Winston West Tour Event Takes Spotlight at Saugus : Motor sports: Race features defending champion Bill Sedgwick of Van Nuys, the rookie of the year last season, and current points leader Terry Fisher of Oregon.

A 20-car field is expected for tonight’s Winston West 200 as the NASCAR Winston West tour makes its annual stop at Saugus Speedway. The race is scheduled to begin at 8.

The competition is headed by Bill Sedgwick of Van Nuys, who won last year’s event to clinch the tour’s rookie-of-the-year award.

Sedgwick trails Terry Fisher of Sandy, Ore., by 14 points in the Winston West points standings heading into tonight’s race.

After a 13-year hiatus, the Winston West tour returned to Saugus last year. Both the tour and Saugus officials had concerns about staging a tour event at the tricky, one-third-mile paved oval.

But last year’s race was a rousing success, according to NASCAR spokesman Owen Kearns Jr.

“It is a short, tight, narrow track,” Kearns said. “But Sedgwick managed to pass the field on the outside without so much as a nick on his fender. That and a huge crowd pretty much settled the issue.”

Racing with Sedgwick will be Fisher, 1989 runner-up Hershel McGriff, Canadian Roy Smith, defending tour champion Bill Schmitt and rookie-of-the-year candidate Mike Chase of Bakersfield.

A pit-stop contest will be held before the race to familiarize Saugus Speedway fans with the inner workings of a pit stop on the West tour.

In addition, tonight will mark the return of the speedway’s Sportsman series after a two-week break. Last week’s program, which was to include Street Stocks, Hobby Stocks, Jalopies and Outlaw Minis, was rained out.

Gates will open at noon with scheduled practices from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The ego challenge, a chance for would-be drivers to time their street-legal cars on the paved oval, is set to begin at 6:30 with the pit-stop contest to follow.