MOTOR RACING : Off-Road’s Second Generation Reaps Honors at Season’s Finish
Evan Evans and Robby Gordon, two second-generation off-road racers, were the big winners at the SCORE/High Desert Racing Assn. awards banquet.
Evans, 24, a paraplegic from Riverside, was named Off-Roadsman person of the year, the highest honor awarded in the desert racing sport. Evans’ father, Walker, received the same award in 1983 and again in ’86.
Gordon, 20, of Orange, was named driver of the year for the second season in a row. Had there been such an award in 1976, Gordon’s father, Bob, would have been a likely candidate after winning the Mint 400 and the HDRA championship.
Evan Evans had won four races in the production car class, including the Mint 400 and the Baja Internacional, in his father’s Jeep Cherokee before being injured in a motorcycle accident near his home last July. He suffered neurological damage when he was pitched off the bike and is paralyzed from the waist down.
Needing to compete in the season-ending Baja 1,000 to win his first championship, Evans had hand controls built into the Jeep so that he could drive. He drove the truck 40 miles down the highway from Ensenada to El Alamo, and 12 additional miles on rough dirt roads before turning it over to Brian Stewart.
Stewart and Phil Farieo drove the remainder of the way to win the race and the class championship for Evans.
Evans, who has full use of his upper body, says he hopes to drive the Cherokee again in 1990 but will undergo more testing before the season opens Jan. 27 with the Parker 400.
Gordon won four of the eight SCORE/HDRA races in a Ford pickup, including three overall. His crew chief, Russ Wernimont, was named mechanic of the year, and his engine builder, Mike Evans, was named engine builder of the year.
Gordon will receive more honors Saturday night at the Mickey Thompson Off-Road Gran Prix dinner at the Westin Bonaventure where he will be acclaimed winner of the Grand National sport truck championship for stadium races and leader of the Toyota team that won its seventh consecutive Manufacturers Cup.
Next year, Gordon will drive a Ford in both stadium and desert races. His spot on the Toyota stadium team, with veteran Ivan Stewart, will be taken by Jeff Huber.
Willow Springs International Raceway will celebrate its 35th year of motorcycle road racing Dec. 16-17 with the final event of the American Road Racing Assn.’s year-long series.
The Miller High Life Formula One race--12 laps over the nine-turn, 2.5-mile hillside course--will be the main event during two days of 10- and 12-lap sprint races. Featured in Formula One will be points leader Barry Burke of Los Angeles, who has won five races on his Yamaha and has never finished worse than third. Chief contenders include two Suzuki riders from San Diego, Lee Shierts and Kenny Kopecky.
Nick Ienatsch, 27, a second-year rider from Los Angeles, is leading in six ARRA classes on a stable of Yamahas and will be favored in the Formula Two main event.
Speeds approaching 170 m.p.h. will be reached along Willow Springs’ sweeping backstretch. The lap record of 104 m.p.h. was set in 1987 by Scott Gray.
The ARRA, founded 16 years ago, runs only at Willow Springs since the Riverside track closed. It has about 900 members, of which between 250 and 300 are expected to compete in the season finale, according to race director Earl Smith.
There will be events for classes of equipment ranging from 50cc to 1100cc. Twelve lightweight, stock production and novice races will be held Dec. 16, and professionals and heavyweights will go in 12 more races the next day.
Kenny Eggers of San Jose, riding a Shooting Star BSA twin, won the first race at Willow Springs, a 125-mile American Motorcyclist Assn. championship event, on April 4, 1954. He was followed by Ed Kretz Sr. of Monterey Park and John (Crashwall) Gibson of Duarte on Triumphs, and Al Gunter of Stockton on another BSA.
Among the non-finishers were Joe Leonard of San Jose, winner of the national championship that year, who later won Indy car championships in 1971 and ‘72; and Brad Andres of San Diego, who would win the AMA championship in 1955 and the Daytona 200 three times.
Eggers’ winning speed was 74.78 m.p.h., but the fastest lap was Gibson’s 77.56.
The inaugural race was the only AMA national event held at Willow Springs, but the AMA will return next year for its season finale Sept. 21-23.
MOTOCROSS--The Coast Racing Assn. will present the second annual Brad Lackey Christmas Gran Prix Sunday at Carlsbad Raceway. Lackey, the only American to win the world 500cc championship, will serve as grand marshal and is not expected to ride, but former national champions Marty Smith, Jim Pomeroy and Marty Tripes are entered in a veterans race. . . . The final event of the Continental Motosport Club’s Dodge Truck fall series will be held Sunday at Sunrise Valley Cycle Park in Adelanto.
OBSERVED TRIALS--Mark Manniko, 19, of Littleton, Colo., won the expert class in the 20th annual El Trial de Espana last Sunday at the Johnson Valley OHV area near Lucerne. Manniko, who rides a Fantic, is the No. 3-ranked trials rider in the country and a member of the U.S. Trials des Nations team. Kip Webb of Watsonville was second, followed by Tom Hamann of San Diego, the top-ranked rider in the American Trials Assn., the host club.
INDY CARS--One week after being named American driver of the year, Emerson Fittipaldi was honored in Paris with the Trophee de la Passion at the 12th annual L’Automobile magazine awards dinner. Fittipaldi won the Indianapolis 500 and the CART/PPG Indy car championship 17 years after his first of two Formula One championships. . . . Two other drivers were among the 10 honorees: Formula One champion Alain Prost received the Super-Trophee, and Formula 3,000 winner Jean Alesi got the Trophee de L’Exploit Sportif. . . . On Monday, Fittipaldi will receive yet another award when Prince Albert of Monaco honors him at the annual Monte Carlo Sporting Club’s motor racing banquet.
STOCK CARS--Darrell Waltrip, who once was a more likely candidate for NASCAR’s most- disliked driver, was a landslide winner over five-time recipient Bill Elliott in balloting for the most popular Winston Cup driver of 1989. Waltrip, who received more than 76,000 votes to 52,000 for Elliott, got $10,000 with the award.
