoring in economics and business.

This year he is pursuing both championships, but is also branching out.

During the Long Beach Grand Prix three weeks ago, he drove in his first Trans-Am race and finished second behind Scott Pruett in a three-year-old Mercury Capri that his father used to drive.

“It was quite a boost in horsepower for me, but I got a kick out of it,” Kendall said. “My GTU car puts out about 300 horsepower and the Trans-Am car was almost 600 so it was quite a difference. I was pleased with my finish considering it was a last-minute deal we threw together.”

Kendall qualified third--the first nonturbo car--and ran in the top five for 48 of 60 laps. He moved into second place on lap 50 when Elliott Forbes-Robinson dropped out, but he had to fight Bruce Jenner for second place.

“I was falling apart,” Kendall said. “At the end, my hood was lifting up on the straightaways, and my transmission temp was off the gauge. I just kept going, and finally got to the end. I’d like to try some more when they don’t conflict with my other racing.”

Kendall also wants to run in the Sports Car Club of America’s Escort Endurance series, a showroom stock class similar to the Firehawk series. However, the opening race is Saturday at Sears Point Raceway, north of San Francisco.

“I tried to figure out some way I could drive half the race at Riverside, turn the car over to Baldwin and fly to Sears Point, but it just didn’t work out,” Kendall said with a smile. The Riverside 3-hour race starts at 3 p.m. and the Sears Point 6-hour enduro at 4:15 p.m.

If Baldwin had a Chevy waiting at Sears Point, he’s also the kind of a guy who would have tried to figure out a way to drive in both races.

“I’m just the classic hot-rod kid chasing a dream,” Baldwin said. “On the other hand, I’m only in racing for one thing, and that’s the money. But that doesn’t mean what it sounds like. What that means is that the more races I run, the more money I make.

“I’ll run anything--as long as it’s a Chevy. When I was a kid growing up in Florida, I wouldn’t even let a Ford in my driveway.”

Kendall, on the other hand, isn’t as particular. He’ll drive anything, as long as it has four wheels.

“I’ve made a point of getting as much experience as I can in different kinds of cars,” he said. “Not only does it accelerate learning, but in this business one can never tell which door opportunity will knock on. And experience gives you something intelligent to say when you open the door.”

When the door opens, Kendall will be ready. He maintains a B average at UCLA between races.

Kendall grew up around race cars driven by his father. In 1981, when he was 14, Tom was on the crew when his dad and Dennis Aase won the GTO division of the Sebring 12 hour race in a Carrera and Road America in a BMW.

Both Tom and Bart will be driving in their third Times enduro. Together, they finished second in 1985 in the GTO class and last year Tom was fifth in the GTU Mazda and Bart was fourth, driving with his father, in a Camel Lights Mazda Lola. Tom has also won the last two Firehawk races at Riverside.

“We consider Riverside as our home track,” Tom said. “Both Bart and I are familiar with the track and that helps when you’re in traffic, and there are so many cars in the Firehawk race that we’ll see some pretty heavy traffic. What I want to do is to translate my success in Saturday’s race into the GTU race.”

Kendall is second, six points behind John Finger and a Mazda, after three races in defense of his GTU championship. He finished fourth at Daytona, second at Miami and fourth at Sebring.

“In Miami I was leading on the last lap when Luis Mendez ran over the back of me and let Finger get by, and at Sebring I had a big lead when I got in a pit accident with Danny Sullivan when he was driving A. J. Foyt’s Porsche. That’s two races we should have won.”

If you’re wondering, there’s another Kendall coming along. John, 12, races motocross and plans to race karts in the near future.

Claire, the Kendalls’ wife and mother, says she isn’t planning on racing, but just in case, she graduated from the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving at Sears Point.

“When I went to Bondurant’s school, my mom went with me,” Tom said. “She passed me once, but I had to put her down. It was because I ran out of gas.”