MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : He Knows How to Beat Traffic at Stadium

Until the manufacturers built the Grand National sport truck class into stadium off-road racing’s most-talked-about event a few years ago, the No. 1 attraction was the single-seat buggies.

Frank Arciero Jr.--Butch to friends and associates--is the all-time winningest driver in the Mickey Thompson Off-Road Gran Prix, and most of his success has come in the desert buggies. Arciero, 43, of Laguna Hills, has won 14 stadium races--three in unlimited single-seaters, which no longer are running in the stadiums, 10 in Super 1600s and one in a Grand National truck.

When Arciero won the Super 1600 main event in the Thompson season-opener January in Anaheim Stadium, he broke out of a tie with Glenn Harris of Camarillo, whose 13 victories also included a variety of equipment.

Saturday night in the Rose Bowl, in the sixth round of the Mickey Thompson series, Arciero and Harris both will be driving--Arciero in his Super 1600 and Harris in a Jeep Comanche as a teammate of Walker Evans.

A Super 1600 is the same open-wheeled desert racing machine as an unlimited, except that its power is limited to rear-mounted 1600cc engines, usually Volkswagens or Toyotas.

“Competition is getting tougher every year,” Arciero said in discussing the Super 1600 Rose Bowl race. “Bobby Gordon and Mitch Mustard are tough in every race. Bobby is my desert racing partner and has been driving stadium races nearly as long as I have.”

Gordon won in Seattle and Mustard, the defending champion from Arvada, Colo., won at Phoenix.

“Greg George, in the new Sage Council team, is coming on strong, too,” Arciero said. “He led half the race at Anaheim before I passed him, and then he won in San Diego. He was a big winner in ultrastocks and now he’s doing real well in the 1600s.”

George, from Colton, Calif., won seven ultrastock races, including the Rose Bowl in 1986.

Arciero’s father, Frank, has fielded Indy cars and sports cars for five decades. His drivers have included Dan Gurney, Jimmy Clark, Bobby and Al Unser, Parnelli Jones and Michael Andretti. However, when Frank Jr. was young, his interest was baseball.

“I played third base at Cantwell High and Long Beach State and summers for a Red Sox semipro farm team in Montebello,” Arciero said. “My brother, Arthur, was the one who loved cars. He was always in the shop, working with the mechanics, but I spent my time on the ball field.”

When Butch decided his future lay more with the family construction business than with professional baseball, he was working as a laborer one day in San Fernando when the job foreman learned he was an Arciero and wanted to talk off-road racing.

“We became friends and before you knew it, he had Arthur and me over to his house to sell us a racing buggy,” Butch said. “Arthur prepared it and we raced for the first time in the (1971) Mint 400. My big thrill was being bumped by Parnelli Jones. He ended up winning and I ended up stuck out in the middle of the mountains with no radio communication. I just sat there until about 2 in the morning when I heard my dad’s voice. He’d come looking and stumbled onto our car.”

Butch and Arthur became regulars on the desert racing scene. When Thompson started his stadium racing series in 1979, the Arcieros built their own practice track in Diamond Bar, where they could simulate racing in stadiums. The course was recently closed because of encroaching housing developments.

“By the time I got hooked on racing, I was nearly 30. So there was no chance for me to move on to Indy cars or anything like that, but I still enjoy racing. I’ll do two or three desert races with Bobby Gordon and the stadium series. We’re still going to beat Ivan (Stewart) before the year is out.”

Stewart, driving solo in a Toyota truck, has won the last two Mint 400s. Each time the Arciero-Gordon car was second.

“We had him beat this year--we had eight or nine minutes on him--when we had an electrical problem. Before we could fix it, Ivan was by us. It was really frustrating, but there’s still the Firecracker 250 and the Baja 1000 to get him.”

Ron Hornaday Sr. won the Winston West stock car championship twice, in 1963 and 1964, and now Ron Jr. is going after the NASCAR Southwest Tour title.

After two of the 18 races, Hornaday holds a 28-point lead and the next race is on his home track, Saugus Speedway, on Saturday night. Hornaday, a 31-year-old mechanic from Palmdale, won the 1987 modified championship at Saugus and races there regularly when there is no Southwest Tour event.

“I love running Saugus,” he said. “There’s no other track I’d rather go to. It’s so flat and hard to drive that if you master it, you’ll be able to master any other short track around here. That’s why the Saugus guys do so well in the Tour.”

Dan Press, a two-time Saugus modified champion, is defending Southwest Tour champion. Two other former Saugus drivers, Dennis Dyer and Ray Hooper Jr., are second and third behind Hornaday in this year’s standings.

Press won both Southwest Tour races last year on the one-third mile Saugus saucer. If he can win Saturday night’s Miller Genuine Draft 100, he will become first Tour driver to win three consecutive races on the same track.

“There’s no doubt Dan is the one to beat because he’s got his act together and he runs real strong, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it,” Hornaday said. “Dan intimidates a lot of people by coming up behind them and tapping their bumper. He hopes it gets you out of the groove enough for him to get hard on the gas and slip underneath.

“A lot of guys do that, but Dan’s absolutely the best at it. I’ve run with him enough that it doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’m getting to have the same sort of reputation that he does, but you have to have an edge, especially at Saugus.

“That’s why the stands are always packed there. The fans know they’re going to get an exciting bump-and-run show.”

INDY CARS--Robby Unser, son of Bobby, and his cousin, John, son of the late Jerry Unser, will race against one another Sunday in the opening race of the Machinists Union American IndyCar series at Willow Springs Raceway. Robby won 12 of 16 races last year to win the series. The championship race of 25 laps around the 2.5-mile track will be Sunday at 4:30 p.m.

Also on the two-day program, which includes AIS qualifying Saturday, will be a full Sports Car Club of America regional race schedule, round three of the Toyota Super Production Unlimited series and the first running of the Police Chiefs Racing for Drug Education race. In the latter race, members of police and sheriffs departments from Southern California will compete.

MIDGETS--Teen-ager Jeff Gordon of Vallejo, one of the best young drivers in the country, will be on center stage Friday night at Ascot Park when the last of five races for U.S. Auto Club midgets will be held as part of ESPN’s Thunder Series. Gordon’s victory last week gave him the lead in the race for the STP/GEO crown at Ascot. Three-quarter midgets, headed by Page Jones, last week’s winner and Parnelli’s youngest son, and points leader Rob Hansen, will also be on the program.

STOCK CARS--John Borneman, a two-time Cajon Speedway champion, is off to a fast start in quest of a third title. The veteran from Ramona has won the last two sportsman main events at the Gillespie Field oval and will be favored again Saturday night. . . . Sportsman and street stock racing return to Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino Saturday night after a two-week absence during the Orange Show.

Marcus Mallett, who missed winning the Winston Racing Series pro stock championship last year at Ascot Park by four points, will take a four-point lead into Sunday night’s program after winning last week’s main event. . . . Dirt cars will run Saturday night at Santa Maria Speedway and street stocks will race Friday night at Ventura Raceway.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--National champion Bobby Schwartz will open defense of his Ascot Park track championship when the 1990 season gets under way tonight at the South Bay Stadium. . . . Sidecar teams from New Zealand will race Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa along with the regular Cycle News Night speedway program.

DRAG RACING--Friends of Darrell Gwynn, who was seriously injured Easter Sunday in a crash in England, have established a recovery fund to help pay for the growing medical bills while he recuperates. Gwynn is expected to spend at least three months in England before being moved nearer his home in Miami.

The Nostalgia Drag Racing Assn., featuring cars from the ‘50s and ‘60s, will hold a meet Saturday and Sunday at Bakersfield Raceway. Featured will be a match race between the dragsters of K.S. Pittman and Stone-Woods-Cook. . . . Top Gas West cars will race Saturday at L. A. County Raceway in Palmdale. . . . The Dust Devils Auto Club will hold the Dick Mahan Memorial races Sunday at Inyokern Airport.

MOTOCROSS--Friday night’s weekly show at Ascot Park will be race No. 4 of the Continental Motosport Club’s Spring Classics. Also this week will be a CMC race Sunday at Sunrise Cycle Park in Adelanto.

NECROLOGY--Robert DeWitt, 35, a professional motorcycle road racer from Northridge, has died of injuries suffered in a racing accident at Willow Springs Raceway. DeWitt died of a ruptured aorta at Antelope Valley Hospital after his bike crashed into a dirt embankment in the first turn.