Marcus Mallett’s (Pro) Stock Is on the Rise

Stock car racing has not been a black man’s sport.

In 1,577 NASCAR Winston Cup races over 40-plus years, only one has been won by a black driver. Wendell Scott won that on Dec. 1, 1963, on a short track at Jacksonville, Fla.

Only two others, Willy T. Ribbs and George Wiltshire, have started a major stock car race. On a lower level, no black has ever won a season championship on a track sanctioned by NASCAR.

While Ribbs and his backer, Bill Cosby, have been getting publicity for their not-so-successful venture into Indy car racing, Marcus Mallett of Gardena has gone quietly about the business of becoming the first of his race to win a track championship--and perhaps even a regional championship.

Mallett, 30, has won five of 10 Winston Racing Series limited sportsman main events--called pro stock at Ascot Park--and has a 48-point lead over Chris Laney of Redondo Beach and Tony Zaffino of Carson for the track championship at the halfway mark of the season. In the Pacific Coast region, Mallett’s five victories are second only to Bobby Hogge of Salinas, last year’s champion, who has seven.

“I want to be the Ascot champion, finish at least in the top three in the Pacific Coast and attract enough attention to get a good ride in a pavement car next year,” Mallett said.

How about being the first black driver champion?

“That’s something I read about, and something that’s talked about, but it’s not something I think about,” Mallett said. “All I want to do is win as a race driver. Period.”

Mallett’s next outing on Ascot’s quarter-mile oval will be Sunday night on a program that will include bomber oval cars, Figure 8s and mini stocks. He will be driving an ’87 Pontiac Trans-Am, powered by a 355-cubic-inch Chevrolet engine built by Al Voss.

For a race car driver, Mallett got a late start. He was 23 before he drove his first race in a sport where most start in their teens.

“I wanted to be a football player,” Mallett said. “I played pretty good cornerback at Cerritos High, but I went to Cerritos College and I discovered that in college they grew a little bigger and hit a little harder. A lot harder.”

Mallett weighed 130 pounds.

“That’s when I started getting interested in racing,” he said. “I had a buddy, Larry Barber, who was running at Ascot around 1979 and 1980. He was one of the first blacks to race in NASCAR around here. I hung around with him and helped with the car and thought about racing myself when my dad noticed I had a real interest in it and put together a car for me to drive.”

Mallett was a struggling rookie early in 1983 when Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt came to Ascot to drive in a Friday night sportsman car race with Darrell Waltrip and Neil Bonnett. They were in town for a NASCAR race at Riverside International Raceway and race sponsor Warner Hodgdon flew them to Ascot in his helicopter to race on the famous half-mile oval.

“They had to borrow local cars to drive, so I turned mine over to Earnhardt,” Mallett said. “It was the same one that had scared me to death, but Dale started in the middle of the pack and had that car humming all around the track. He got it all the way to the front before a hose let go with half a lap left.

“I’d driven it three or four times, and had no idea what I was doing, but after I saw what Earnhardt did with it, I knew it wasn’t the car, it was me. I got a tape of the race and must have watched it a million times to see what he did, and how he did it. Sure enough, it paid off. About four races down the road, I won my first main event.”

Mallett went on to become Ascot’s rookie of the year.

Early in his career, driving a sportsman car on the half-mile oval, Mallett found himself up against the rail, coming off the third turn three abreast, when fenders began to rub. Before he knew it, his car was airborne and before it came down it was almost into the first turn.

Mallett was unhurt, but it was a similar accident 20 years earlier that cut short the racing career of his father, Walt.

“My mother retired him after he got tangled up with Larry Barber’s dad and got upside down and started flipping down the front straight one night. That was it for him, so I was surprised when my dad got me a car. I never thought my mother would let me race, but now she thinks it’s neat. Of course, she lives in Texas.”

Mallett has no such problem with his wife, Lori. She was raised around racing and is a secretary for Ben Foote, vice president for Agajanian Enterprises, which runs Ascot Park. Her father, Jim Bartosh, helps prepare his son-in-law’s car and works with the crew at races. The Malletts have three children, Robert 6, Marcus Jr. 4 and Lacey, 16 months.

“It’s pretty much a family and friends deal,” Mallett said. “My dad owns the car and everyone pitches in and helps out. I’d like to stretch out next year, especially if Ascot is closed, and drive some bigger cars on pavement with hopes of running the Winston Cup someday. But it takes more money than a family can make. We’ll need sponsor help, or some big backer who wants to support our team.”

Last year, Mallett came within four points of winning the Ascot pro stock title. It was so close that if he had won the final race, he would have edged out Ron Meyer of Anaheim for the championship.

“Meyer was ahead going into the last race, but he had all kinds of trouble and finished sixth. I was running third and felt I had a chance to win when the engine dropped two cylinders and I was lucky to limp home third. It was close enough to make me try harder this year.”

It isn’t easy to win a pro stock main event, something Mallett has done five times. In the eight-lap heat races, drivers start inverted according to the standings. As No. 1, Mallett must start last. The top six finishers qualify for the 30-lap final, where the start is again inverted, so no matter how well Mallett qualifies, he will start no better than 12th.

“It makes for some interesting racing for the spectators, but as far as driving is concerned, it sure keeps you on your toes,” Mallett said. “The one thing you’ve got to protect against is getting spun around, but on the other hand you’ve got to keep trying to move up.”

The regional championship is decided by a driver’s best 20 finishes during the season. He can start as many races as he wants, which means that drivers in an area where there is more than one track, running different nights, have an advantage. With only 20 races on Ascot’s schedule, Mallett must do some traveling to pick up needed points.

The Pacific Coast champion will receive $24,000 and become one of the eight regional champions eligible for a $65,000 national championship bonus.

Mallett, who finished third last Saturday night at the Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino, has also driven at Las Vegas and plans to drive in Northern California.

“It’s tough switching from dirt (at Ascot) to pavement (all other Southern California tracks),” he said. “It’s harder to keep the car going straight, and it’s hard to set it up right.”

Mallett’s talents at setting up a car are such that many of his opposing drivers come to him for help in setting up their cars.

It wasn’t always that way, especially when Mallett began his career.

“It was a big thing, the black vs. white deal, when I started racing,” he said. “The publicity used to make a lot out of it. The intention was to build up a black following for me, but it backfired. It did more to create a problem, making it sound like I was one black guy against 30 white guys. It just ended up upsetting the whites, and me, too.

“The black community has never supported me. It seems to be more into drag racing than stocks. Maybe in the next four or five years, it’ll change. In the meantime, I don’t mind the way it is.”