MOTOR RACING : Evans Returns to Start at Baja
Evan Evans had just driven his Jeep Cherokee to four straight victories in the production sedan class of desert off-road racing when he went motorcycle riding one night last July near his home in Riverside, hit a hole in the darkness and wound up paralyzed from the chest down.
Evans, 24, son of well-known truck racer Walker Evans, accumulated enough points before the accident that going into the final event of the High Desert Racing Assn./SCORE International season--the Baja 1000--he needs only to start the race to win the class championship.
Evans, who spent 3 1/2 months in three hospitals before entering the Casa Colina Rehabilitation Center in Pomona, was released from Casa Colina only last Friday.
Today, he is in Ensenada, Mexico, to start the Baja 1000 and assure himself enough points to edge out Swedish-born Arne Gunnarson of Fallbrook for the Class 6 championship. The Cherokee has been fitted with special hand controls for the throttle and brake so Evans can drive.
“I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life while I was lying in the hospital, and I decided I wanted to stay in racing,” Evans said from Ensenada. “The doctors advised against it, but when I insisted, they said OK. At least about this race.
“I’ll only drive a few miles because I’m still not in very good condition to take all the bouncing and jostling you get in an off-road race, but it’s a start.”
Evans will turn the Cherokee over to Brian Stewart of Lakeside, son of veteran driver Ivan Stewart. Brian Stewart will share the long ride the length of Baja California to La Paz with Phil Farieo of Rancho California.
“Brian has done a terrific job with the car,” Evans said. “He won the Gold Coast 300 with it and that kept me out in front in points because it knocked the other guys back a spot.”
Evans won the Mojave 250, the Mint 400, in which he was the only Class 6 driver to finish the extremely difficult course; the Baja Internacional, which had to be moved from Ensenada to San Felipe when ranchers protested the route; and the Fireworks 250.
Evan, who was driven to the Ensenada starting line Wednesday by his mother, Dolly, has 127 points to 99 for Gunnarsson, a Saab driver who won the sedan class in 1982.
“I’d been riding down that road where I crashed since I was 8 years old,” Evans said. “But that day, some construction workers had dug a hole and left it without any blinking lights or anything and when I rode that night, I ran into it. The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground.”
Evan’s father, Walker, is entered in the full-size pickup class. He recently won the Brush Run 101 in Wisconsin.
In the mini-pickup class, Roger Mears of Bakersfield in a Nissan and Manny Esquerra of Parker, Ariz., in a Ford will battle for the Class 7 championship. Mears leads by two points over Esquerra, who has won the past four series titles.
The complaints that led to the Baja Internacional’s being moved have caused a change in the start of today’s race. Instead of racing out of Ensenada east toward San Felipe in the usual manner, the competitors will parade at legal speeds for 31 miles to Ojos Negros before restarting race-style and head south through Mike’s Sky Rancho to Camalu and on to La Paz.
MOTORCYCLES--Motocross rider Jeff Ward of Mission Viejo was honored by the American Motorcyclist Assn. as its athlete of the year. Ward won the national 500cc championship, becoming the first to win all four AMA motocross titles, and also rode on his sixth world Motocross des Nations championship team. Other award winners were road racer Randy Mamola, for his work in the “Save the Children” program, and Supercross champion Jeff Stanton, who received the first Mickey Thompson Award of Excellence.
The American Road Racing Assn. will hold a series of Formula One Grand Prix sprint races Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway. It will be Round 11 in a 12-event series. . . . The second round of the Continental Motosport Club’s Dodge Truck fall series will be held Sunday at Sunrise Valley Cycle Park in Adelanto.
SPRINT CARS--When Charley Zabinski of Redondo Beach won the California Racing Assn. main event last week at Ascot Park, he became the 12th driver to win in what has been one of the most competitive seasons in CRA history. Defending champion Ron Shuman remains 49 points ahead of Jerry Meyer going into Saturday night’s 30-lap main event at Ascot. One race, the Don Peabody Classic on Nov. 18, remains after this week.
SPEEDWAY BIKES--Three riders--Bobby Ott, Shawn Moran and Lance King--who went from Southern California to the British Speedway League will be in Friday night’s U.S. long-track championships at Ascot Park. Moran won the 1983 world and 1986 U.S. long-track championships. Also entered for their final local appearances before racing in England next season will be Mike Faria of Colton and Billy Hamill of Monrovia.
Defending champion Sam Ermolenko of Cypress is out with injuries, but upholding the family honor will be Charles (Dukey) Ermolenko.
MIDGETS--The United States Auto Club’s western regional series battle between Robby Flock of City of Industry and defending champion Sleepy Tripp of Costa Mesa will continue Saturday night in a 50-lap main event on Ventura Raceway’s one-fifth mile oval. The race also counts in the national standings and Russ Gamester of Peru, Ind., could clinch the USAC championship. He is 139 points ahead of former champion Kevin Olson of Rockford, Ill., who is also entered at Ventura.
DRAG BOATS--The International Hot Boat Assn. will hold its Coors Light World Finals this weekend on Firebird Lake at Chandler, Ariz. More than 200 boats are expected for the season finale. Eliminations will start at 8 a.m. Sunday. Ron Braaksma, winner of the IHBA Nationals at Puddingstone Lake in Madness, will be favored in the top fuel final against Tom Black, in Final Effort, and Kyle Walker in Spirit of America.
AWARDS--Shirley Muldowney, former world drag racing champion, and midget veteran Wild Bill Boyd will be inducted Saturday into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame.
DRAG RACING--The Top Gas West Finals will be held this weekend at the L.A. County Raceway in Palmdale. The Nostalgia Drag Racing Assn. will also participate in the two-day event, featuring old front-engine top-fuel dragsters.
The United Sand Assn. will close its season this weekend at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino with eliminations both days at 2 p.m.
VINTAGE CARS--Rob Lamplough and Rob Shanahan of Del Mar, driving a ’54 Alfa, were the first American finishers in the VII La Carrera Panamericana, a 1,700-mile run from Tuxtla Gutierrez, 90 miles north of the Guatemala border, to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. They were third overall. Class winners included Terry Wolters and Charlie Beck of Orlando, Fla., in a ’36 Chevy, which finished sixth overall, and Antony Isaacs and W. Gilbertson of Beverly Hills, in a ’49 Jaguar.
STOCK CARS--Bill Schmitt, the highest finishing Winston West driver in last Sunday’s Autoworks 500 at Phoenix, won his third championship in the West Coast series. Schmitt, 53, who also won in 1977 and 1979, finished with 1,845 points to 1,786 for rookie of the year Bill Sedgwick of Van Nuys. . . . Kenny Wallace of St. Louis, younger brother of Winston Cup points leader Rusty Wallace, was named rookie of the year for the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series.
A late model open competition race will be held Sunday at Ascot Park. . . . Street stocks run Friday night at Ventura Raceway.
LAND SPEED--Feuling Engineering of Ventura will conduct the Bonneville Challenge this weekend to give drivers one more chance at national and world speed records. Among the participants will be Jim Feuling, in an Olds powered by the Quad 4 engine; Al Teague, in a streamliner going for a class record of 346 m.p.h.; and Don Vesco and Rick White, both going for the 409-m.p.h. record for wheel-driven vehicles in streamliners.
