Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Road Leads Press Back to a Favorite Spot

When Dan Press found a road race on the stock car schedule of the NASCAR Southwest Tour, he enrolled in Bob Bondurant’s high-performance driving school at Sears Point Raceway--the site of what was to be the first road race in Press’ long career.

“I needed someone to show me the line,” Press said. “I didn’t have the foggiest notion of how you got around a track where you had to turn both directions.”

Press, 40, learned well. He qualified fourth and finished fourth in last Saturday’s Sears Point 200, increasing his lead to 157 points over Chuck Pittenger in the All-American Challenge series for late model cars.

But Press will need no one to show him the line Saturday night when the Southwest Tour visits Saugus Speedway for the Miller 125, a spin of 125 laps around the flat one-third mile paved oval--a total of 41.6 miles.

He was rookie of the year at Saugus in 1973 and won his first main event there April 27, 1974. He won track championships there in 1978 and 1982, and also holds the one-lap qualifying record of 15.571 seconds, or 76.186 m.p.h., which he set last September in the same Camaro he will be driving Saturday night.

“It’s going to be fun going back to Saugus,” Press said. “Basically, it’s our home track although we haven’t run a full season there in five or six years.”

The Saugus 125 was originally scheduled as the season opener but was postponed by rain.

In 1978, Press so dominated racing at Saugus that the track promoter, the late Marshall Wilkings, posted a bounty for any driver who could beat Press. He put up posters around town asking for challengers. Press won eight consecutive races before Tru Cheek collected the bounty.

“We had a great setup that year,” Press recalled. “We won 15 main events and Marshall (Wilkings) had a lot of fun promoting the bounty idea. The fans really loved it. Some of them were rooting like crazy for us to keep winning, and some were rooting for the other guys to collect the extra money.”

Between his two track championships, the 5-foot-6, 160-pound driver survived two crashes that nearly ended his career.

Late in 1980, he was leading in the modified division at Saugus when the throttle stuck on his Camaro one night and he smacked the wall, shattering his left leg.

Then for the 1981 season, Press built a new car and was running in his second race, at Bakersfield’s Mesa Marin, when he lost his steering and hit the wall in Turn 1. The impact re-broke his leg and Press sat out the entire season.

“Winning in ’82 meant a lot, coming back after those injuries,” he said. For the last couple of years, Press entered only a few races, most open-competition events at different tracks, until he decided to take at shot at the Southwest Tour championship this season and run the full 20-race schedule.

“Having a goal (the championship) got me and all the guys on the crew pumped up and we’ve been working on the car more, getting a stronger engine and getting to the races with a positive attitude,” he said. “Then we’ve had a lot of luck go our way, too.”

Press, after finishing third in the season opener at Cajon Speedway, had his only poor finish the following week at Mesa Marin when his tires weren’t sticking. But then he broke out of the pack with three straight wins, at Shasta Speedway, Stockton 99 Speedway and the Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino.

“The car seemed to like those little third-mile and quarter-mile tracks,” Press said. “I hope things are the same at Saugus.”

Press, however, is most proud of his performance at Sears Point.

“A lot of the guys were figuring it would be our weak point,” he said. “It turned out most of the (series) leaders had bad luck and we had good luck. Taking those two days off from work to go to that school really helped. I learned how to downshift and, most important, I got time on the track to help learn the line.”

Press was running second late in the race when a rock went through his radiator and he spun off course and finished fourth. Jon Pacques of Albuquerque, N.M., was the winner.

“The good luck was that the rock didn’t get us earlier in the race,” Press said. “If it had, we’d never have finished.”

Press has $13,825 in earnings after seven of the 20 races.

“It’s nice to be winning because it means we can spend more on the car,” he said. “We put all the money we make back in the car and we do all our own work nights and when we can steal some time from work.”

Press lives in Frazier Park and runs his own machine shop in Lebec, a food-and-fuel stop at the top of the Ridge Route, about midway between Saugus and Bakersfield.

MIDGETS--Frank Pedregon of Gardena, who made the switch from drag racing diesel trucks to United States Auto Club midgets, is the latest challenger to perennial champion Sleepy Tripp in the Jolly Rancher western regional series. Pedregon chased Tripp to the wire at Ascot on June 1, then beat P. J. Jones for his first USAC main event victory last Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale. Pedregon, Tripp, Jones and series leader Robby Flock will race Saturday night at Ascot Park. Three-quarter midgets will share the program.

MOTORCYCLES--Shawn Moran, who is leading the British Speedway League’s Gold Cup standings for the rider with the best winning percentage, has returned home to ride tonight at Ascot Park’s South Bay Stadium, Friday night at Costa Mesa’s Orange County Fairgrounds and Saturday night at Speedway USA in Victorville. Former national champion Alan Christian won’t be riding, however, after breaking three ribs in a spectacular accident last Thursday night at Ascot Park.

The American Road Racing Assn. will hold Round 6 of its Miller Formula One Grand Prix series Saturday and Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway.

MOTOCROSS--The seventh round of the 12-race 500cc world championship series will be held Sunday near Hollister, Calif., but there will be few American riders contesting the Grand Prix event. National 500cc champion Rick Johnson, who had planned to compete, is injured, and Supercross champion Jeff Stanton and most other top riders have elected to ride July 9 at Unadilla, N.Y., in the U.S. 250cc Grand Prix instead. Grand Prix rules prevent riders from competing in more than one event a year in their own country. Favored will be David Thorpe of England, last year’s Hollister winner, and Eric Geboers of Belgium, the world 500cc champion.

The Los Angeles Old Timers Motocross Racing Assn. will hold its 17th annual Mammoth Mountain International Race this weekend with age groups for riders 30, 40 and 50 years and up. More than 300 senior riders are expected. . . . CMC racing will be held Friday night at Ascot Park. . . . The California Racing Club will hold its Meadow Muffin Grand Prix Sunday at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino.

SPRINT CARS--California Racing Assn. drivers will race Saturday night at Santa Maria Speedway. When Rip Williams won last week’s Ascot main event, it was the first victory as a car owner for former CRA driving champion Billy Wilkerson.

STOCK CARS--Pro stocks of the Curb Motorsports Winston Racing Series return Sunday night to Ascot Park after a week off. Included in the program will be a chain race, in which demolition cars are linked in pairs by 20-foot chains to race on the Figure 8 course. . . . NASCAR sportsman cars race Saturday night at Cajon Speedway, with street stocks, modified pony stocks and bombers Saturday night at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. . . . Street stocks will race Friday night and outlaw mini stocks Saturday night at Ventura Raceway.

DRAG RACING--Jet dragsters and the Budweiser series for alcohol-burning funny cars will race Saturday at Bakersfield Raceway, with the SoCal Pro Gas Assn. holding eliminations Sunday. . . . The Los Angeles County Raceway in Palmdale will have a National Hot Rod Assn. stock and super-stock event Saturday, with Sunday’s program restricted to cars with Ford bodies or engines.

FORMULA ONE--Britain’s Nigel Mansell, who won the year’s opening race in Brazil, has had his contract with Ferrari extended through 1990.