They’re Ready to Shift Into High Gear : Racing: Inglewood based Big City Racing team is becoming a force in motorcycle racing.

Ted Lumpkin, the ultimate organizer, and Big City Racing teammate Alex White, stood on the sidewalk next to a motorcycle shop on Artesia Boulevard in Redondo Beach and talked about their love for motorcycle racing.

Lumpkin and White, together with Chris Young and backup rider Dave Brown, will return to Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond (Calif.) on Sept. 22-23 for what could be the most important race in the history of their fledgling endurance team.

Founded by childhood pals Lumpkin and Young, the Inglewood-based motorcycle club, with a pit crew of four, will be making a bid to capture the national endurance title of the Western Eastern Racing Assn.

Currently ranked sixth, few expected Big City Racing, in its first year on the tour, to be in contention in the 640 c.c. Mediumweight Superbike class because the team has not had enough funds to compete in every race nationwide.

It costs Lumpkin, White and Young about $10,000 each to compete in about half of the yearlong series of races. Still, by choosing to race their Yamaha FZR 600 in events that offer double points, they have stayed in the hunt and climbed as high as second. The Willow Springs race is a double-point event and a good finish there might attract additional sponsorship monies.

“They have been doing very well,” WERA President Kurt Hall said. “Being based in California, they have been at a disadvantage because they have so far to come to a lot of the races. And when they get here they don’t know the track, so the other racers have the edge. But for being so far out West, they have done well.”

Just doing well isn’t why Big City Racing was founded, Lumpkin said. To prove it, the team’s motto, emblazoned on much of its gear is “In It to Win It.” Lumpkin boldly calls it “our winning attitude.”

“Big City Racing wins championships through ingenuity, efficient organization and talent,” Lumpkin said. “Two of our members have won individual championships and, as a team, we (have already won a title).”

Big City Racing burst onto the endurance scene in 1989 by winning the California Endurance title of the American Road Racing Assn. Endurance competitions consist of two types: sprints and endurance.

Sprint races range in distance from 25 to 100 miles and racers reach speeds of up to 180 m.p.h. Endurance races run from three to 24 hours in length, covering as much as 2,000 miles along a twisting, turning asphalt track. Engines sometimes turn 12,000 revolutions per minute and consume as much as three quarts of oil. Teams of riders, wearing leather jumpsuits, often trail knees and thighs along the track in tight turns. Riders are often subjected to temperatures of over 100 degrees.

“At times, they literally carry riders off bikes because of heat exhaustion,” Lumpkin said.

The object in each race is simple: Beat your opponent to the finish line. The machines these guys are racing aren’t street hogs popularized in epic biker movies like “Easy Rider.”

“Motorcycles have a stigma,” White said. “Many people think we’re all Hell’s Angels, but that’s not the case. This kind of racing, most of the people are more upper middle class, an educated crowd.”

But according to John Winslett, general manager of Del Amo Motorcycles in Redondo Beach, most racing teams fail to promote themselves as well as they should. That is what sets Big City Racing apart from the others.

“These guys (Big City) are articulate,” Winslett said. “They’re not like the normal racer. They’re a little older and they know what they are doing. Other racers are very focused on racing, but not much else.”

Lumpkin, an aircraft tool design engineer, won the ARRA Heavyweight Twins championship last year. At 29, he is a senior statesman for the sport.

“At my age, I’m considered over the hill,” he said.

A smooth talker with an eye toward organization, Lumpkin is a public-relations director, secretary, bookkeeper and rider rolled into one. He seeks out sponsors and wants to expand the team’s competition schedule by raising more money to race in events east of the Mississippi River, where WERA hosts most of its races.

White, 27, a motorcycle technician, is the most decorated of the crew. He has held four individual titles in three separate racing categories. He is a master mechanic and might have a lucrative future working in Europe, where road racing events pay big money. But if he goes overseas, it’s likely he would work as an engine tuner, not a racer.

“I’m always fiddling,” he said. “I’ll spend eight hours working on an engine, just to get an additional half-second of time out of it.”

Young, 27, a computer installer, built his first racing bike from what Lumpkin called “a hunk of metal.” He started his racing career by riding a Kawasaki 750 which he “bolted together from spare parts and scrap metal,” White managed a top-10 finish in the ARRA Superstreet class in his rookie year in 1985, but has yet to win a title.

“I felt I had the bike pretty much sorted out,” he said.

In a major race the following year at Riverside Raceway, Young was “so confident that as I pulled up to the starting grid I was mentally deciding where my trophy would look best in my house.”

When the starting flag fell, Young let out the clutch. But instead of getting off the line quickly, all of the teeth on the rear sprocket were sheared off. Young traveled six feet.

“As I sat there watching the rest of the field disappear into turn one, I thought to myself, ‘This is what they mean when they say that’s racing,’ ” he said.

Brown, 25, was picked up by Big City Racing in October after another driver, Mike Strawder, resigned from the team to spend more time with his family. An Illinois native, Brown turned pro as a dirt-bike racer at 17, but quickly found “I couldn’t afford to live.” He met Lumpkin, White and Young at Willow Springs a year ago. Brown is the team’s signal man and races occasionally.

Lumpkin and Young grew up together near Los Angeles International Airport. As kids they raced bicycles through the streets of their neighborhood. As teen-agers they took to motorcycles, Chris on his homemade Kawasaki and Ted on a used Yamaha.

White, also from Los Angeles, began to work with motorcycle engines as a youth and by 21 had won his first individual title, the ARRA Lightweight Class 24-hour race at Willow Springs. As a teen-ager, his favorite spot was cruising Mullholland Drive. He lived for a street race, but in 1982 he was involved in a collision with a police cruiser. He went over the handlebars of his secondhand Honda 350. Bruised, but not seriously hurt, White turned to the track.

Winslett, known to the racing crowd simply as “J. W.,” calls Big City Racing “our primary endurance team.” He likes the team because “they race good and fast.”

In all, Lumpkin counts about a dozen businesses as sponsors. Most, like Del Amo, which sponsors 41 racers, provides discount parts and services in exchange for advertising.

Price breaks are nice, Lumpkin said, but the barter system only pays a part of the bills. He hopes to move Big City up to the Heavyweight racing class next season, which could increase the team’s costs by about $60,000.

It’s a lot of money, but Lumpkin said that if he had to mortgage his own home, he would do it.

Said Brown: “This is not just a hobby. This is serious.”