Off-Road World Championships : Thompson Wins Mini-Metal Challenge

Danny Thompson’s pre-race notion was way off. But his post-race emotion was right on.

“I thought there’d be five or six stadium trucks on top of each other at the end,” Thompson said of Sunday’s Jeep Mini-Metal Challenge, the featured event in the 15th Stroh’s SCORE Off-Road World Championships at Riverside International Raceway. “But it didn’t end that way. I was surprised. But happy.”

It didn’t end that way because Thompson, driving his bright yellow Chevy, ran away with the title, his first, on the second day of the two-day event that his father, Mickey Thompson, started 15 years ago.

Ivan Stewart finished second in a Toyota, Sherman Balch was third in a Nissan, Steve Millen took fourth for Toyota and Al Unser Jr. finished fifth in his Jeep.

The eight-lap race on the specially constructed 1.5-mile course might as well have started at the midway point, when Thompson took the lead and Stewart started his pursuit. Before that, the top two spots belonged to Glenn Harris and Mazda and Millen, but Millen rolled to allow Thompson to climb into second and, a little later, Harris dropped out with engine problems.

Thompson, coming off a second-place finish at the Coliseum off-road event, took advantage of the opportunity. Almost immediately, he built a 14-second cushion over Stewart, who then started to come back on the leader before falling far behind.

Thompson may have needed a couple breaks to land in first, but the way he was driving proved luck had nothing to do with the championship.

“I thought somebody was right on me, so I kept running hard,” he said. “We don’t have any mirrors, so it’s hard to look back and see who’s there. You try to look if you have the opportunity on a corner to see if anyone’s close. Finally, my pit told me I was in good shape.”

It was the type of race, Thompson said, where you could sneeze and fall back three places, especially in the first few laps. The Costa Mesa resident, whose lifetime ambition still is to race Indy cars, had no such problems. Only a nose for the finish line.

“I didn’t sneeze,” he said. “I was holding my breath.”

By now, Al Unser, the four-time Indianapolis 500 champion, might take to crossing his fingers before off-road races. After failing in two previous attempts to make finals in stadium events at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., and the Rose Bowl, he ran into more problems Sunday in what has become a very unforgiving rookie year on the circuit.

For starters, he missed the morning practice session with engine troubles. Then, when it came time to race five hours later, he lasted two laps before dropping out with more mechanical difficulties.

Frank Vessels had reason to be in a much better mood--a Chevy-powered win in the Hungus Heavy Metal Challenge, the other featured race of the weekend. It was his first victory at Riverside.

“Of all the wins I’ve had, this is the most exciting,” Vessels said. “I really wanted this one.”

The Class 4 title for Frank Arciero Jr. of Laguna Hills capped a big weekend for the Orange County family. He also won Stadium Class 1 Saturday and Stadium Class 10 Sunday. His brother, Albert, from Anaheim, took the title in Desert Class 1 Sunday.

“This is the kind of weekend you dream about,” Frank Jr. said.

Larry Ragland won the Jeep Desert Mini-Metal Challenge, beating a field that included many from the stadium mini-metal. His was a come-from-behind victory, passing Roger Mears, who finished sixth in the stadium feature, on the fifth lap and out-powering Mears the rest of the way.

“I’ve led so many races here in the desert car,” Ragland said. “Three years in a row here, I was leading by a sizable margin and broke. . . . Finally, I broke the ice.”

The day’s other winners: Spencer Low in a Nissan in Class 7S for showroom stock mini-pickups; Michael Lesle in a Jeep in Class 7 4x4, for four-wheel drive mini-pickups; Danny Ashcraft in the Challenger division; 18-year-old Robby Gordon in Class 2 for unlimited two-seat vehicles; Hohn Hagle in Desert Class 10 for 1650cc vehicles; Jim Cook in Class 34 for four-wheel single-seat ATVs, 360cc suspended; Steve Grier in Class 35 for four-wheel single-seat ATVs, 360cc unsuspended; Steve Sixbery in Class 44 for four-wheel single-seat ATVs, 500cc; Don Adams in Class 3 for four-wheel drive vehicles with 105-inch wheel base; Larry Schwacofer in Class 6 for unlimited production sedans; and Jerry Lee Daugherty in Class 14 for unlimited four-wheel drive vehicles.