MOTOR RACING / BRIAN MURPHY : Ojai’s Moore Shifts Credit to Kauffman

The lights were on again at Ventura Raceway on Friday night after a two-week break. Figuratively, though, the brightest lights shone on Paul Moore of Ojai.

Moore is the points leader in Ventura’s Street Stock oval division and, should he hold on to his lead, would become the first racer in that raceway’s history to win points titles in both the Street Stock and Mini Stock divisions. Moore won a Mini Stock points championship in 1987.

But press Moore to explain his success and he defers to car owner and crew chief Greg Kauffman of Ventura, who is blind.

“He builds motors, he builds rear ends, he maintains the car, he’s just amazing,” Moore said of Kauffman. “You work with the guy and you forget he’s blind.”

Kauffman isn’t the type to talk about himself, either. He gives credit to his wife, Maureen, who helps him build the car, and fellow crew member Gary Bickman. And to his father Austin, who finances the whole operation. “We want to be the first one out there to win both championships,” Kauffman said. “There’s never been a repeat champion out there and that’s all we’re thinking about.”

Moore, with 885 points before Friday’s racing, comfortably leads second-place Jim Firsich (725) with about half the season remaining.

Looking to the future, Moore said that he and Kauffman would like to dabble in the Grand American Modified division, a class expected to make its debut at Ventura next spring. The Grand Americans currently are in their first year at Saugus Speedway.

“We’ve talked about it,” Kauffman said. “But right now we better worry about winning the championship.”

Racy racer: Ventura Raceway regular Zeke DeRose Jr. of Sun Valley is not your average Street Stock racer. Then again, he’s not your average bartender, either.

That’s because DeRose, a Street Stock racer Friday nights at Ventura and a bartender at the Starlite tavern in North Hollywood on other nights, has a hobby not usually found among practitioners of either profession.

DeRose is a part-time exotic dancer.

DeRose, 36, said that every once in a while he likes to get out from behind the bar and do some dirty dancing in front of screaming women. To him, it’s all in good fun.

“It’s a fun way to tease (women) back after they tease me,” DeRose said with a chuckle. “It’s just a way to get back, so I get out and do it every once in a while.”

He has not had much trouble getting to the front of the pack on the track this season. DeRose is currently fifth in the points standings in the Street Stock oval division at Ventura and fourth in the Street Stock figure eight.

DeRose decided to race at Ventura after Ascot Park closed last November. Buoyed by his success there, he said he is contemplating racing at Saugus Speedway next season.

A word of warning to race officials, however: Be careful when you ask DeRose to strip down his engine after a win.

It’s not over...: Hoopermania--a state of mind in which a race fan believes that Palmdale’s Lance Hooper already has wrapped up the Sportsman points title at Saugus Speedway--might be an idea before its time.

Carson’s Gary Sigman has quietly crept back to within eight points of Hooper after his most recent race July 6. The Sportsman cars will return to Saugus next Saturday. Hooper, 24, stole headlines and thunder with his fifth main-event win of the season June 22, which gave him a 19-point lead over Sigman.

But Sigman’s consistency--he has finished out of the top six only twice in 12 races--is keeping the 52-year-old veteran in the hunt. Hooper has 232 points to Sigman’s 224. Their nearest challenger, Rod Johnson of Canyon Country, has 158 points.

Sigman prefers to think of himself as playing tortoise to Hooper’s hare. Even when Hooper won four 50-lap races at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino in May, Sigman collected two second-place finishes and a third-place finish during the same races.

“We’ve been going back and forth a little bit,” said Sigman, who led the points standings before Hooper blazed past him on the strength of his main-event wins. “I’m just trying to finish ahead of him every night I can now.”

While Sigman concedes that Hooper is a better qualifier, he believes that in a 40-lap race, the two are fairly even. What’s more, he looks forward to the next 2 1/2 months of racing with Hooper for another reason--he likes him.

“Of all the people I’ve raced with over the years, I like racing with Lance above just about anybody,” Sigman said. “I just like the guy.”

Here’s to a friendly rivalry.

Drawing card: On a night when the Sportsman division is taking a week off at Saugus Speedway, race promoters and officials have gone the extra mile to make sure attendance doesn’t suffer accordingly.

The solution? The semifinals of a bikini contest will be held at the speedway tonight at 7. Winners of tonight’s contest will advance to the finals later this month.