MOTOR RACING : Fittipaldi Named to All-American Racing Team

Emerson Fittipaldi, driver of the year, and 11 other members of the 1989 Auto Racing All-American team will be honored Saturday night at the annual banquet of the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Assn. at the Airport Marriott.

Fittipaldi, the veteran Brazilian who came out of retirement after winning two world Formula One championships to race on the American Indy Car circuit in 1984, won the Indianapolis 500 and the CART/PPG Indy Car championship. He proved his versatility by winning at Indianapolis on a big oval, at Nazareth, Pa., on a small oval, at Portland on a road course, at Cleveland on an airport course and at Detroit on a street circuit.

During the season, Fittipaldi, 43, won a record $2,146,078, becoming the first $2-million winner in Indy car history.

Fittipaldi, however, will not attend the banquet, since he will be testing the new Penske PC-19 car Saturday at Phoenix International Raceway. It will be Fittipaldi’s first test since leaving Pat Patrick’s team to drive for Roger Penske with Rick Mears and Danny Sullivan.

The test will also cause the three Penske drivers to miss the Championship Drivers Assn. meeting, which will be held Monday and Tuesday in conjunction with the CART winter meeting at Indian Wells.

Fittipaldi, who earlier was named driver of the year by a panel of racing experts, also is expected to win the Titus Award, which goes to the driver gaining the most votes in balloting for the All-American team.

Mears, who lost the championship by only 10 points, also was named to the All-American team in the open-wheel category.

Stock car representatives are NASCAR Winston Cup champion Rusty Wallace of Fenton, Mo., and Mark Martin of Batesville, Ark., who had 14 top-five Winston Cup finishes. Martin also was the co-driver with Pete Halsmer of Anaheim in the winning GTO car in the 24 Hours of Daytona.

Bob Glidden, drag racing’s pro stock champion from Whiteland, Ind., was selected for the 12th time, including the last three years. He was joined by Gary Ormsby of Roseville, Calif., the National Hot Rod Assn. top-fuel champion.

Road racing selectees were Australian Geoff Brabham, who now lives in Noblesville, Ind., and Dorsey Schroeder of St. Louis. Brabham, last year’s Titus Award winner, won nine races in defending his International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GT championship in a Nissan. Schroeder drove a Ford Mustang to the Sports Car Club of America’s Trans-Am championship in his rookie season.

From the short-track ranks, Rich Vogler of Indianapolis and Doug Wolfgang of Sioux Falls, S.D., were honored. Vogler, who made the 1988 team as the United States Auto Club midget champion, repeated as the USAC sprint car champion. Wolfgang, a veteran independent driver, raced in only 34 of the 65 World of Outlaw sprint car main events, but won 20 of them.

Named as drivers at large were the two youngest on the team. Robby Gordon, 20, of Orange, was selected for the second consecutive year after dominating off-road racing in both the desert, driving a Ford truck, and in stadiums, in a Toyota pickup. Robby Unser, 21, a third-generation driver from Albuquerque, N.M., was selected after winning the American IndyCar Series for stock-block engine cars and the unlimited class in the Pikes Peak hill climb.

Unser’s father, three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby, will also be inducted into the AARWBA Legends in Racing hall of fame during the banquet along with Sam Hanks, another former 500 winner. Stock car driver Curtis Turner and former world Grand Prix champion Graham Hill will be inducted posthumously.

Second team selections: Open wheel--Al Unser Jr., Albuquerque, N.M., and Scott Pruett, Roseville, Calif.; stock cars--Dale Earnhardt, Mooresville, N.C., and Darrell Waltrip, Franklin, Tenn.; drag racing--Bruce Larson, Dauphin, Pa., and Shirley Muldowney, Mt. Clemens, Mich.; road racing--Halsmer and Hans Stuck, West Germany; short track--Rob Moroso, Madison, Conn., and Bobby Davis Jr., Memphis, Tenn.; at-large--Roger Mears, Bakersfield, and Mike Groff, Northridge, Calif.

The team was selected in balloting by the 485 members of the AARWBA.

INDY CARS--Pat Patrick and Chip Ganassi, who were partners in the Patrick Racing Team which won the Indy car championship last year with Emerson Fittipaldi as the driver, have split but both plan to run the full 1990 season.

Patrick will be part of the new Alfa Romeo program, which includes his own personnel in team manager Jim McGee and engineer Mo Nunn. Roberto Guerrero, who drove the Alfa in its debut last year, will remain as the driver.

Ganassi will retain the Penske PC-18 cars and the Chevy Ilmor engines that Fittipaldi used last year and the Patrick racing shop in Indianapolis. He will announce his driver Tuesday at the CART winter meetings.

MOTOCROSS--The 14th annual Golden State Nationals, billed as the largest motocross series in North America by the sanctioning Continental Motosport Club, will open this weekend at Castaic Lake. More than 1,000 riders are expected during the three-day event. Racing Friday will be for beginners and minibikes, Saturday for intermediates and veterans, and Sunday for professionals and women.

The temporary course, built on land owned by the L.A. County Dept. of Parks and Recreation in Grasshopper Canyon, will be similar to the Anaheim Stadium supercross track where the American Motorcyclist Assn. season will open Jan. 27. Stu Peters, CMC founder, designed the course, which is located about a mile from the Lake Hughes off-ramp near Interstate 15.

National champions Jeff Ward of Kawasaki and Rick Johnson of Honda have indicated that they will ride in the event to sharpen up for the Supercross season.

The second round of the G.F.I. California Winter Series has been switched Sunday from Carlsbad Raceway to Barona Oaks, near Ramona in San Diego County, according to former racer Goat Breker, who is promoting the six-race series for amateur and professional riders.

TRACTOR PULL--The Ford-Budweiser truck and tractor pull championships and the Camel mud and monster truck racing championships will share billing Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at Anaheim Stadium.