Motor Racing : After 9 Years, IROC Is Back at Riverside

The International Race of Champions, which had its beginnings at Riverside International Raceway 15 years ago, will return June 11 after an absence of nine years to help “celebrate” the demise of the famous road racing course.

IROC brought together, for the first time in automobile racing, the best drivers from Indy cars, stock cars and European road racing. When the first one was held in 1974, three of the four races were run at Riverside with Formula One drivers such as Denis Hulme and Emerson Fittipaldi banging fenders with Southern hot shoes David Pearson, Bobby Allison and Richard Petty, as well as Indy car drivers Mark Donohue, Bobby Unser, A. J. Foyt and Gordon Johncock.

Donohue, who had won Can-Am and Trans-Am races at Riverside as well as the Indianapolis 500, won three of the four races and ran away with the $54,000 first prize.

The series, founded by Les Richter, Roger Penske and TV marketing agent Mike Phelps, was designed to put 12 of the world’s greatest drivers in identically prepared cars to race over road and oval courses to determine a world champion. The first year they drove Porsche Carrera RSR cars. They switched to Chevrolet Camaros the following year.

“Our roster of former IROC drivers reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of auto racing,” said Richter, former president of Riverside International Raceway and currently IROC chairman of the board and NASCAR’s vice president in charge of competition. “We don’t claim that IROC determines who the best driver in the world is, but we sure go a long way toward that goal.”

The Riverside race will be the second of a 4-race series that started with stock car veteran Bill Elliott winning at Daytona last February and will continue with races at Michigan International Speedway Aug. 6 and Watkins Glen, N.Y., Aug. 13.

IROC ran continuously until 1980, then, when the economy went sour, was suspended until 1984.

The IROC will be run in conjunction with the Budweiser 400 NASCAR race, the final professional competition on the 31-year-old track. Two other events, a Sports Car Club of America regional championship July 3-4 and the SCORE International off-road closed course championship race Aug. 13-14 will be held before bulldozers raze the property to make way for a shopping mall and housing development.

IROC XII and the Motocraft-Trak Auto 300, a Southwest Tour stock car race for All American Challenge Series cars, will be held June 11, with the Budweiser 400 and a Corvette Challenge on June 12.

Indy car driver Roberto Guerrero, who missed the opening race at Daytona with a broken foot, will start on the pole at Riverside. The 12-car field of Guerrero, Chip Robinson, Bobby Rahal, Chris Cord, Scott Pruett, Al Holbert, Al Unser, Geoff Bodine, Al Unser Jr., Terry Labonte, Dale Earnhardt and Elliott will start in reverse order of the Daytona finish.

Bodine is the defending series champions, but two other drivers, Al Unser and Al Jr., are former winners.

Although Riverside has had 15 IROCs, more than any other track, this will be the first time since Oct. 28, 1979, when Darrell Waltrip beat Bobby Allison and Mario Andretti to the flag, that an IROC has been held on the 9-turn road course.

Motor Racing Notes

VINTAGE CARS--Three Indianapolis 500 winners, Sam Hanks, Rodger Ward and Parnelli Jones, are expected to be among 50 old-time drivers who will compete in the 13th annual Antique Race Car Night at Ascot Park, to be held with the California Racing Assn. sprint car program Saturday night. Among the cars will be Hanks’ No. 5 midget and his 1953 championship car No. 1. Other drivers expected include Don Edmunds, Don Freeland, Jerry Grant, Bayless Levrett and Hal Robson, all Indy car campaigners.

OFF-ROAD--The 15th annual Presidente SCORE Baja Internacional race, a 475-mile loop that starts and finishes in Ensenada, will be run Saturday with more than 300 entries anticipated. Favorites include Roger Mears of Bakersfield, who will be looking for a family double, since brother Rick won last Sunday’s Indianapolis 500; Larry Roeseler, defending motorcycle winner from Bloomington, Calif.; and Rich Minga, last year’s overall series champion, who has switched from a 1600cc buggy to a Porsche 911 in the modified Baja bug class.

POWERBOATS--The Ventura Channel Dash, third event of the Pacific Offshore Power Boat Assn. season, will be held Saturday. Nine classes will compete, but only the open, modified and production class boats will run the 92.8-nautical mile course from the Ventura Marine breakwater to the Santa Barbara bell buoy and return. Bob Nordskog, 75-year-old president of POPBRA, will drive his Powerboat Magazine against Vic Edelbrock in the Edelbrock, and John Peters, in the Apache in the open class.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Shawn Moran and Sam Ermolenko won their semifinal round of the World Best Pairs championship Sunday, advancing to the world finals Aug. 31 at Bradford, England. . . . Races tonight at Ascot Park, Friday night at Costa Mesa and Saturday night at Speedway USA in Victorville will serve as a final tuneup for the June 11 Nissan American Final at Long Beach Veterans Stadium. The first five at Long Beach will advance to the world individual championship runoffs.

DRAG RACING--Riverside International Raceway will hold the last of its monthly programs Sunday with jet dragsters featured in the $13,500 American Hot Rod Assn. event. . . . Top alcohol and injected funny cars will run Saturday at the Los Angeles County Raceway in Palmdale. Richard Hartman, 21, of La Verne, is favored in a Corvette. . . . Butch Leal, winner of the Winternationals pro stock final at Pomona and one of the National Hot Rod Assn.’s leading drivers, will be featured on Sunday’s episode of Hidden Heroes, a motor racing program on Nashville Network.

STOCK CARS--Glen Cummings will be going for his third straight win at Saugus Speedway in the 40-lap modified car main event Saturday night. Sportsman and Figure 8 drivers will also compete, and there will be an ego challenge for street-legal cars. . . . Hobby stocks, foreign stocks and jalopies will return to Saugus Speedway Friday night. . . . Orange Show Speedway champion Dennis Andrews is posing a threat to track champion John Borneman at Cajon Speedway, where modifieds will be featured Saturday night. . . . Figure 8s, pony stocks and street stocks will run Saturday night at Orange Show Speedway. . . . Hobby and mini-stocks are scheduled Friday night at Ventura Raceway.

MIDGETS--Tommy Astone of Fresno, a 15-year veteran of United States Auto Club competition, and James Clapp of San Gabriel, a rookie, are the latest challengers to Sleepy Tripp in USAC’s Jolly Rancher Western States series. Astone won last week at Ventura after a battle with Clapp. All will be at Ascot Park on Sunday night for a doubleheader that will include three-quarter midgets.

INDY CARS--With his fourth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500, Michael Andretti moved into the lead in the CART/PPG championship standings with 32 points to 28 for Raul Boesel, 27 for Rick Mears and 26 for defending series champion Bobby Rahal. Andretti will be trying for his third straight Milwaukee Mile win Sunday at the Wisconsin State Fair Park.

SPORTS CARS--Geoff Brabham won his third straight Camel GTP in a Nissan by overtaking John Nielsen’s Jaguar eight laps from the finish last Monday at Lime Rock, Conn., and then dedicated the win to teammate John Morton. During practice the previous Friday, Morton had become airborne in another Nissan at 140 m.p.h., flipped upside down, landed on the roof and rolled four times. He suffered facial burns but returned to the track to watch from the team pits Monday. It was the first time since 1984 that a non-Porsche entry had won three races in a row in the International Motor Sports Assn. series.

NEWSWORTHY--Jim Robinson, the former Winston West stock car champion from Van Nuys, who has been in a coma since Feb. 7 after a crash at Phoenix International Raceway, is displaying response to commands and to visitors at Rancho Los Amigos rehabilitation center in Downey, according to his girlfriend, Kathy Mancino. “Jim notices friends and family when they walk into his room,” said Mancino, who visits him regularly with their son, Justin, 8. A golf tournament at Mountain View Golf Club in Santa Paula raised more than $15,000 for Robinson’s hospital expenses.