MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Robinson Chases Miracle at Del Mar to Prevent Brabham Title

For the second year in a row, Nissan teammates Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson will carry their fight for the International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GT championship to the final race at the Del Mar Fairgrounds--the Camel Grand Prix of Greater San Diego.

This year, though, the roles are reversed. Brabham has the odds in his favor. Last year, Robinson came to Del Mar with a four-point lead, but a broken drive-shaft sidelined him and Brabham won the series with a second-place finish.

Brabham has more of an edge this weekend. All the transplanted Aussie needs Sunday to win his third consecutive championship--even if Robinson wins the race--is to finish in the top 10 in the one-hour 45-minute race over the 1.6-mile circuit.

“All he needs is one lousy point, and I need 20,” Robinson said. “It would take a miracle, but sometimes miracles happen.”

Brabham must finish at least 70% of the race, however, to collect even one point under the IMSA scoring system.

“It’s going to be the longest two hours of my life,” said Brabham, who thought he had the championship sewed up last month at Tampa, Fla., before a rain squall sent his car careening into the wall. The race was stopped seven laps short, with James Weaver of Britain declared the winner in a Porsche 962. Brabham was fifth.

“Every little creak and vibration is going to cause my heart to skip a beat,” Brabham said. “The way I see it, the margin for error when you’re trying to win a race is about the width of a sharp pencil. Now, at least for me, I’d say it’s more like a broad crayon. Problem is, crayons break, too.”

Brabham has won five Camel GT races this season to Robinson’s two, and, between them, they have locked up a third consecutive manufacturers’ title for Kas Kastner’s Nissan team. Surprisingly, with all the good fortune of Brabham, Robinson and the team, they have never won at Del Mar.

This year, the path will be no easier, partly because of the entries of such non-regulars as Al Unser Jr., the newly crowned Indy car champion who will drive a Chevy Spice; John Andretti, another Indy car driver, who will be in a revolutionary Porsche Gunnar 966, the first open-cockpit Porsche to run in IMSA GTP competition; and Martin Brundle, the 1988 winner from Great Britain, who is returning after two years to drive one of Tom Walkinshaw’s Castrol Jaguars.

Unser, who will co-drive with Jay Cochran, is no stranger to Camel GT cars. He has twice been in the winning car in the 24 Hours of Daytona. Andretti is also a former Daytona winner.

Brundle, who drove the winning car in this year’s 24 Hours of LeMans, is a replacement for Price Cobb on the Jaguar team. Cobb, who drove with Brundle at LeMans, recently joined the Mazda team and will make his first start in the four-rotor RX-7 in the GTO-GTU race Saturday. Cobb also won the Porsche North America Cup in 1986, the year he and Rob Dyson won the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix at Riverside.

Also contending will be Dan Gurney’s Toyota team of Juan Manuel Fangio II and Rocky Moran. Fangio has won three races this year but has never raced on the Del Mar street course.

Jan Lammers, who won with Brundle in 1988 and solo last year in a Walkinshaw Jaguar, is not entered this year. In 1989, Lammers won a sports car-record $182,500. Davy Jones will drive the other Jaguar.

Victory for either Brabham or Robinson could be worth at least $200,000 Sunday--a first-place payoff of $50,000 and a $150,000 champion’s bonus.

Dorsey Schroeder, in a Mercury Cougar, has already clinched the GTO championship for Jack Roush’s team, but the one-hour race Saturday should be one of the most competitive of the season. Also entered are Schroeder’s Cougar teammate, Robby Gordon, who will be driving one day after racing a Ford truck in the Baja 1,000; former champion Pete Halsmer, in a Mazda RX-7 similar to Cobb’s; Steve Millen, LeMans 24 Hour rookie of the year, and Jeremy Dale, 1988 Barber Saab champion, in Nissan 300ZX twin turbos; and Lance Stewart, the GTU champion who is moving up to GTO competition in another Mazda.

“With the championship decided, we can just go out and race as hard as we want,” said Halsmer, the 1989 series champion who has won three races this season. “I’m disappointed that we didn’t win the championship, but Del Mar should be interesting. Price (Cobb) is very fast, and I’m looking forward to working with him at Del Mar and next year.”

Halsmer won last year in a Mercury Cougar but switched to Mazda during the off-season.

Qualifying for the GTO-GTU and Barber Saab races will be held Friday, with GTP and Camel Lights cars qualifying Saturday.

SPRINT CARS--Rip Williams will attempt to keep his late-season drive alive toward the California Racing Assn. championship in races Friday night at Phoenix’s Manzanita Speedway and Saturday night at Ascot Park. Last Saturday, Williams, of Yorba Linda, became the first CRA driver this year to win three consecutive races and closed to within 27 points of defending champion Ron Shuman. . . . Frank Lewis, president of CRA, announced that the purse for the Don Peabody race on Nov. 17 at Ascot Park will be a record $42,500, with the winner of the 50-lap race collecting $10,000. It will be the final sprint car race at the track.

OFF-ROAD--The Presidente SCORE Baja 1,000, final event of the SCORE/High Desert Racing Assn. season, will be run Friday over a 667-mile course that starts and ends in Ensenada. Fuel conservation played a major role in shortening the course, according to Sal Fish, SCORE president. More than 250 motorcycles and four-wheeled vehicles are expected to compete, with the main attraction a battle of trucks between defending champion Robby Gordon, in a Ford, and points leader and 1990 champion Ivan Stewart, in a Toyota.

MOTORCYCLES--Jeff Stanton, Supercross and 250cc national motocross champion from Sherwood, Mich., was named the American Motorcyclist Assn.’s professional athlete of the year, being selected over world road race champions Wayne Rainey and Donny Schmit, and AMA champions Doug Chandler and Scott Parker. Motocross rider Johnny O’Mara of Simi Valley received the Mickey Thompson Award of Excellence for dedication to his sport.

SAND DRAGS--Glen Helen Park, near San Bernardino, will be the site Saturday of the U.S.A. Sand Drags Championship. Featured will be top alcohol and funny cars capable of reaching 100 m.p.h. over 100 yards in less than three seconds. Pro eliminations will start at 5:30 p.m.

MIDGETS--Sleepy Tripp has already clinched the United States Auto Club’s Western States championship, but he will be in action Saturday night at Ventura Raceway when USAC holds a combined regional and national championship 50-lap main event on the one-fifth-mile dirt oval. Also on the program will be a 20-lap three-quarter midget race in which Jay Drake and Cory Kruseman will continue their title battle. Drake leads by 52 points with two events remaining, at Ventura and Nov. 17 at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Kelly Moran of Apple Valley and Ronnie Correy of Fullerton, regulars in the British Speedway League, will return home this weekend to ride in the International Long Track Championship Friday night at Ascot Park. Also competing will be four leading European riders--Jerry Doncaster of Great Britain, Thierry Hillaire of France, Brian Karger of Denmark and Thomas Diehr of Germany. The race will be on Ascot’s half-mile track.

STOCK CARS--When Bill Schmitt squeezed through to edge Bill Sedgwick by a point for the Winston West championship last Sunday in Phoenix, he became only the second driver in series history to become champion without winning a race. Lloyd Dane did it in 1957. Schmitt, 54, who trailed Sedgwick by 134 points with three races remaining, joined Ray Elder and Roy Smith as the only four-time champions in the series. Sedgwick won four races. Mike Chase was named rookie of the year.