Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Veterans Believe They Can End Gordon’s Domination in Stadium Races

As the Mickey Thompson Off-Road Championship Series enters the second half of its season Saturday night at the Rose Bowl, the question at hand is: Can the truck-driving old-timers stop the kid from winning it all?

Robby Gordon, 20, in his first year of stadium truck racing, has finished first in four of the five previous Grand National Sports Truck races, although he was penalized for rough driving in one of his victories and dropped to third place. In the one race he failed to win, Gordon was also penalized, for rough driving in a heat, and forced to start last in the feature. He finished third.

The consensus among his peers is that Gordon is very good, has unusually strong equipment in the Toyota truck prepared by Cal Wells and has also been very lucky.

From Walker Evans, 50, the dean of off-road racers, through a group of proven winners such as Roger Mears, Glenn Harris, Danny Thompson and David Ashley, the feeling is that Gordon can be beaten--and each one thinks individually that he is the one to do it.

“Toyota was dominant in the first four races, but we got our act together in Houston and beat them and I feel good about coming to the Rose Bowl,” Evans said. “I guess Saturday night will be the time to prove we can do it again, but we’ll have to drive fast and hard.”

It was Evans’ Jeep that Gordon hit in Seattle, the incident prompting the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group’s committee on rough driving to take Gordon’s win from him. And it was Evans he hit again in Houston, putting him in the rear of the field in the main event.

“I just seem to be the one in his way the most, but the other guys will tell you, too, that some of his driving is not totally gentlemanly,” Evans said. “He’s leaned on a lot of guys and that doesn’t sit too well with his competitors.

“On the other hand, he’s talented and knows how to get to the front and win races. You can’t take that away from him.”

Evans and the others figure that a new system of lining up the field for the main event will help their cause. For the first four races, starting positions were determined by a blind draw. Since the race in Houston, though, the grid has been determined by a points system involving qualifying and two heats.

“Gordon had a lot of luck going for him with the draws,” Evans said. “As lucky as he was, he should be in Las Vegas. Now to get up front in the main event, you’ve got to earn the spot. He might be up there, but he’ll have to work for it, and the new way will make for a much better show because qualifying and the heats mean a lot more.”

Mears, 41, likened the Toyota domination by Gordon and Ivan Stewart to that of the Penske Indy car team, of which Roger’s younger brother, Rick, is a member.

“They’ve got the combination right now, the way Penske had it last year at Indy,” Mears said. “Racing seems to be like that, one team getting dominant, but it always ends, and we hope to be the ones to end it for Toyota.”

Mears has a streak of six straight second-place finishes in his Nissan pickup--three in desert races and three in stadiums.

“After the disastrous year we had in 1988, second places felt pretty good, but winning will feel a lot better,” he said. “We feel we have the right stuff to beat them, and the Rose Bowl might be the place to start. We got our last win there.”

Mears won 16 of 25 stadium races in 1984 and ‘85, but since then has won only once--in the Rose Bowl in ’87.

Harris, 30, also said that the Rose Bowl will be good for his independently campaigned Mazda. He won his first truck race there in 1986.

“The Rose Bowl course is a favorite of mine,” Harris said. “When I won there, I considered it a major breakthrough, a landmark win if you will. With the new format, consistency will pay off and that means keeping the right attitude all evening.

“It’s obvious that Gordon’s on a roll, but if I didn’t think I could beat him, there wouldn’t be any sense in showing up.”

Thompson, 38, is looking for his first win in his privately funded Chevrolet.

Ashley, 31, drives the lone Ford Ranger in the truck class and hopes a return to Southern California will help his chances. Ashley, who won in a Jeep in the Coliseum two years ago, was leading in the opening race at Anaheim before rolling in a multi-truck collision.

Truck standings: 1. Gordon, Orange, Toyota, 282 points; 2. Stewart, Lakeside, Toyota, 199; 3. Evans, Riverside, Jeep, 194; 4. Harris, Camarillo, Mazda, 179; 5. Thompson, Huntington Beach, Chevrolet, 156; 6. Rob MacCachren, Las Vegas, Jeep, 134; 7. Ashley, Placentia, Ford, 113.

Racing will start Saturday at 6:30 p.m.

MIDGETS--Perennial champion Sleepy Tripp finally gained the lead in the United States Auto Club’s Western Regional championship series with a win last week at Ascot Park and a third at Ventura behind A. J. Johnson and Robby Flock. Tripp is only nine points ahead of Flock going into two full midget and TQ doubleheaders this week--tonight at Ascot Park and Saturday night at Saugus Speedway. Mini stocks will also be on the Saugus program.

STOCK CARS--Bill Sedgwick, the Van Nuys driver who won last week’s Winston West opener at Madera Speedway, was co-crew chief on the car Roman Calczynski drove to the Southwest Tour championship last year and was once the jack man on Hershel McGriff’s pit crew. McGriff, 61, finished third behind Sedgwick and defending series champion Roy Smith. The next Winston West race will be May 13 at Bakersfield’s Mesa Marin Raceway.

Rookie Chris Laney of Redondo won his first Winston Racing Series main event last week at Ascot Park and will be back Sunday looking for a repeat win. . . . Gary Curtis will be going for his fourth straight mini-stock win Friday night at Ventura Raceway. . . . NASCAR sportsman and street stocks will go Saturday night at Cajon Speedway.

DRAG RACING--Bernie Partridge, one of the pioneers of the National Hot Rod Assn., will retire as NHRA’s vice president of field operations at the end of the season. Partridge, who joined the organization in 1953 from the Dust Devils car club of Ridgecrest, Calif., will be replaced by Mike Lewis, president of Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa. Lewis will join the NHRA July 1 to begin phasing into the job.

Top Gas West and the California Injected Funny Car Assn. will run Saturday at Los Angeles County Raceway in Palmdale. The track is located on Ave. T, one block east of California 138 and Pearblossom Highway.

SPORTS CARS--The Firestone American City Racing League will open its Sports 2000 season Sunday at Sears Point Raceway, along with the Sports Car Club of America’s Trans Am main event. Drivers representing 15 cities will compete in 10 races. The Los Angeles team includes Carlos Bobeda, Malcom Harding and Rod Everett, with Jim Paul, Allen Riggle and Larry Harvey driving for Long Beach. The skiing Mahre brothers, Steve and Phil, will drive for Reno.

A goal of $135,000 has been established for a memorial scholarship in the name of Al Holbert at Lehigh University. Holbert, a veteran of sports car and Indy car racing, was killed in an airplane accident last September at 41. Contributions can be made to the Alvah R. Holbert Memorial Scholarship, c/o Patricia Boig, Alumni Memorial Bldg. 27, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa. 18015.

MOTORCYCLES--The Gardena Cup, an institution at Ascot Park for 14 years, will be revived next week after an absence of two years with the running of the American Motorcyclist Assn.’s Camel Pro national half-mile championship race on May 13. . . . The Formula USA unlimited Grand Prix series will be run Sunday at Willow Springs.

POWER BOATS--Drag Boats International will hold the season-opening Spring Races this weekend at Lower Lake Castaic, 3 miles north of Magic Mountain. Seventeen classes of boats will compete in the $30,000 event.