Motor Racing : Jerry Meyer Is Latest of Bromme’s Winners

Ask a successful driver how he became interested in racing and the usual answer is that his father, or a relative, was a driver or mechanic, or that he started riding a minibike or driving a go-kart when he was 6 or 7.

Not Jerry Meyer. The California Racing Assn.’s bearded sprint car leader from Chino didn’t have the slightest inclination toward driving a race car until he was 20.

Then one weekend, he and some friends went to Pismo Beach, rented five Honda Odysseys and went frolicking across the sand dunes.

“We had so much fun I went right out Monday and bought an Odyssey,” Meyer, now 29, recalled. “I thought the other guys were going to do the same thing, but it turned out I was the only one, so I had no one to ride with.

“I was trying to figure out where I could ride when someone told me about tracks where they held races. So my folks and I started going to places like Ascot, Riverside, Corona, anywhere we heard about a race going on.

“After a couple of years, I was winning enough to go on the national circuit and my folks and I traveled all over the country, running the Odyssey.”

In 1984, Meyer and his father heard about a sprint car that Ak Miller and Jack Lufkin, a couple of Bonneville dry-lake veterans, had for sale.

“They said we could have it for $8,000 so we decided to buy it and try the CRA,” Meyer said. “I told Dad that it would take five years before could expect to win a main event. That’s how tough I felt the competition was in the CRA.”

Meyer was rookie of the year in 1985, finished seventh in points in 1986, won his first race in his parents’ car in 1987 and last September got the ride in the red sprinter owned by Bruce Bromme of Gardena, the most successful car owner in CRA history. He finished third behind Ron Shuman and Mike Sweeney in the standings.

Saturday night, Meyer will be in Bromme’s No. 3, a Nance chassis with an engine built by Ron Shaver, in the 50-lap Firecracker 50 at Ascot Park as part of the Parnelli Jones Firestone CRA championship series.

Bromme’s cars have won 137 main events, the last five by Meyer, and five CRA championships in a career dating to 1938 at Southern Ascot. Before that, Bromme tagged along with his father, a riding mechanic in the days of Legion Ascot.

Bromme won championships in 1965 with Paul Jones, Parnelli’s brother, and in 1980, ‘81, ’82 and ’85 with Dean Thompson.

Thompson won 103 races for Bromme, including Firecracker 50s in 1978, ’80 and ’82. When Thompson retired in 1985, Bromme began looking for a replacement. He tried Sweeney, Jeff Haywood, Bubby Jones and Stan Atherton before settling on Meyer.

“I had been watching the young man and I liked the way he was driving so we got together toward the end of last year,” Bromme said. “I like the way he always finishes. He doesn’t do a lot of crazy things, the way some drivers do.”

Meyer holds a 159-point lead over two-time champion Brad Noffsinger as the season nears its halfway point largely because of his consistency. Meyer has won only four races, but he has finished in the top 10 in 21 of 23 races this season and he has made the main event in 75 consecutive races dating to 1985.

Meyer also holds the track record for the half-mile at Ascot of 18.652 seconds, or 96.504 m.p.h.

His scored his biggest win May 6 at Knoxville, Iowa, the Mecca of sprint car racing, when he beat dirt track veteran Jack Hewitt, a two-time United States Auto Club champion from Troy, Ohio, in a 30-lap chase. Meyer started in the front row and got off the line ahead of pole-sitter Noffsinger, with Hewitt right on his tailpipe.

“I had always thought it was easier to run out front, but I found out different,” Meyer said. “Hewitt didn’t give me a second to relax for 30 laps. I could hear his motor all the way.”

Meyer also won consecutive races at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico and won his fourth main event May 20 at Ascot. All of his victories have been over 30 laps and there has been some speculation about how Meyer will do over 50.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I finished second to Brad (Noffsinger) on Memorial Day in a 50-lapper after I was running fourth at 30 laps. I passed Shuman and (John) Redican to get second.

“I don’t think the difference between 30 and 50 is as much physical as it is mental. Another 20 laps means that many more decisions, whether to go high or go low, or pass a guy in this turn or wait until the next one. You can get real tired mentally.”

Bromme’s son, Bruce Jr., 37, is chief mechanic on Meyer’s car.

“Driving for the Brommes is so much more enjoyable than driving for myself,” Meyer said. “Bruce knows what combinations will work and he knows how to set up the car to keep the driver out of trouble. I just go out and do what the car will do for me.

“I don’t even ask what gears we’re running or anything like that. I trust him. If I asked, I might want them set it up different, and we’d probably run 20th.”

After Ascot, the CRA drivers will make an Arizona swing, racing Sunday night at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix and Monday night at Raven Raceway in Tucson.

OFF-ROAD--About 300 cars and trucks are expected to race Saturday in the 18th annual Soutars-Budweiser Fireworks 250 out of Barstow. Racing will start at 7 a.m. with Frank Snook, Riverside school administrator, first off the line in his unlimited two-seat Raceco. The Fireworks 250 is the fifth of eight races in the High Desert Racing Assn./SCORE series and will consist of four laps around a 60-mile course. Defending overall champion is Jim Stiles in the unlimited single-seat class.

INDY CARS--Bobby Rahal and Al Unser Jr. will be teammates next year on a newly formed Galles-Kraco team using Chevrolet V-8 engines. Unser, runner-up at the Indy 500 in the Galles Lola, has had a Chevy but Rahal, who finished second last Sunday in Portland, has been using a Cosworth engine. Car owners Rick Galles of Albuquerque and Maury Kraines of Compton will be partners in the two-car team, which will be based in Galles’ shop in Albuquerque.

STOCK CARS--Pro stocks of the Curb Motorsports NASCAR Winston Racing Series will run Tuesday night at Ascot Park along with Figure 8s. A demolition derby and a Fourth of July fireworks show are also scheduled. . . . Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino will feature NASCAR sportsman, ponies and bombers Saturday night.

Saugus Speedway fans will get two shows over the holiday weekend, a 150-lap enduro Saturday night and NASCAR hobby stocks and jalopies Tuesday night, followed by a destruction derby and fireworks display. . . . Sportsman and street stocks will race Saturday night at Cajon Speedway. . . . Ventura Raceway will have street stocks Friday night.

Dan Press’ fifth Southwest Tour win last week at Madera won the 40-year-old Frazier Park driver NASCAR’s nation-wide driver-of-the-week award.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--With Sam Ermolenko of Cypress and Ron Correy of Fullerton having advanced to the semifinal round of the world championships, interest in speedway cycles returns to Southern California this week with Mike Faria, Bobby Schwartz, Steve Lucero and Brad Oxley continuing their weekly rivalry at Ascot Park’s South Bay Stadium tonight, the Orange County Fairgrounds Friday night, Tuesday night a special Fair Night at Victorville and Wednesday for the Firecracker Derby at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino.

MOTORCYCLES--The American Road Racing Assn. will hold Grand Prix sprints and a Firecracker 500 enduro Sunday and Tuesday at Willow Springs Racewaywith practice and qualifying Saturday and Monday. . . . The Paul Revere Grand Prix, sponsored by Double Cross Racing, will be held Sunday at Glen Helen Park.

MIDGETS--Veteran Wally Pankratz of Yorba Linda, fresh from winning last week at Saugus, will try to make it two straight wins in the United States Auto Club’s Jolly Rancher regional series Sunday night at Ascot Park. Also on the holiday program will be a three-quarter midget main event. . . . The full midgets will also race Monday night on the pavement at Cajon Speedway in El Cajon. It will be their first appearance at the Gillespie Field track since 1981.

SPORTS CARS--The Cal Club will hold a Sports Car Club of America national championship points event Saturday and Sunday at Riverside International Raceway.

DRAG RACING--Alcohol funny cars, jet dragsters and top fuel dragsters will race Saturday night at the L.A. County Raceway in Palmdale. Jim Holtz of Acton will be after his third straight Budweiser Funny Car Series win.

POWERBOATS--Driver Lanse Haselrig of West Los Angeles was awarded the Bill Faulkner memorial mink trophy for finishing first in GN2 class in an American Powerboat Assn. race last weekend on the Snake River, near Burley, Ida.

DRIVER OF THE YEAR--Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi was voted the halfway leader in balloting for the American driver of the year. Fittipaldi totaled 81 of a possible 90 points. Second was stock car driver Darrell Waltrip, winner of the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, followed by Geoff Brabham, Dale Earnhardt, Rick Mears and Rusty Wallace.