Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Earnhardt Is Seeking His First Riverside Win

Ever since NASCAR moved the Winston Western 500 stock car race at Riverside International Raceway from the start of the season to the end, folks down South have protested that the season should end in Dixie, where the sport grew up.

They didn’t like it when five of the last six championships were won on Riverside’s twisting road course instead of on one of their traditional high-banked ovals.

So for 1987, NASCAR moved Riverside up a notch on the schedule to allow the season finale--and, presumably the title-determining race--to be held in Georgia, on Atlanta International Raceway’s 1.5-mile oval.

But the South will have to wait some to see a championship determined by the final race.

Dale Earnhardt, driving Richard Childress’ Chevrolets, ruined the plan. Earnhardt won 11 of the first 22 races on the schedule and clinched his second straight championship--and third overall--one race before the Winston Cup got to Riverside, and two races before it was to play Atlanta.

There will be no championship at stake in the Winston West series, either. Chad Little, a law student from Gonzaga University, clinched the regional title a month ago.

That doesn’t mean, though, that there will be any lack of incentive when Riverside plays host to the Winston Western 500 for the 27th time Sunday.

Earnhardt wants to win the 500-kilometer--310 1/2-mile--race because Riverside is one of the few tracks on which he has never won. The 35-year-old second-generation driver from Kannapolis, N. C., finished a car length behind Tim Richmond in last year’s race for his third runner-up finish at Riverside.

“I’ve been close a couple of times, close enough to know I can win,” he said. “Now that we’ve won the championship again, there’s no reason for holding back. Besides, a win at Riverside would be a nice warm-up for 1988 and would tell the other guys that we’re planning to win the whole thing again.”

Earnhardt won’t have Richmond to contend with this time. Richmond, who also won the Budweiser 400 at Riverside last June, has dropped out of racing after suffering a relapse from the double pneumonia that hospitalized him last winter.

Rick Hendrick, owner of the team for which Richmond drove, will make his Winston Cup debut Sunday in Richmond’s old car. Hendrick attended the Jim Russell School of Motor Racing at Riverside to learn road racing techniques. A month ago, the multi-millionaire auto dealer tested his Chevy at 165 m.p.h. at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Darrell Waltrip wants to win because he has won five times at Riverside and one more victory would tie him with Bobby Allison as the track’s winningest Winston Cup driver.

“I love Riverside,” Waltrip said. “It’s a challenging road course and it’s more a driver’s course than an oval, where sometimes it’s the car that wins the race, not the driver. A driver has to know the proper time to downshift, follow the correct line and conserve his equipment. It’s easy to forget what you’re doing and wear a car out in a few laps.

“It seems like every time we come out here, people say it may be the last, that the old track might be closed to make way for apartments and condos, but Riverside keeps hanging in there. Every year the houses seem to get closer to the track but I also notice that each race has been bringing more fans in. It’s going to be a terrible crime when the place does shut down for good.”

The Riverside track, which was supposed to close officially in December 1986, is now scheduled to remain open at least until next June.

Little’s special incentive Sunday will be not to win, but to finish ahead of his West Coast archrival, Hershel McGriff, the 59-year-old former lumber baron from Bridal Veil, Ore. McGriff, who won the West Coast title a year ago, was dethroned by Little this season.

It won’t be easy to beat him at Riverside, however. McGriff has won 14 races there, more than any other driver in the track’s history. None, however, was a Winston Cup main event.

“If we can finish ahead of Hershel, it might get us in the top 10,” Little said. “That would be great. Any time we can run with him it’s exciting.”

Qualifying for the first 25 positions will be held Friday, with the remaining spots to be determined Saturday. The record for the 9-turn, 2.62-mile circuit is 118.247 m.p.h. by Richmond last year.

The Winston Finals, last event of the National Hot Rod Assn.’s world championship drag racing series, will return Saturday and Sunday to the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona after having been rained out last weekend.

The Cragar-Weld Wheel Top Fuel Classic, a $50,000-to-the-winner elimination among eight drivers, will share billing Saturday with a double round of qualifying for the professional classes. It will almost be a winner-take-all event, since the runner-up will collect only $6,000.

Joe Amato, the winner in 1985 and runner-up last year to Don Garlits, is the No. 1 qualifier. He will face Eddie Hill in the first round at 11 a.m. Other pairings will match Dick LaHaie against Gene Snow, Frank Bradley against Darrell Gwynn and Shirley Muldowney against Gary Ormsby.

Amato and LaHaie will also race for the NHRA top-fuel championship and its $100,000 bonus during Sunday’s eliminations. Amato, the 1984 champion, has a 162-point lead, but there will be as many as 1,100 points at stake Sunday. The winner of each round in the 16-car field will earn 200 points and an additional 50 will go to the car with the top speed and low elapsed time.

After two qualifying rounds last week, Amato holds top speed of 279.50 m.p.h., a Pomona track record.

Eliminations start Sunday at 11 a.m.

IROC--The International Race of Champions, an all-star event that began at Riverside International Raceway in 1973, will return to that road racing circuit next year. The IROC, which brings together leading drivers from a variety of series, will be held in conjunction with a NASCAR race in June. Details will be revealed Friday.

OFF-ROAD--The 20th anniversary of the race that launched the sport of off-road racing--the NORRA Mexican 1,000--will be celebrated Friday and Saturday with the running of the Presidente Sauza SCORE Baja 1,000. The 705-mile race, starting at 6 a.m. Friday in Ensenada, will cross the peninsula to the Sea of Cortez at San Rafael and then loop back across the mountains to Camalu on the West Coast and north to the finish line in Ensenada. Defending overall champion Mark McMillin of Bonita, Calif., heads one of the strongest entries in the race’s long history. Also racing will be former winners Walker Evans, Roger Mears, Rod Hall, Ivan Stewart and Spencer Low.

SPRINT CARS--Defending champion Brad Noffsinger holds a 31-point lead over Mike Sweeney with three races remaining in the Parnelli Jones Firestone-California Racing Assn. season, starting with Saturday night’s 30-lap main event at Ascot Park.

MIDGETS--Sleepy Tripp and Rusty Rasmussen will resume their battle for the United States Auto Club’s western regional championship Sunday night in a rain-delayed doubleheader at Ascot Park. Tripp, who is seeking his third title in five years, leads Rasmussen, 916 points to 873, with five races to go. The TQ midgets will conclude their season this weekend with races Saturday night at Ventura Raceway and Sunday night at Ascot Park.

MOTORCYCLES--The American Motorcyclist Assn. will present its two top awards--professional sportsman of the year and professional athlete of the year--at its annual banquet Friday night on the Queen Mary.

STOCK CARS--The NASCAR Southwest tour championship for Grand American cars will be determined Saturday in the season’s final race, the Motorcraft-Trak Auto 300 at Riverside International Raceway. Mike Chase holds a 60-point lead over Ron Calczynski. Ron Esau, defending series champion, has a mathematical chance at retaining his title. Winston Cup regular Kenny Schrader has also entered the race. Defending race winner Duke Hoenshell, who came from last place to win a year ago, will be back in his Chevrolet V-6. . . . Bill Elliott and Rick Mears are scheduled to drive Saturday night at the Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino in a 200-lap enduro. . . . Bobby Hillin Jr. will conduct a free driving clinic tonight at 7:30 at the Grace Baptist Church in Glendora.