Motor Racing : Versatile Doug Chandler Returns to Ascot

Doug Chandler, who successfully raced both road and dirt track motorcycles, found the American Motorcyclist Assn. schedule too difficult this year to do both successfully.

Chandler, who turned 24 Wednesday, won the last two Superbike races, at Mid-Ohio and Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan., finishing fourth in the AMA’s premier road racing series while riding his Rob Muzzy-tuned Kawasaki.

The win at Mid-Ohio enabled the Salinas rider to join an elite group of riders who have won AMA national events on mile, half-mile, short track and TT steeplecase dirt tracks and on paved road courses. Only Dick Mann, Kenny Roberts and Bubba Shobert accomplished the feat previously.

On the AMA’s dirt track Camel Pro Series this season, where he missed five races because of a scheduling conflict with road races, Chandler is in sixth place. He scored his only dirt track win last May on the half-mile oval at Ascot Park in the Gardena Gold Cup.

Saturday night, in the second of Ascot’s half-mile nationals this year, Chandler will be back with his Honda at the Gardena oval where he has claimed four of his nine AMA dirt track wins. He won on the half-mile in the fall of 1986 and the spring of 1987 and won a TT steeplechase in 1984.

“I’ve always got along good with that track,” Chandler said in trying explain his winning formula at Ascot. “It’s a good track as far as racing with other riders because you don’t have to follow the leader. It has fairly wide lines and you can go three or four abreast. I like it.”

Two monetary prizes will be at stake, $5,000 for the winner of the 20-lap national championship race and $10,000 for the winner of the five-lap Camel Challenge for the six fastest qualifiers.

“I think there’s something wrong when you get twice as much for a trophy dash as you do for a championship race, but that’s the way the sponsors seem to want it,” Chandler said. He has won one Challenge sprint this season.

Chandler and other Honda riders, who became privateers this season when the Japanese factory dropped out of dirt track racing, will be trying to beat the Harley-Davidson factory-sponsored pair of defending champion Scott Parker of Swartz Creek, Mich., and Chris Carr of Manteca, Calif.

Parker, who clinched the national championship last year when he won the September race at Ascot, has won eight of 13 Camel Pro races this season. A win Saturday night, or in one of the two remaining mile races at San Jose and Sacramento, would enable Parker to equal the season record of nine set in 1986 by Shobert on a Honda.

It would also go a long way toward winning his second straight dirt track championship and the $100,000 bonus that goes with it. Parker leads Carr after 13 of 16 races, 210-178.

“Parker is tough,” Chandler said. “He’s been riding the bike really well, and the Harley has been running real good. That’s a tough combination, especially for us Honda riders who get no support from the factory.”

The toughest job of all may be in making both the Ascot and San Jose races. Ascot’s program will end around 11 p.m. and practice starts at San Jose at 10 a.m. the next day.

“There’s going to be a lot of sleepy riders at San Jose,” Chandler said. “It’s about a seven-hour drive, which means they’ll be pulling in around 7 and have to be on the track three hours later. I’ll let my dad drive and I’ll sleep on the way back. We’re lucky. We can stop at home (Salinas), take a shower and change clothes and head on up to San Jose.”

The San Jose mile was rained out Sept. 17 and Sunday was the first available date at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds track. The season will end Oct. 7, with the Sacramento mile at the Cal-Expo State Fairgrounds, which means the riders face three major races in eight days.

MOTORCYCLES--Seventeen countries have sent riders to compete in the third Police Olympic road racing event this week at Willow Springs Raceway. Defending two-time champion Rick Williams of the Arizona Highway Patrol will miss the event after breaking his elbow in a racing accident. Local favorites include Bruce Reimer of the CHP and Frank Domino of the LAPD. All riders--one from each country--will be on California Superbike School Kawasaki Ninja 600Rs for the 12-lap championship race on Sunday.

Eddie Lawson of Upland, who won his fourth world road racing championship two weeks ago with a second-place finish in Brazil, will leave Tuesday to ride in a world Superbikers championship in Paris. Lawson, who rode a Honda to the world championship this year after winning three times on a Yamaha, is undecided on his plans for 1990.

British speedway rider Phil Collins, who lives in Newport Beach, and former U.S. champion Bobby Schwartz of Costa Mesa will be favored tonight when Ascot’s South Bay Stadium holds its track championship race. Collins has won 11 Ascot main events and Schwartz six this season. . . . Pairs team racing will be held Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, where the Coors U.S. Speedway Nationals will be run Saturday night Oct. 7.

SPORTS CARS--Electromotive Nissan teammates Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson, deadlocked with 209 points each, will determine the International Motor Sports Assn.’s Camel GTP championship in races Sunday in Tampa and Oct. 22 in the Camel Grand Prix of Southern California at Del Mar. Brabham, the defending champion, and Robinson have been co-drivers in six wins this season. In the 360-kilometer World Challenge of Tampa, each will drive his own Nissan GTP-ZXT machine.

OFF-ROAD--Round 9 of the 10-race Mickey Thompson Gran Prix series will be run Saturday night at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl in Las Vegas. Roger Mears, who snapped a two-year stadium race drought when he drove his Nissan sport truck to victory two weeks ago in Denver, will be trying again to upset the season leaders, Robby Gordon in a Toyota and Walker Evans in a Jeep. . . . The Dirt Diggers Grand Prix will be run Saturday at San Bernardino’s Glen Helen Park.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Motosports Club’s Dodge Trucks Trans-Cal series will conclude this weekend with races at Sunrise Cycle Park in Adelanto. . . . A CMC motocross is also scheduled Friday night at Ascot Park.

KARTS--Howie Idelson of Pacific Palisades won the USA vs. USSR Superprix last Sunday in Riga, Latvia. Idelson, 26, drove a 125cc-powered superkart in the international competition against top Soviet Union and American racers.

STOCK CARS--Roy Smith of Canada, four-time Winston West champion, will attempt to move closer to a fifth title when he races his Ford in the Winston 200 Sunday at Sears Point Raceway, north of San Francisco. Smith, who won at Sears Point in 1982, holds a two-point margin over Bill Schmitt with two races remaining. The season will end Nov. 5 with the Autoworks 500 at Phoenix.

Saugus Speedway will close its regular season Saturday night with the 15th annual Fall Spectacular, featuring a 100-lap sportsman main event, two 50-lappers for street stocks and a destruction derby. Also on the program will be Western Racing Assn. antique cars. . . . Cajon Speedway will hold a grand finale Saturday night for its street, bomber and pony classes, plus a destruction derby.

Ron Meyer of Anaheim hogged things this season at Ascot Park, winning both the pro stock championship--his third--and the bomber oval series. Meyer won the pro stock by only four points over Marcus Mallett of Gardena. . . . Street stocks will race Friday night at Ventura Raceway.

DRAG RACING--The R&E; Jet World Finals will be held Saturday night at the Los Angeles County Raceway, five miles east of Palmdale. Contenders include Jerry Segal and his 287-m.p.h. Thunderbolt jet, and Ron Hoover, winner of the Jet Nationals in Bakersfield.