MOTOR RACING : Lawson Might End Up on a Roberts Yamaha

It appears that Eddie Lawson, after winning the world motorcycle road racing championship for the second year in a row, will switch teams and manufacturers for the second year in a row.

The four-time world champion from Upland won on a Yamaha in 1988 and changed to Honda and the Erv Kanemoto team this year. Now, in all likelihood, he will move back to Yamaha and ride for his fellow Californian, Kenny Roberts, as part of a two-man team with Wayne Rainey of Downey.

Rainey led most of the 1989 season until he crashed with two laps to go in the Swedish Grand Prix while chasing Lawson. “Nothing official can be decided until Jan. 1, when the current contracts expire,” said Gary Howard of Tustin, whose firm, International Racers, Inc., handles the affairs of Roberts, Lawson and Rainey. “Until then, what I hear is all speculation.”

If the Lawson-to-Roberts deal materializes, it will probably include Marlboro sponsorship for both Roberts’ 500cc Grand Prix team of Lawson and Rainey, and 250cc rider John Kocinski, who will move up from Roberts’ U.S. team in the American Motorcyclist Assn. 250cc series.

The Lucky Strike sponsorship that Roberts had last year will probably switch to Suzuki and riders Kevin Schwantz of Austin, Tex., and Australian Kevin Magee, who was Lawson’s Honda teammate this year. It was Magee who stopped on the track shortly after the Laguna Seca Grand Prix and was hit by former U.S. champion Bubba Shobert in an accident that hospitalized both riders. Magee returned to the Grand Prix series, but Shobert missed the remainder of the season because of head injuries.

If Lawson leaves, it will leave Honda with former world champion Wayne Gardner of Australia and 250cc champion Sito Pons of Spain, who wants to move up to the 500s.

Jim Thirkettle, one of the busiest and most successful short-track stock car drivers in West Coast history, will retire Saturday after racing in the AC-Delco 300, a NASCAR Southwest Tour event, at Phoenix International Raceway.

Thirkettle, 44, is defending champion in the race. He ranks his victory last year at or near the top of a career that has spanned three decades. In that race, Thirkettle beat out Winston Cup champions Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip. “I did just about all I could do (in my career) except go South and run the Winston Cup,” Thirkettle said. “I never was willing to make the total sacrifice to do that. Everything else, everything we’ve wanted to do, got done.”

That included numerous track championships at Saugus Speedway and Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield. At Mesa Marin, Thirkettle won 79 main events and six modified car titles.

“Call it what you will, burnout, I guess,” the Sylmar resident said. “A family and a steady job have always been important to me. After a while, you have to start giving back those things to your family that they’ve given you. They’ve sacrificed a lot more than I have over the years.”

Thirkettle drives a Chevrolet for Greg (Red) Meacham, a retired Bakersfield oilman.

Dan Press of Frazier Park, who has been racing against Thirkettle most of his career, needs only to start Saturday’s race to win the Southwest Tour championship. Press, like Thirkettle, had never contested for a series title until this season.

Press holds a 160-point lead over Mike Kanke of Granada Hills and has won eight of the 19 races.

Saturday’s Southwest Tour race is a preliminary event to the Checker Autoworks 500, a Winston Cup race, Sunday.

SPRINT CARS--Rip Williams set an Ascot Park record of 96.805 m.p.h. during qualifying for last week’s Pacific Coast Nationals, but a cut tire during the 50-lap main event virtually ending his hopes of winning the California Racing Assn. championship. The Yorba Linda driver trails defending champion Ron Shuman by 97 points and second-place Jerry Meyer by 48. Only three races remain in the Parnelli Jones Firestone-sponsored series, starting with a 30-lap main event Saturday night at Ascot.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Motosport Club will hold two major events this weekend--the seventh annual Dodge Truck Night Nationals Friday night at Ascot Park and the opening of the CMC Fall Series Sunday at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino. Friday night’s races will conclude a 28-week series at Ascot for both professionals and amateurs.

The Over-The-Hill Gang club and the Old Timers club will join forces this weekend for a series of races for veterans (25 and over) at Perris Raceway. Five-time world champion Roger DeCoster will conduct a seminar Saturday night.

MOTORCYCLES--The American Motorcyclist Assn. will hold its annual awards banquet Friday night at the Queen Mary Hotel in Long Beach, where the professional rider of the year will be announced. Candidates include world road racing champion Eddie Lawson, motocross champions Jeff Stanton and Jeff Ward and flat-track champion Scott Parker.

The Prospectors MC Grand Prix will be held Saturday and Sunday at Barstow College. . . . Kevin Erion of Los Angeles, a two-time AMA pro twins class champion, won the 25-mile lightweight supertwins race Sunday at Daytona International Speedway in Florida on a Honda 650 and finished second to Dale Quarterly of Rockland, Mass., in the heavyweight supertwins race.

The second annual Ted Boody Memorial Ride, which Pat Owens, a Los Angeles Community College trustee, organized in the memory of the Grand National rider who was killed in an accident last year at Ascot Park, will be held Sunday. The 100-mile all-day ride, held in conjunction with the 10th annual All-British Bike meeting, will start and finish at Hansen Dam Park. Last year’s ride raised more than $8,000 for Boody’s widow and two daughters.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Sixteen riders, headed by the last three national champions--Bobby Schwartz, Steve Lucero and Brad Oxley--will compete Saturday night in the Coors Santa Barbara Speedway Challenge at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara. This will be the first speedway race ever held at the facility.

Veteran riders Jim Fishback, Dubb Ferrell and Billy Gray are among the entries for the opening round of the Sportsman Speedway Assn.’s winter series Sunday at San Bernardino’s Inland Motor Speedway in Glen Helen Park. Racing will continue every other Sunday through February.

MIDGETS--Rich Vogler, who swept both ends of an Ascot Park doubleheader last week, will race Friday night at the new Yuma (Ariz.) Speedway and Saturday night on Santa Maria Speedway’s one-third mile dirt oval in United States Auto Club Western Regional competition.

OFF-ROAD--Indianapolis 500 rookie of the year Bernard Jourdain will drive an unlimited two-seater with Bob Richey of Riverside in next week’s Presidente SCORE Baja 1,000. The race, which will start Thursday in Ensenada, will run an altered course designed to stay away from population areas on its route to La Paz. Although the race will start officially in Ensenada, the first 25 miles will be run at legal traffic speeds to Santo Tomas, where the off-road portion of the race will begin.