Saturday’s Races at Riverside : Pruett Muscles Way Past His IROC Rivals

Two black tire marks on the side of Scott Pruett’s mustard-colored Camaro attested to the youngster’s aggressiveness.

Pruett, the 28-year-old Trans-Am champion from Roseville, Calif., muscled his way past first pole-sitter Roberto Guerrero and then race leader Chip Robinson to win the International Race of Champions Saturday on Riverside International Raceway’s 2.54-mile road course.

It was the first IROC win by a road racer in 18 starts against Indy car and stock car competition, dating to Oct. 27, 1979, when Mario Andretti, then a representative of Formula One, won at Riverside.

Pruett started fifth in the 12-car field, moved to third on the first lap and then pressured second-place Guerrero until he finally forced the Colombian Indy car driver off into the dirt on lap 10 of the 30-lap race.

“Guerrero really made me work for it,” Pruett said. “He wouldn’t give up a thing. He got a little loose in (Turn) 9, and I got alongside him in the first turn before he went off the course.”

Guerrero’s backward slide across the track dropped him well off the pace but he managed to get back on the asphalt only to find a stalled Dale Earnhardt ahead of him as he headed toward the top of the course. Guerrero could not avoid the NASCAR champion, whose engine had given up, and wound up with a smashed right front wheel and out of the race.

“I was running as fast as I could when Scott got alongside me, and we touched,” Guerrero explained. “I got into the dirt and spun. Then, when I got back on the track, there was a lot of oil on the track where Earnhardt had blown his engine, and there was nothing I could do.”

Meanwhile, Robinson was charging along as much as eight seconds in front of the pack in his peach-colored Camaro.

Earnhardt’s spin and the collision with Guerrero brought out a yellow flag and enabled Pruett to close up on Robinson’s bumper when racing resumed.

Now it was Robinson’s turn to feel the heat from the persistent Pruett. On Lap 21, Pruett drove deeper into the sharp left-hand Turn 7, nudged Robinson slightly and while the IMSA Camel GT champion was gathering his car in, Pruett slipped by.

The win was Pruett’s third in five races at Riverside and gave him the unusual distinction of having won the first and last race he’ll ever run here. The first win was in a Sports Car Club of America 3-hour enduro in which he drove a GT3 Toyota with Don Fuller.

“Riverside has been a good track for me,” Pruett said. “I hate to see it close. In 1986, I started last and won a Trans-Am race here. I was in a GTO race in Charlotte on Saturday (he finished second), took a red-eye out here and had to start last because I missed qualifying.”

Ron Esau of Lakeside, Calif., held off charging Mike Chase of Bakersfield to win the Motorcraft/Trak Auto Southwest Tour 300, a stock car companion feature to today’s Budweiser 400 Winston Cup race. It was Esau’s fourth Riverside win and his sixth career Southwest Tour win.

Chase started 23rd and finished just one second behind Esau.