MOTOR RACING : At the End, Parker Rides Familiar Ground

If you think the NL West Division race between the Dodgers and the Braves is close, you should check out the Camel Pro dirt track motorcycle championship season.

After 14 of 16 races, Chris Carr of Valley Springs, Calif., holds a one-point lead over three-time champion Scott Parker of Swartz Creek, Mich., in a battle of Harley-Davidson teammates.

The issue--including a $100,000 champion’s bonus--will be decided Saturday night on the half-mile track at the Pomona Fairgrounds and next week on the mile at the Cal-Expo Fairgrounds in Sacramento.

“It’s crunch time. That’s the way I look at it,” Parker said. “I came from way back to win last year. Maybe that’s the kind of a rider I am. I don’t seem to be as motivated early in the season, but once we pass the midway mark I feel like it’s time to kick up the pace.”

Parker, who turns 30 next month, won the last three races to all but erase a 19-point deficit. Last year, Carr led by 17 points with five events remaining only to watch Parker win four of the five and the championship. If Parker wins again, he will join Carroll Resweber as the only ones to win four years in a row. Resweber won in 1958-61.

“If either me or Chris had a good year, one of us could have run away with the championship,” Parker said. “It seemed like whenever one of us had a problem, the other one had one, too. But with Bill Werner tuning my bike the way I like it, I feel really comfortable about winning the championship going into Pomona and Sacramento.”

He should. Last May, when the American Motorcyclist Assn. replaced Ascot Park with the Pomona track, Parker went flag-to-flag in one of the most one-sided races of the season. And in mile-track races, such as Sacramento, he has won 22 of the past 26.

Carr, 24, who has won two of the past three Sacramento Miles, isn’t giving up.

“I know Scotty’s going to be tough at Pomona,” he said. “I don’t want to finish second, but at least I know, if I do finish second, I’ll go into Sacramento with a chance to win the title. All I’ll need to do is win at Sacramento, and I’ve been known to do that.”

Carr already has won a championship this season, the AMA 600cc dirt track. It was his fourth in a row.

When Parker won on the mile at Indianapolis earlier this season, he broke Jay Springsteen’s AMA Grand National record of 40 victories.

“The record was something I never thought about getting when I started racing,” Parker said. “It’s funny, because the guy I traveled with when I started out when I was 17 was (Springsteen). He’s been one of my strongest supporters, the closer I got to his record. He’s been a good buddy all the way. We go bear hunting together, and when the season’s over, we’re going salmon fishing.

“It wasn’t until I got to 35 (victories that) I started thinking about his record. When I got to 40, I was more concerned with winning races to catch Chris (Carr) for the championship than I was about getting No. 41. I want to close the season with 45.”

He would have to win both Pomona and Sacramento to reach 45.

“As long as Bill (Werner) is setting my bikes up, I have the feeling I can win every race I ride,” Parker said. “He makes all the decisions on tires, rims, gearing, all those little things. I’d rather not even know what he’s doing. I have complete confidence he’ll have the bike working for me.

“Then it’s my job to get into the corners faster and come out faster than anybody else. So far, things have worked pretty well, just the way they did for Bill and Springer before I came along.”

Werner was the tuner for Gary Scott when he won the Grand National title in 1975 and for Springsteen when he won three in a row from 1976 to 1978.

Parker, unlike former dirt track champions such as Joe Leonard, Kenny Roberts and Bubba Shobert, has no desire to switch to racing cars or go road racing.

“I’m almost 30 and I like being the best at what I do, so I see no need to try something else,” he said. “At least not until I’m through with dirt tracking, and that probably won’t be for four or five years. I think the future of dirt-track racing is solid. We have had good turnouts most of the year, and the way I look at it, there will always be someone like Ronnie Jones or Chris Agajanian and Gene Romero to promote races.”

Jones promoted and then beat Carr and Parker in a Camel Pro race in his hometown of Oklahoma City last July. Jones also won the last race held at Ascot last year. Agajanian, son of the late J.C. Agajanian, and Romero are promoters of the Pomona and Sacramento races.

DRAG BOATS--With two events remaining in the International Hot Boat Assn. season, two-time top fuel hydro champion Ron Braaksma and his boat, Madness, face a challenge from Kyle Walker of Houston, driving Spirit of America; and Ralph Padilla of Yorba Linda, in Quarterflash, when the Fallnationals are held this weekend at San Dimas’ Puddingstone Lake. Braaksma, who recently moved from Downey to San Bernardino, has 2,648 points to 2,254 for Walker and 2,248 for Padilla. Qualifying is Saturday with eliminations Sunday.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Legends of Speedway Night, featuring old-timers Danny Becker, Wild Bill Cody, Dubb Ferrell, Jim Fishback and Sonny Nutter, will close the weekly season Friday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Also on the program will be regular scratch and handicap racing with riders getting in their final tuneups for the U.S. Nationals Oct. 12 on the same track. The highlight of closing night will be a match race with national champion Mike Faria and former champions Bobby Schwartz, Brad Oxley and Steve Lucero.

MIDGETS--Cajon Speedway in El Cajon will host a doubleheader of U.S. Auto Club full midgets and TQs Saturday, plus vintage cars of the Western Racing Assn. The last time USAC ran at Cajon, July 4, Page Jones swept both main events, the first time it had been done. Sleepy Tripp, twice a winner at Cajon and a five-time regional champion, leads Robbie Flock, 752-621, in quest of a sixth title.

SPRINT CARS--The California Racing Assn., which has had 18 winners in 37 races, will run at San Jose Speedway for the first time Saturday night. When Bubby Jones won the Pacific Coast Nationals last week, it was his 80th CRA victory.

STOCK CARS--The second round in the NASCAR Western States Challenge series for sportsman cars will be held Saturday night at the Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. . . . The Desert Valleys Racing Assn. will open its season Saturday night at the Imperial Fairgrounds in El Centro.

OFF ROAD--La Rana Desert Racing will hold its California 200 this weekend out of Ridgecrest.