DOWNHILL RACER : Former Saugus Favorite Dan Press Descends From His Remote Mountaintop Home for a Return Engagement as the Southwest Tour Leader

Far away in the dry mountains of Los Padres National Forest, in the small rural town of Lebec, at the end of a long, crudely paved road atop a hill overlooking a truck stop with a towering red sign succinctly titled “EAT,” Dan Press labors like a blacksmith.

Wearing a T-shirt and a good bit of grime on his tattooed arms, Press supervises both the maintenance of his race car, a 1989 IROC Camaro, and his business, Dan Press Development and Machining.

It is a warm afternoon, however, and the boss needs little coaxing to take a break.

“We don’t get many visitors up here,” Press says as he extends a hand.

Seventeen miles farther into the forest, “straight back as the crow flies,” Press says, lies his home of the past three years. He doesn’t see many new faces up there, either.

The immaculate state-of-the-art workshop, which produces various metal items, including aerospace parts, is a cross between General Motors and Sam Drucker’s General Store. A wooden facade in the Wild West style gives the mini-mall-sized building the look of Main Street in Dodge City.

Six dogs wander lazily, searching for shade in the small freshly paved parking lot. Walking through a door usually involves stepping over a sleeping Labrador retriever.

“We’ve got a real kennel going here,” Press says, ducking into his tiny office. The boss settles into the comfortable chair behind his desk, flicks his lighter and prepares to sit for a spell while savoring a cigarette.

“We’re kind of out in the country,” Press says, “but we like the atmosphere out here.”

Press, 40, has both feet up on the coffee table of life. He talks slowly, enjoys good conversation and probably chews a mouthful of food 32 times before swallowing.

Yet despite being tucked away 4,000 feet above sea level, a hermit Press is not. Once a week or so, he gathers Bonnie, his wife of 21 years, and his small entourage, trailers his race car and heads outta them thar hills for the race track.

Tonight at 7, Press will visit Saugus Speedway for Race No. 8 in the NASCAR All-American Challenge Series Southwest Tour. In his first full season on the 20-race, 12-track circuit, the reclusive racer, somewhat surprisingly, has emerged as the series’ points leader.

“We’re definitely in the lower rent district, money-wise,” Press says. “But we’ve always been able to do more with less. The top six or eight cars that run the tour have just a money’s unlimited deal.”

In its fourth season, the Southwest Tour, with a total yearly purse of about $500,000, has developed into NASCAR’s second-most lucrative racing endeavor on the West Coast behind the Winston West Series. What began with the grease monkey working out of his garage with his own toolbox is rapidly evolving into corporate racing.

Several drivers, including defending tour-champion Roman Calczynski of Sepulveda, who drives for Spears Manufacturing Co., are employed for their driving services by a racing team. Freymiller Trucking Co. and Taco Bell/Thompson Buick also field tour competitors.

But with his small-time, small-town operation complete with a seven-member volunteer pit crew, Press, who stands 5-feet-6, has emerged as the big man on the tour, confounding the big-bucks city slickers.

“He’s not unique as an owner-operator,” NASCAR promoter Owen Kearns Jr. said of Press. “But he’s doing well with what he has accumulated over the years, both in knowledge and pieces.”

Ron Burdg, Press’ racing partner, considers the pair’s effort no more than a hobby. “It’s a relatively restrictive operation with 100% effort,” said Burdg, who also owns a machining business in Chatsworth and serves as Press’ chief sponsor. “What we win goes back into the car. Nobody’s in it for the monetary gain. He has his job, I have mine and that’s that.”

Said Press: “Ron and I decided we wanted to give it a run for the championship this year. Ron didn’t want to do it all on his own. I didn’t want to do it all on my own. So, we pooled our money and put in whatever it takes to get the job done.”

Press, a part-time competitor in each of the tour’s past three years, has a tour-high three wins, five top-five and six top-10 finishes. He is the leading money winner with $13,825 entering tonight’s 125-lap, 41.6-mile event with a total purse of $23,550. Press has completed 629 of the tour’s 630 laps.

“Those guys don’t have any better equipment than what I have,” Press said of the competition. “They just got more of it. A guy said to me one time years ago, ‘The money doesn’t really make you go any faster, it just makes you go faster longer.’ ”

For many, the success of Press comes as no surprise. And he will be the driver to beat tonight for more than one reason.

Although he is winless in six tour appearances at Saugus, Press is the winningest, and, arguably, the most popular, driver in the track’s 50-year history.

During his 16-year career at the one-third-mile oval where he was selected track rookie of the year in 1973, Press piled up a track-record 61 main-event victories while winning Modified division championships in 1978 and ’82. His 15 main-event wins in 1978 remains a track record.

“He was the toughest to beat,” said Tru Cheek, a contemporary of Press who won Modified titles in 1979 and ’81. “He’d win as many as seven or eight races in a row sometimes. Him and I fought tooth and nail for years--on the track, not off it.”

Press, who describes his career as “up and down,” was voted most popular driver and “Hard Luck Driver” by the fans three times while developing a reputation for rallying and for, well, having hard luck.

“We’d be winning and setting track records,” Press says, “and then we’d blow up five laps later.”

He finished second three times, including in 1980 when his points lead slipped away after a qualifying-lap crash left him with a broken leg with three races left in the season. In 1981, Press broke the same leg and finished outside the top 10, but he rebounded to win his second title the following year.

“A lot of the guys I race with have not been through anything near the chain of events that I have gone through in my racing career.” Press said. “Most of those guys haven’t been in real bad accidents.”

In 1984, Press finished second to Ken Sapper of La Crescenta by just 60 points, despite a division-high eight main-event wins. In 1985, Press again finished out of the top 10 but took the checkered flag of the Miller High Life 150 and won three main events.

“I used to do everything myself--that is the crew and myself,” Press said. “In ‘78, when we won the championship, we built our own car, we made our own body, we did our own motors. We did everything. Nowadays, it’s more practical to buy a chassis from somebody and the body parts. All we do now is maintain the car, totally, ourselves. We make a few parts for the car, but nothing like we used to.”

Press concedes that in order to keep pace with the competition he must increasingly rely on more modern methods of preparation and maintenance. It is a far cry from the old days at Saugus, when he was known as a wizard with a wrench.

“Dan has always been an innovator,” said Lyn Pherigo, Saugus’ publicity director. “He’s very innovative and very intelligent. He’s got the smarts.”

Said Press: “I think that where my success comes from is that throughout my career, I’ve liked to experiment. We’re not afraid to make drastic changes in the car. We have a lot of track experience, a lot of chassis experience. I experiment, probably, more than anyone else on the West Coast as far as designing stuff and trying stuff.

“That’s what I always enjoyed about racing. Now it’s more of a money sport.”

Press admittedly does not race for big bills, but for big thrills. “In our real successful years,” he said, “we spent, on the average, about $35,000 to $40,000 in a year and we won anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000. We would win that much money just to cut our losses.

“I’m not trying to make a living racing. I make a living here and racing is just because I love to race.”

Win, lose or slam into a wall tonight, Press will return to his mountain retreat and prepare for the following week’s race in Madera. It makes for a long drive, living a long trek from the nearest track, but Press wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We like it out here,” he said. “I had a little trouble sleeping the first couple nights because it was so quiet. A guy a block away hits a nail with a hammer and you know it.”