Motor Racing : Seven Top NASCAR Drivers Will Compete at Saugus Saturday

Winston Cup stock car drivers race in 30 major events during the NASCAR season. So what do they do when they get three weeks off in the middle of the schedule?

They go racing.

Seven of the best, including Rusty Wallace, winner of the last two races at Riverside International Raceway, will drive modified cars Saturday night at Saugus Speedway in a pair of twin main events on the one-third mile paved oval. The Winston Cup drivers will compete in one 30-lap main event and eight Saugus regulars will drive in another 30-lapper.

With Wallace will be Geoff Bodine, winner of the Miller High Life 500 at Pocono last month; Rick Wilson, who lost the Firecracker 500 by 18 inches last Saturday in Daytona Beach; Mike Waltrip, runner-up to Bodine at Pocono; Davey Allison, Joe Ruttman and Derrick Cope, plus Trans Am driver Willy T. Ribbs.

Friday night, most of the same group will be racing in Augusta, Ga., and after Saturday night’s Saugus race, they’ll hop a plane for Montana, where they plan to race Sunday at Big Sky Raceway in Kalispell. After a day off Monday, they’ll be in Sacramento Tuesday; Spokane, Wash., Wednesday; Roseburg, Ore., Thursday; Lee, N. H., Friday, and Jamestown, N.Y., Saturday.

“The three weeks is the only time we get off so we’ve got to get as much in as we can,” Waltrip said by phone between stops. Waltrip, younger brother of former Winston Cup champion Darrell Waltrip, won a similar race last Saturday night in Hialeah, Fla., just a couple of hours after the finish of the Firecracker 400.

Representing Saugus will be Dan Press, Ron Hornaday Jr., Ken Sapper, Bob Lyon, Mark Perry, Chuck Pittinger, Charlie Saied and Glen Cummings.

Each Winston Cup driver will be paired with a Saugus driver. Each pair will share a car and the winners will be determined by how the car finishes in the two heats.

Friends of race drivers who are killed during races like to say that the drivers died doing what the loved to do the most. Like cowboys dying with their boots on.

Walt Lott was not a race driver, but he certainly died doing what he loved the most last Saturday during the running of the Fireworks 250 off-road race in the desert near Barstow. Lott collapsed in 110-degree heat while he was out on the course, checking on the progress of the race.

Lott, 68, was president and founder of the High Desert Racing Assn., which sanctioned the Fireworks 250, and was a pioneer in desert racing in California, Arizona and Nevada. He grew up in the Sacramento area but moved to Las Vegas 20 years ago and there saw his first off-road race. He was so enthusiastic that he formed the Southern Nevada Off-Road Enthusiasts, known as SNORE.

“Off-roading was more a family affair in those days, but Walt had the idea that it could become a major professional sport,” said Don Chase, a longtime associate of Lott. “He felt the sport was bigger than just southern Nevada, so he formed the High Desert Racing Assn. and moved into California.”

Lott was likely to put on a race anywhere. In 1972, when off-road entries began to dwindle, he scheduled a race at Ash Meadows, a notorious bordello site across the Nevada border from Death Valley Junction. When the Ash Meadows 300 ended, the women from the brothel came out in force, waving checkered flags at the finishers.

“Walt proved his point,” Chase recalled with a grin. “There were a a lot of drivers who showed up.”

Lott was chief steward of the Mint 400--the most successful off-road race in the country--since 1970, and four years ago merged his HDRA with the Southern California-based SCORE International in a move that probably saved the sport from fragmenting into splinter groups.

“I think we’re on the threshold of the big thing I’ve wanted and that’s recognition,” Lott said earlier this year. “I think, with the TV coverage we’re getting, that we’ve just about arrived at that point.”

Services will be held Friday at 5 p.m. in the West Oakey Baptist Church in Las Vegas. There will be visitation today, starting at 4 p.m., and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Davis Funeral Home.

Survivors include his wife, Edna, vice president of HDRA; son James of Sacramento, daughter Londa of Las Vegas, four grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Five Southland riders, headed by Sam Ermolenko of Cypress, will ride Sunday in the Overseas Final at Coventry, England. The others are Robert Pfetzing of Santa Ana, Rick Miller of Reseda, Mike Faria of Colton and Bobby Schwartz of Costa Mesa. It is the second step toward the World Speedway Final in Vojens, Denmark, on Sept. 3. . . . The World Team Cup finals, which have been on again-off again for Sept. 10 at Long Beach Veterans Stadium, are officially back on the international schedule. Promoter Harry Oxley agreed to final arrangements with the FIM.

Tickets for Friday night’s Coors Western Night all-scratch program at the Orange County Fairgrounds will also be good for admission to the county fair. . . . Tonight’s show at Ascot’s South Bay Stadium will be augmented by the second race of a 13-week Suzuki Quad series. The 500cc 4-wheelers race on a one-eighth mile oval. . . . State champion Bobby Ott, who has been sidelined with injuries, may return to competition next Wednesday night at the Inland Speedway in San Bernardino.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Motosports Club’s annual Dodge Truck California Summer Series will start Sunday at Glen Helen OHV Park in San Bernardino. . . . CMC riders will also race Friday night at Ascot Park.

MOTORCYCLES--Coming off consecutive wins in the national Superbike series at Loudon, N. H., and Elkhart Lake, Wis., Suzuki Superbike racer Doug Polen will be favored this weekend in the fourth round of the series at Laguna Seca Racewy near Monterey. Polen tuned up by winning two of three non-points races last weekend at Willow Springs. Also entered is national champion Bubba Shobert, winner of the Nissan 200 last year at Laguna Seca.

OFF-ROAD--Al Unser, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, will join the Jeep team for the Mickey Thompson Gran Prix July 16 in the Coliseum. . . . Veteran stadium truck racers Roger Mears, in a Nissan, and Glen Harris, in a Mazda, will drive Sunday in the Checker Pikes Peak hill climb, a 12.5-mile race with 156 turns in Colorado. They will be compete in a new truck class as part of the 66-year-old race to the clouds. Writer-racer Joe Rusz will go up the mountain in a Mitsubushi.

SPRINT CARS--The second round of the three-race Budweiser series will be run Saturday night at Ascot Park as part of the Parnelli Jones Firestone/California Racing Assn. schedule. Former CRA champion Bubby Jones in the Jack Gardner-Mike Curb car that Brad Noffsinger drove to the championship last year will challenge top winner Lealand McSpadden and CRA leader Ron Shuman in the main event.

STOCK CARS--A chain race has been added to Ascot Park’s Sunday night program, which also includes pro stocks, bomber oval and Figure 8s, and hobby stocks. . . . Super stocks and sportsman cars will run Saturday night at Cajon Speedway in El Cajon. . . . Hobby stocks go Friday night at Ventura Raceway.

DRAG RACING--Glen Helen Park will be the site of the first sand drag race of the season Saturday night.

FORMULA ONE--Changes are already in the making for next year. Nigel Mansell will sign with Ferrari this week as a replacement for Michele Alboreto, who is expected to join the Tyrrell team. . . . Nobuhiko Kawamoto, head of the Honda engine development program that has helped McLaren to an undefeated season, when asked if the Japanese firm might tackle the Indianapolis 500, said, “We are not interested in Indianapolis. It is more of a show and not as professional as Formula One.”