MOTOR RACING : Cope Not Just Lucky; Petty Not Just a Name

As the NASCAR Winston Cup season returns to the West Coast this weekend for the Banquet 300 at Sears Point Raceway, one of the most interesting developments of 1990 has been the emergence of two talented young drivers--Derrike Cope of Spanaway, Wash., and Kyle Petty of the Level Cross, N.C., racing family.

Cope was in the right place at the right time when Dale Earnhardt cut a tire about a mile from the end of the Daytona 500 and slowed enough to allow Cope’s Chevrolet to win. Then, after never having led a lap in the next nine races, Cope came back and dominated the Budweiser 500 last Sunday in Dover, Del.

Petty, winless since 1987 and conscious of the talk that he got rides only because he was a Petty and not because of his driving ability, stunned the stock-car world when he won the richest single-race prize in the sport’s history, $294,450, with a dominating drive in the Goodwrench 500 at Rockingham, N.C. in March.

And that doesn’t count the classic 1973 Rolls-Royce that his team owner, Felix Sabates, gave him for winning the race.

Cope and Petty are among the entries for Sunday’s 300-kilometer race around Sears Point’s 2.52-mile road course in the Sonoma Valley of Northern California. The race will climax a weekend of racing that will include a Southwest Tour 200 on Saturday.

Cope, 31, was particularly pleased at showing his tailpipe to NASCAR’s finest last Sunday.

“I think we proved something to a lot to people with that win,” the former Winston West driver said. “It proved that it wasn’t all luck when we won at Daytona. And we also proved something to ourselves. We reinforced our belief in what we’re trying to do. We’re young and inexperienced but we’re learning and we’re going to keep digging all year long.”

Cope is also looking forward to Sears Point, one of only two road racing circuits on the Winston Cup schedule. When he was strictly a West Coast campaigner, he raced there numerous times. His best finish was a fifth in 1985 in a race won by Hershel McGriff.

Cope moved South in 1987 to pursue a Winston Cup career with team owner Jim Testa, but when Testa was forced to quit because of failing health, Cope was left with a sponsor but no team. About the same time, Bob Whitcomb, a New Hampshire concrete magnate, lost his sponsor and had a team, but no driver and no financial support.

Whitcomb joined Cope and Purolator in 1989 and formed a new team. Buddy Parrott, who guided Richard Petty to his 200th victory, was hired as crew chief. Parrott had been out of racing for four years after a bitter parting with Petty.

“I could see right away I had a good horseman in Derrike,” Parrott said. “He impressed me the first time we went to the track. Now he’s had time to impress everyone who has seen him. When he won that race in Daytona, it was the greatest thrill I’ve ever had in racing.”

Kyle Petty, 30, has a similar story of overcoming long odds to achieve victory.

The third-generation driver, trying to emulate the careers of grandfather Lee, a three-time NASCAR champion, and father Richard, a seven-time champion, had only two wins in 276 Winston Cup races before taking the Goodwrench 500.

“All I can think about is the difference between driving that Rolls home from the track this time and driving my old pickup after I won the Coca-Cola 600 in 1987,” Petty said. “I’d overslept that morning at home and the only thing with any gas in it was a pickup. I was late, so I didn’t have time to fill it up.

“I got to Charlotte just in time to make the second roll call for the drivers’ meeting. I was in such a hurry I didn’t even pay attention to the gas gauge on the truck. After the victory ceremony, I got in the pickup and started for home. I was so excited, I still didn’t look at the meter and I ran out of gas around Salisbury.”

Eddie and Leonard Wood, Petty’s car owners at the time, spotted Kyle stranded on the interstate and gave him a push to the next exit.

“There I was, right after winning $100,000, and I didn’t have a dime on me,” he said. “I had to get Eddie and Leonard to spring for the gas.”

This year, Sabates, a Cuban native who has North American distributorship rights to Nintendo, the computer game, promised young Petty a Rolls-Royce if he either qualified for the front row or finished in the top three for the Daytona 500. He didn’t do it, but Sabates had allowed Petty to drive the car around Daytona Beach during Speed Weeks.

“I thought if he got the feel of how it felt to drive a car like that, it might inspire him to bigger things on the race track,” Sabates said with a smile.

The Goodwrench race was No. 3 on this year’s schedule. The reason for the huge payoff was a $228,000 Unocal Challenge bonus that went to the first driver to win the pole and the race. There had been 30 races without that happening.

“What we won is really way more than the $300,000,” Petty said. “The win got us on NASCAR’s Winner’s Circle and that is worth about $250,000 this year, and we got bonuses from Peak, our sponsor, $25,000 for winning a pole and $50,000 for winning a race. I’d say we got closer to $650,000 for that one win.”

OFF ROAD--The entry list of nearly 300 competitors for the 17th annual Presidente SCORE Baja Internacional race Saturday is living up to the event’s name. Fabian Bucheli, a graduate of UC Riverside, and Antonio Marraco of Ecuador and Carlos Martinez de Campos, a bank president from Spain, are among the motorcycle entries. The race has been dedicated to the memory of Mike Leon, a longtime competitor known as the “Lion of Baja” and owner of Mike’s Sky Ranch, who was killed in a highway accident last January.

Featured in the 440-mile race back and forth across the Baja California peninsula will be the truck duel between Ivan (Ironman) Stewart, a seven-time winner in Baja, and Robby Gordon, the precocious racer who swept honors in the Off-Road World Championships last month in Phoenix that Stewart skipped. Gordon won the Baja 1000 last year.

Jerry Welchel, who recently won an off-road enduro in Guam in a stadium Toyota truck, will try for an international double when he drives his mini-pickup against Roger Mears’ Nissan and Manny Esquerra’s Ranger in the Internacional.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Kelly Moran, a longtime Southland favorite who now rides in the British Speedway League, will delay his return to England long enough to ride tonight at Ascot Park’s South Bay Speedway and Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Moran rode Saturday night in the American Final at Long Beach, a first-round qualifying race for the World Final. Qualifiers were Shawn Moran, Billy Hammill, Rick Miller and Greg Hancock.

Hancock, however, suffered a broken arm in a runoff for first place and underwent surgery on the arm Monday. Hancock will be unable to ride for at least six weeks, which means he will miss the Overseas Final, June 24, at Coventry, England. His place will be taken by Ronnie Correy, who won the first alternate’s spot in a runoff with Moran.

STOCK CARS--Marcus Mallett, with three consecutive victories, holds a commanding lead in the NASCAR Winston Racing Series standings for pro stock cars at Ascot Park. He will go for his fourth in a row and fifth overall when the series continues Sunday night on the Ascot half mile. . . . Eighty-five laps of Figure 8 racing are scheduled Saturday night at Saugus Speedway, along with street stock and hobby stock main events. . . . Sportsman stocks will race Saturday night at Cajon Speedway, with street stocks going Friday night at Ventura Raceway.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Moto sport Club’s summer series will continue Friday night at Ascot Park and Sunday at Carlsbad Raceway. . . . The Coors/Kawasaki series will return to Ventura Raceway Saturday night.

MISCELLANY--The SoCal Timing Assn. will hold its monthly speed trials Sunday at El Mirage Dry Lake. . . . Shawna Robinson, the first woman to win a sanctioned NASCAR race, will be in action Saturday night at Ascot Park--driving a Kenworth diesel tractor in an attempt to jump eight cars as part of the Great Truck Races and Jump program. . . . Sand dragsters will race Saturday and Sunday at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino.