Sheer Will : Auto racing: Former stuntman Harper prepares to defend his Sportsman division championship at Saugus Speedway.

They call him Will the Thrill--and not because he has been set afire, flattened by a five-ton truck, flung from a speeding motorcycle and loaded horizontally into a few ambulances.

For all of his action-packed adventures, Will Harper--former movie stuntman, championship professional motorcycle and Go-Kart racer, and all-around battered guy--earned the nickname in a comparatively sheltered environment: Saugus Speedway.

Still, the handle fits like an Ace bandage.

Harper, a resident of Tarzana, performed perhaps his most thrilling stunt last season, replacing seemingly unbeatable three-time champion Dave Phipps of Simi Valley as Sportsman division title-holder on Saugus’ one-third-mile paved oval.

The script could not have been more dramatic. In a roller-coaster season, Harper, a virtual also-drove the previous three years, navigated the fastest lap in the division’s history, crashed his 1989 IROC Camaro in a near-season-ending wreck, and pocketed $1,500 in a 20-lap exhibition. Finally, after breaking down early in the season’s final race, he re-emerged from the pits to win the championship in the most competitive title race in the track’s 50-year history.

And the thrill is not gone. Harper, 35, who today makes his living as a construction contractor, opens defense of his first track title tonight at 7 in the opening Sportsman main event of the season.

“You would think that after years of beating my head against the wall, I would have given up,” said Harper, who had never won a main event before last season. “But I’ve been a champion before and I believed I could do it. I had three goals before I even came to the track last year: be track champion, (drive) a 16.75-second lap, and pass Dave Phipps on the outside.

“I did them all.”

But it was an obstacle-strewn road to the season’s checkered flag. Harper was given one mechanical disqualification and penalized by track officials in two other main events.

He was stripped of one victory and moved to second for passing while two of his car’s wheels drifted into the track’s infield. In the Winston 100, Saugus’ double-points, 100-lap showcase for Sportsman cars, Harper held the lead on the Lap 92 when track officials ruled he had caused another vehicle to spin out. He was moved to the rear of the grid and finished 11th.

During a break in the division’s schedule, Harper motored to El Cajon Speedway and was involved in a pileup with several cars. Damages exceeded $6,000, but repairs were made and Harper, who walked away from the crash, returned to Saugus the following week.

Throughout disqualification and disaster, the show went on for Will the Thrill.

“I don’t dwell on the negative,” he said. “I’m just the kind of guy who looks at it and says, ‘This is bad, let’s just fix it.’ For a while there, I thought, maybe, somebody didn’t want me to win the championship, but I realized that it all evened out in the end.”

In the season’s final race, Harper was involved in a crash on Lap 7 that left him in the pits frantically trying to repair a broken fuel cell. With the race under a yellow flag, Harper’s crew made repairs and he returned to the track on the lead lap.

By virtue of a fifth-place finish--a half-car-length ahead of Keith Spangler of Northridge--Harper edged Spangler for the track title by a single point. Phipps, failing in his bid for an unprecedented third consecutive division title, finished third, 17 points behind Harper.

“The average guy who had never seen Will run near the front was surprised,” Phipps said. “But I knew it was just a matter of time until he figured out how to work these cars. He’s too good and he’s too determined. I knew he’d be a tough guy to beat sooner or later.”

Harper also won the division’s $1,500 “Clash for Cash,” posted a division-high 13 top-five finishes and established a track record with a one-lap qualifying time of 16.77 seconds--two-hundredths of a second shy of his preseason goal, but who’s counting?

“I think it was probably unlikely,” Harper said. “But I believed I could do it. A lot of people thought it was impossible--they just kind of put Dave in a different category. But I think a lot of people thought like I did, and I just happened to be the one who put it together.”

Phipps, who sped to track championships by more than 100-point margins in 1984, ’87 and ‘88, was considered uncatchable in the minds of many--largely because he had elevated almost to a science the delicate maneuver of passing on the outside lane on Saugus’ pancake-flat surface.

Despite winning a division-high six main events last season, Phipps had his problems, too, failing to finish four main events, including the next-to-last race of the season in which he crashed his IROC Camaro. But he concedes the season belonged to Harper, who had beaten him at his own game--the outside pass.

“He worked at it,” Phipps said. “He realized if you follow around single file, you’re not going to pass much and pretty soon the race is over. I’ve seen him race Go-Karts. He’s used to winning.”

High-speed chase has always been Harper’s act--and his body has paid dearly. At 19, he won the first of two motocross championships at Indian Dunes.

From there, Harper posted a pair of American Motocross Enterprises 250cc championships before “I broke my last good knee,” and he dismounted in 1981.

For the next two years, danger was Harper’s game as a movie stuntman. He appeared as Sylvester Stallone’s double in a motorcycle chase scene in “First Blood.” He also performed stunts in television’s “The A-Team” and the films “The River” and “Take This Job and Shove It”--which is what Harper had to say to show business after being battered from head to toe. “My body,” he said, “was completely thrashed.”

From there he returned to racing, winning two International Kart Federation Grand National Go-Kart championships while competing regularly at Saugus.

In search of greater--or perhaps safer--thrills, Harper entered the track’s Sportsman division in 1986. He bought his first car, a 1965 Chevelle, from Phipps, but never challenged for the track title.

In 1988, Harper’s career made a turn for the better when he spent $3,000 to rent an IROC Camaro from Allen Beebe, whose son, Troy, finished second that season in the NASCAR Southwest Tour standings. Harper entered the season’s second of two Southwest Tour races and raised a few eyebrows by qualifying 10th and driving the car to a sixth-place finish in the 100-lap main event.

“For anybody that has never run a tour race to even make the field and then be competitive is quite an accomplishment,” Allen Beebe said. “At any Southwest Tour race, you’re racing against some of the top drivers on the West Coast. My general reaction was, maybe he’s a good race car driver.”

Harper’s performance also re-fueled his waning desire for racing.

“I was really serious about this Sportsman thing, but I just really couldn’t afford to buy a top-of-the-line car,” Harper said. “I know what it takes, I just couldn’t afford to do it right the first three years. I knew then in my mind I had to get a new car.”

Harper purchased his Camaro in the off-season and, before the following season’s green flag, suddenly was among the division’s top competitors. By the season’s checkered flag, he was its best.

But how long will Harper remain on top? Last season, only 91 points separated the top five drivers. This season’s race promises to be closer.

Both Spangler and Gary Sigman of Carson, who finished fourth with 278 points, will drive new cars. Pat Mintey Jr. of Quartz Hill, who finished ninth last season but equaled Harper with two surprising main-event victories, also bears watching.

“He’s awful good and he’s a smooth guy and he drives clean,” Spangler said of Harper. “He’s one of the guys to beat, but I wouldn’t say he’s the guy to beat.”

Said Phipps: “He’s going to be tough to beat, but a lot of other guys are going to be fast, too. I don’t think anybody is superior.”

With an eye on his rear-view mirror, Harper is the first to admit his edge is precarious. Winning consecutive Sportsman titles indeed will be a monumental stunt. But he’s ready for action.

“It’s going to be a lot harder,” Harper said. “There are are lot of good, good drivers, a lot of quality cars. But I have a feeling we’re going to be stronger than ever.”