MOTORSPORTS : Winternationals, With Elapsed Time of 30 Years, Going Strong

Twenty-nine years ago, the fledgling National Hot Rod Assn. decided to open its season with a drag race on the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona.

It was called the Winternationals.

Jack Chrisman, one of the original Okies who came West to settle in Long Beach, drove a twin-Chevy-supercharged dragster called “Twin Bear” that made drag racing’s first run in the eight-second range. He won top eliminator honors with a speed of 170.13 m.p.h. in 8.99 seconds against Tom McEwen.

Dyno Don Nicholson of Pasadena won stock eliminator--roughly comparable to today’s pro stock class--in a 1961 Chevy Impala, and Mickey Thompson won middle eliminator in a supercharged Pontiac Tempest with 131.00 m.p.h. in 10.5 seconds.

Competitors were limited to automotive pump gasoline.

Today, on the same quarter-mile strip of asphalt in the northwest corner of the vast parking lot of Pomona Fairplex, the 30th NHRA Winternationals will get underway with vehicles expected to run faster than 290 m.p.h. in close to five seconds. The fuel is an exotic mixture of nitromethane.

“People often ask me if I ever thought drag racing would come to this, and I unhesitatingly answer, ‘No way,’ ” said Wally Parks, founder and chairman of the board of the NHRA.

Coming off the most successful season in its history, the Chief Auto Parts Winternationals will open a four-day stand at the Fairplex with all indications pointing to an eventful NHRA season.

Don (Snake) Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein, winners of four funny car championships apiece, have both switched to top fuel dragsters. Prudhomme, who crashed violently in his first test run last month at Bakersfield when a front-wing strut collapsed, has his dragster repaired and will make his first qualifying run today alongside Bernstein.

Pro qualifying starts today and Friday at 2 p.m., followed by two sessions Saturday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. to set the fields for Sunday’s 11 a.m. eliminations.

Eddie Hill, the first driver to break the five-second barrier, is back with the same dragster that flipped, cartwheeled and rolled at 270 m.p.h. in last year’s Winternationals. The car has been rebuilt, and Hill, a former dragboat champion and record-holder, hopes to regain the form that produced a career-best 4.93-second run last year.

Darrell Gwynn, who has won four times at Pomona since 1986, closed ’89 with 13 sub-five-second runs in his last six races but is still looking for his first Winston World championship. Gwynn holds the track record of 4.95 seconds, set last October.

Shirley Muldowney, who last October at Phoenix scored her first major victory since her leg-shattering accident in 1984, lost her sponsor and appeared to be out of a ride until car owner and former driver Larry Minor stepped forward with an offer. Muldowney will open her bid for a record fourth world championship on the track where she won the Winternationals in 1980 and ’83.

The drivers to beat in the three professional categories, however, are defending champions Gary Ormsby in top fuel, Bruce Larson in funny car and Bob Glidden in pro stock.

Curiously, all three opened the 1989 season with victories at Pomona and closed the season the same way.

Ormsby, who holds both the elapsed time record of 4.919 seconds and the speed record of 294.88 m.p.h. at Pomona, will be attempting to become only the second top fuel champion to repeat since the competition began in 1975. Don (Big Daddy) Garlits won in 1985 and ’86.

With Prudhomme and Bernstein no longer in funny cars, the chief rivals for Larson and his Olds figure to be Mark Oswald, who has finished second the last three years, and Ed (Ace) McCulloch, who won the Winternationals back in 1972 but has not won a world championship in 21 years of trying.

“I wouldn’t want to be in any other position,” said Larson, 52, of his favorite’s role. “The pressure is still on the other drivers to catch us.”

Glidden, on the other hand, professes to be worried about going for his sixth straight and 11th overall championship in his family-owned and prepared Ford Probe.

“Elapsed times at the end of last season showed we have lost our edge over the competition,” Glidden said. “We have been involved in litigation and have lacked an engine research and development program for about a year.”

Still, Glidden won nine of 12 races last season, boosting his NHRA career record to 76.

Competition will also be held in pro stock motorcycle and seven other sportsman categories--top alcohol dragster, top alcohol funny car, competition, super stock, super gas, stock and super comp.

COPPER CLASSIC--Chuck Gurney will open defense of his United States Auto Club Silver Crown championship this weekend as part of the 13th four-event Skoal Bandit Copper World Classic at Phoenix International Raceway. Midgets, supermodifieds and stock cars will also race.

Challenging Gurney will be Indianapolis 500 veterans George Snider, Gary Bettenhausen and Rich Vogler, who will attempt to drive in all four classes. Also in the Silver Crown race will be Robby Unser, son of three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby, and defending champion Ken Schrader, the pole-sitter in the last two Daytona 500 stock car races.

SPORTS CARS--The Sunbank 24 Hours at Daytona will kick off the International Motor Sports Assn. season Saturday with 19 cars entered in the top-of-the-line Camel Grand Touring prototype class.

The defending champion Busby Racing Team from Laguna Beach has switched from Porsche to Nissan and added veteran Indy car driver Kevin Cogan to its team. Cogan will drive with John Paul Jr. and Mauro Baldi. The Nissan is the same car that Geoff Brabham drove to the IMSA championship last year. Brabham will be in a new Nissan with Chip Robinson, Bob Earl and Derek Daly.

MOTOCROSS--The final event of the five-race G.F.I. California Winter Series southern division will be held Sunday at Perris Raceway. A north-south championship showdown is scheduled for Feb. 24-25 at Perris.

OFF-ROAD--Ivan Stewart, coming off a stadium win at Anaheim a week earlier, drove his Toyota pickup to victory in the Parker 400 desert race last Saturday. Stewart completed the 349-mile course in 6 hours 1 minute, averaging 59.15 m.p.h. Troy Herbst finished ahead of Stewart but was disqualified because his car was pushed across the finish line.

NECROLOGY--A memorial service will be held today for Dick Day, 64, a pioneer motor racing editor and publisher, at 11 a.m. at Forest Lawn Park in Covina. Day, who died at his home in Sherman Oaks, was on the staff at Peterson Publishing Co. for 34 years and was formerly editor of Motor Trend and Car Craft magazines. He had been ill with cancer for several years.

Travis (Spider) Webb, 79, who drove in six Indianapolis 500s, died in McMinnville, Ore., where he moved several years ago from his longtime home in Bell. Webb first drove at Indy in 1948 for Bruce Bromme and was a regular at Legion Ascot Speedway races in the ‘30s.