MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Sedgwick Drives at Saugus Toward Big League Goal

As a mechanic, Bill Sedgwick was the crew chief for the Chevy Camaro that Roman Calczynski drove to the NASCAR Southwest Tour championship in 1988. As a driver, Sedgwick was behind the wheel of a Chevrolet that earned him Winston West rookie-of-the-year honors last year when he finished second to veteran Bill Schmitt in championship points.

Sedgwick doesn’t mind in which capacity he works, but his sights are set on Winston Cup racing.

Toward that end, he is driving a Chevy Lumina in his second Winston West season and will be one of the favorites Saturday night in a 200-lap championship race at Saugus Speedway, where he got his start in the street stock division in 1979. Sedgwick, 35, won on the one-third-mile Saugus saucer last August and probably has more laps on the track than any driver in Saturday night’s race.

“Anything can happen in a race, like last Sunday at Sears Point (near Sonoma) when we lost a dozen laps fixing a broken distributor, but I feel comfortable at Saugus,” Sedgwick said. “I feel confident in knowing the track, and that could give me a little edge. I hope so.”

He also hopes it gives him a little edge toward the big dream--racing around the country against Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt, Geoff Bodine, Darrell Waltrip, Davey Allison and the Winston Cup regulars.

“We haven’t set any specific dates, but our team is definitely headed that way,” he said. “Maybe in two years or so. We tested the waters this year at Martinsville (Va.) and found out how tough the competition is, but we learned a lot and our team is getting stronger every race.”

Sedgwick drives for Wayne and Connie Spears, whose company manufactures plastic pipes, fittings, valves and similar products. The team’s race shop is on the Spears’ 80-acre ranch near Agua Dulce, between Saugus and Palmdale.

“Racing started out as a hobby for Spears, but it’s getting to be a business,” Sedgwick said. “We have seven cars--three for Winston West and four for Southwest Tour--and about 15 engines. We have a crew of five working full time on the cars. Chris Robinson builds the engines in the shop, and Leon Ruther does the chassis and runs the pits.”

Sedgwick’s victory in the opening Winston West race this year at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield was memorable because it was the Spears 400--sponsored by his car owner. Sedgwick set a qualifying record of 93.565 m.p.h. for the banked half-mile oval and led 254 of the 400 laps.

“We were one of the fastest cars right off the trailer and had one of those nights where we didn’t get a scratch on the car. All we needed to do to get the car ready for Saugus was put another coat of wax on it.”

It was the same car Spears took to Martinsville a month earlier, when Sedgwick qualified 24th and finished in the same spot in a field of 32 cars after losing several laps because of a collision near the start of the race.

“Just to qualify that high was incredible,” he said. “That track was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was like two long drag strips connected by two tight turns, kind of like Saugus, only the straights were three times as long.”

Sedgwick, a 1973 graduate of Marshall High School who lives in Van Nuys, was a weekend bracket drag racer when a friend took him to a stock car race at Saugus late in 1978. At the time, he was working as an auto mechanic in Los Angeles, a job he held for 14 years before his career turned toward racing.

“I was really taken by the races, and when I got down close and got a good look at the cars, I was hooked. Before I left the track that night I got a set of rules, and over the winter I built a street stock car for 1979. I bought a 1964 GTO from a wrecking yard and made it into a race car.”

Sedgwick drove both street stocks and sportsman cars in 1981 at Saugus, finishing second to Calzcynski in the sportsman class. In 1983 Sedgwick won the street stock division, but didn’t move up to the bigger, more powerful Winston West cars until last season.

He got off to a fast start, winning his first race at Madera and leading the series most of the season, winning twice more, at Eureka and Saugus.

“We ran two cars in two series last year, mine in Winston West and Roman (Calczysnki’s) in the Southwest Tour, and it was too much for the crew,” Sedgwick said. “A couple of times there were schedule conflicts and we got spread too thin, so this year we decided to concentrate on just the one series.”

Sedgwick and other West Coast drivers received a big boost of confidence when Derrike Cope, one of their own, stunned the stock car world by winning the Daytona 500 in February. It was the first time a Winston West graduate had won a major race in the South.

“I think everyone involved with our series felt a part of Derrike’s victory,” Sedgwick said. “I have raced against him and know what a competitive driver he is. He showed that people other than the good ol’ boys can win races back there.”

STOCK CARS--Tony Zaffino, a former Ascot track champion in figure-8s and bomber stocks, is setting his sights on the pro stock division this year and is mounting a challenge to points leader Marcus Mallett. Zaffino, third behind Mallett and Chris Laney, will be going for a double in the Sunday night Father’s Day program at Ascot Park, driving in the chain race as well as in the pro stock main event.

SPRINT CARS--John Redican, 45, showing no signs of weakening in his bid for a California Racing Assn. championship, holds a 91-point lead over former two-time champion Brad Noffsinger going into Saturday night’s 30-lap main event at Ascot Park.

MOTORCYCLES--British Speedway League veteran Phil Collins, one of the most popular riders on the local speedway circuit last year, will make his 1990 Southland debut tonight at Ascot South Bay Stadium. . . . Friday night, at Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, Bobby Schwartz and Steve Lucero will continue their tense battle. Schwartz, the national champion, won five of the first eight races at Costa Mesa, but Lucero has won the last three.

LAND SPEED--Tom Perris of Norwalk drove the Perris & Eaton AA fuel roadster 242 m.p.h. last Sunday in the opening event of the SoCal Timing Assn. season at El Mirage Dry Lake. It broke a 17-year-old record of 235 m.p.h. held by Al Teague. The next SCTA meet is set for July 15 at El Mirage.

CARROLL SHELBY--The former racer and car designer, who underwent a heart transplant last Friday at Cedars Sinai Hospital, is progressing normally, according to attending doctors, and has been moved from cardiac surgical intensive care to the regular intensive care unit. Shelby, 67, is allowed no visitors or calls.

MIDGETS--Sleepy Tripp leads Robby Flock, 482 points to 335, in the United States Auto Club’s western regional standings going into Saturday night’s race at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale.