Motor Racing : Allison, Bonnett Piling Up Miles

Travel is part of the game for race drivers, but isn’t Richmond, Va., to Melbourne, Australia, to Rockingham, N.C., in two weeks kind of overdoing it?

Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett, who happen to be leading the NASCAR Winston Cup standings, made the 20,000-mile round trip--with great success.

Bonnett won the Pontiac 400 at the Richmond Fairgrounds on Feb. 21, then finished second to Allison in the Calder Park Thunderdome, 15 miles from Melbourne, last Sunday. Allison had won the Daytona 500 a week before racing at Richmond.

Thursday, Bonnett, Allison, third-place Australian finisher Dave Marcis and all the other Winston Cup regulars were back at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham to qualify for Sunday’s Goodwrench 500.

West Coast drivers made up much of the field at Calder Park, with Glen Steurer of Simi Valley finishing fourth, Sumner McKnight fifth and veteran Hershel McGriff sixth.

Everything involved with the race, including a capacity 46,000 spectators and a wheel-to-wheel battle between Allison and Bonnett for the enthusiastic Aussie fans, was apparently first class. The only dissident note came from a Southern writer who made the trip from Florida to Australia. When he arrived in Melbourne, his baggage wasn’t on the plane.

A check of transport points found nothing, so the airline put out an all-points bulletin. They found the luggage in Melbourne, Fla.

The Australia race will be shown Saturday at 9:30 a.m. on ESPN.

A race at Sears Point, north of San Francisco, on Sunday, April 24, will be part of what is called the Winston International Challenge with a bonus of $17,500 going to the top three finishers in combined results with Calder Park. It could prove a bonanza for West Coast drivers, particularly Steurer, as Allison, Bonnett and Marcis will be in Martinsville, Va., that day for a Winston Cup race.

Jim Robinson of North Hollywood, three-time Winston West champion, was to have driven in Australia, too, but instead he lay unconscious in a Phoenix hospital with head injuries suffered in a race Feb. 7 at Phoenix International Raceway.

Robinson, 42, was still in critical condition Thursday in the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital, although he had been moved from the intensive care ward into intermediate care after what doctors said was “dramatic progress.”

Last week, he underwent 6 1/2 hours of surgery for facial reconstruction of his jaw, cheekbone, nose and an eye socket.

The accident occurred on the ninth lap of the Copper World Classic stock car race. Robinson was leading when he was challenged by Gary Collins of Bakersfield.

As Collins backed off, realizing that Robinson had the line through the first turn, their cars touched--Robinson’s right rear and Collins’ left front. That sent Robinson into a reverse spin and his car slammed into the wall exiting the second turn. It hit on the driver’s side.

Robinson won three straight Winston West championships in 1983-84-85 and was the Saugus Speedway champion in 1977.

Ron Esau drove Robinson’s car in Australia and donated his purse of approximately $6,000 to Robinson’s hospital fund. Esau also remained in Melbourne in hopes of selling the car to an Australia team.

Fellow Winston West driver Ruben Garcia is handling the fund. The address is Jim Robinson Fund, c/o Jim Robinson Automotive, 6234 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood 91606.

SPRINT CARS--The California Racing Assn. will open its 43rd season with races Friday and Saturday nights at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix. The races will honor Walt James, 65, who was CRA president for 21 years before retiring to run the Indian Dunes motorcycle park. He is now active in the Western Racing Assn. for vintage car enthusiasts. Arizona veterans Ron Shuman and Lealand McSpadden will be on hand to challenge Ascot favorites such as defending champion Brad Noffsinger, Mike Sweeney, Rip Williams and Eddie Wirth. These will be the first two races of a 47-race schedule, of which 29 will be at Ascot Park. The first CRA date at Ascot will be Wednesday.

STOCK CARS--Saugus Speedway will open its fourth season of hobby stock racing Friday night with competition expected to be wide open. Former champions Bill McLean and Dave Blankenship have announced that they are moving up to the street stock division. Foreign stocks and jalopies will also be on the hobby stock program.

MOTORCYCLES--Bubba Shobert, one of America’s all-time leading dirt track riders and a three-time national champion, will take another crack at road racing this weekend in the Daytona 200 at Daytona International Speedway. Shobert fell early in last year’s 200 but came back later in the year and won a road race at Laguna Seca. He will ride for the American Honda team this season. Kevin Schwantz, on a Suzuki, is expected to be Shobert’s main rival. Schwantz was runner-up to Wayne Rainey for the AMA Superbike championship last year. . . . Dirt bikers will race Saturday and Sunday in the Viewfinders Grand Prix at Riverside International Raceway.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--The Speedway Spring Classic, a two-event championship, will open the season Saturday night at Long Beach Veterans Stadium and next Friday night at Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Brad Oxley, the new national champion, will ride along with British League veterans Sam Ermolenko, Rick Miller and Lance King. Also returning in time for the opener will be Bobby Schwartz and Shawn Moran, who have been racing in Australia.

OFF-ROAD--The High Desert Racing Assn./SCORE series will initiate a new side-by-side starting procedure Saturday in the Gold Coast 300, which will be run in the desert southeast of Las Vegas. Two cars will start at a time instead of one. Defending champion is Bob Gordon, who also won the season opener at Parker, Ariz., in a two-seater buggy. Last year, Gordon shared the ride with his teen-age son, Rob, who has moved into the truck ranks this season. The race will start at 7 a.m. Saturday on the desert south of Jean, Nev., about 30 miles south of Las Vegas.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Motorsport Club riders will be at Perris Raceway on Sunday. The CMC weekly night shows at Ascot Park will start April 8.