MOTOR RACING : Secondhand Car Puts Blankenship in First

Some friend, this Dave Blankenship.

His longtime buddy, Ken Maler of Castaic, decides to be a nice guy and lend Blankenship, of Reseda, a car for the 1990 Street Stock season at Saugus Speedway.

How does Blankenship repay the favor?

By driving laps around Maler and the rest of the field all summer. Blankenship, in the borrowed ride, leads the Street Stock points standings and nobody’s gaining on him.

It turns out that success is as familiar to Blankenship as the smell of piping hot tires in the pits. In 1986 and ’87 he was the Hobby Stock champion. In 1988, he was Street Stock champion and rookie of the year. In 1989, he bought a house.

Yes, with all that success behind him, Blankenship decided to enjoy the fruits of his labors, so he took last year off from racing and bought his first house. That, along with the birth of his new business, led to a shortage of cash to buy a car for the 1990 season. Enter Maler.

“I was going to buy the car from him, but then I started my own business, and I didn’t have the money to buy it,” said Blankenship, an El Camino Real High graduate who builds custom cars for Hot Rod magazine. “But then Ken said, ‘Just drive one of my cars.’ He was nice enough to offer an extra car.”

Maler’s thinking was that Blankenship would spend the summer zipping around in what in effect would be a backup car for Maler, who then would make a run at the points championship.

Things, shall we say, have turned out a tad differently.

Blankenship not only leads the points standings, he set a Street Stock track record for one-lap qualifying last Saturday (18.41 seconds).

By all means, the decade-long friendship between the drivers, who raced motorcycles long ago, remains as strong as ever. In fact, Maler seems as tickled as anybody about the twist of fate.

He was in the pits last Saturday after the Street Stock main event, gleefully urging Blankenship to tell reporters the whole story.

“It started as a joke,” Blankenship said. “Now the tables have turned and I guess now his car is kind of the backup.”

The pair even are talking about getting some money together to run a car in the Sportsman division next year. Money might be a problem but friendship won’t.

If not for bad luck. . . : Will Harper of Tarzana had another rough night last Saturday at Saugus, heading for the pits on Lap 5 of the 40-lap Sportsman division main event with a flat tire that resulted in a yellow flag.

Things proceeded to get worse for Harper as race officials restarted the race while he was still in the pits, leaving him a lap down. This helps explain his 14th-place finish. For Harper, though, seeing the race start without him was just one disappointment in a most unfortunate month.

Two weeks ago, he and his team traveled to Las Vegas to race. Harper led until his car was spun out by another driver and he had to resume racing from the back of the pack. He wound up sixth in a field of 20.

In addition, his lead in the Sportsman division has shriveled from more than 50 points to 22 during the month. Larry Krieger of Reseda is in second place.

“I really thought that tonight, everything was working great,” Harper said after racing last Saturday. “I thought we were going to put all the disasters behind us.

“Tonight, I finally did something wrong,” he said, alluding to his tire, which was damaged when he drove too close to the wall.

But Harper is resilient. After all, the defending champion still leads the points standings.

“We’ve had bad luck in every possible way,” he said. “Now, I hope it’s over.”

Seems like old times: The Nostalgia Drag Racing Assn. will hit Palmdale this weekend with Sylmar-based “Digger” Dan Horan Jr., the Gold Rush series points leader, heading the field.

Horan and his vintage Top Fuel dragster will race against the likes of challengers Paul Gommi, Jim Boyd and Mike Cook at the Los Angeles County Raceway today and Sunday. Qualifying will take place from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. today, and the first round of eliminations are expected to begin about 1 p.m. Sunday.

Horan, whose dragster accelerates to about 190 m.p.h., will race with about a dozen of the front-engine dragsters of the ‘60s.

Motocross update: Local motorcycle stars Mike Kiedrowski of Canyon Country and Johnny O’Mara of Simi Valley are, as usual, contending for racing honors.

Kiedrowski, who races in the 125cc National Motocross Series, is coming off a second-place finish last Sunday in the Motocross 338 in Southwick, Mass. The race was Round 6 of 13 and it put Kiedrowski (221 points) in third place in the standings, trailing leader Jean-Michel Bayle of Redondo Beach (270) and Guy Cooper of Stillwater, Okla. (261).

O’Mara, racing in the 250cc motocross series, placed fourth last Sunday. He stands fifth with 164 points. O’Mara trails Jeff Stanton of Sherwood, Mich., (256 points); Jeff Ward of San Juan Capistrano (247); Mike LaRocco of La Porte, Ind., (201); and Damon Bradshaw of Charlotte, N.C., (195).

The 250cc national title chase will come to a close Sunday in Troy, Ohio.