MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : CRA Ends Season on the Road Again

The first season of the California Racing Assn. as a traveling sprint car organization will end this weekend with 30-lap races tonight at King’s Speedway in Hanford and Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale.

After more than three decades with Ascot Park as home base, the CRA was forced to go on the road this year when the Agajanian family’s track in Gardena was closed for industrial development. Of the 42 races for the 700-horsepower wingless sprinters, 12 were in Arizona and 12 in six other states during the CRA’s Midwest tour.

“Considering what an adjustment all the drivers and teams had to make, I think the year came out pretty well,” Frank Lewis, CRA president, said. “After this weekend, we’ll take a look at how we’ve done and start planning for next year.”

One thing that didn’t change this year was Ron Shuman heading for another championship. Since Shuman left the World of Outlaws in 1987 to campaign closer to his home in Tempe, Ariz., he has won three consecutive championships and is a cinch to win No. 4 this weekend. Only Jimmy Oskie, with five, has won more, but only Shuman will have won four in a row.

Going into the Hanford-Oildale doubleheader, which is being billed as the Dave Sanborn Classic, Shuman leads his Arizona neighbor, Lealand McSpadden, by 98 points. About all Shuman needs to do is show up at both races to win again.

The car owner’s championship, between Alex Morales Inc., owner of the Tamale Wagon driven by Shuman; and Lewis, who owns the No. 91 car driven by McSpadden, is not so certain. Last year, when Shuman won the driver’s crown, Lewis slipped in and took the owners’ title because Shuman had accumulated some of his points driving for another owner.

The Morales team, founded by the late Alex Morales and now headed by his son, Andy, is seeking a record eighth championship. Their lead over Lewis is 80 points.

“One thing this season has done is make people in the CRA realize what a good deal they had at Ascot,” Shuman said. “I told them they didn’t realize how good they had it, but now they know. Traveling is more difficult for everyone, but everybody has been pulling together. Everybody needs a little sponsorship help to make it next year, but what else is new? That’s the way racing is today.”

For the last 13 years, the CRA has ended its season with the Don Peabody Classic at Ascot, but after the track closed it was requested by his family that the event be discontinued. So the CRA decided to rename its season-ending feature to honor Sanborn, a corner flagman who was killed when struck by a car at Ascot last year.

As the Peabody did in the past, the Sanborn has attracted several outsiders eager to take a shot at the $36,000 purse.

Jack Hewitt, who won four CRA races when the tour traveled near his hometown of Troy, Ohio, last spring, will be in both races. Also entered are Jac Haudenschild of Wooster, Ohio, a World of Outlaws campaigner; Brent Kaeding of Campbell, Calif., the Golden State Challenge Series champion; and Bubby Jones of Glen Avon, winner of the Pacific Coast Nationals, plus such CRA regulars as Brad Noffsinger, Jerry Meyer, Rip Williams, Billy Boat and Richard Griffin.

Motor Racing Notes

MIDGETS--Four midget car races in Southern California, starting Saturday night at Ventura Raceway, will determine one of the closest points races in United States Auto Club history as Mike Streicher of Findlay, Ohio, and Stevie Reeves of Indianapolis fight for the championship. Reeves is 17 points ahead with races remaining Nov. 23 at Bakersfield Speedway, Nov. 28 at Saugus Speedway and Nov. 30 at Imperial Raceway in El Centro. The closest finish was in 1980 when Rich Vogler edged Mel Kenyon by three points.

Reeves and Streicher won’t have the races all to themselves. Western regional drivers such as Sleepy Tripp, Page Jones, Robby Flock and Wally Pankratz will offer stiff competition. All four races will be combined national- and regional-points events. Three-quarter midgets also will race Saturday night.

MOTOCROSS--Marty Moates, winner of the 1980 U.S. Grand Prix at Carlsbad, will return to motocross Sunday in the La Playa Grand Prix near Rosarito Beach, Baja California. Moates, 34, has been racing cars since retiring from motocross.

VINTAGE CARS--Carroll Shelby will drive his own Cobra 427 in the seventh annual Palm Springs Road Races, to be held through the city’s streets Nov. 24.

HONORS--Twelve racing personalities have been elected to the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Assn. Hall of Fame, the largest group since voting began in 1971. Elected were Bobby Allison, Cannonball Baker, Rudi Caracciola, Gaston Chevrolet, Briggs Cunningham, Henry Ford, Tommy Hinnershitz, Al Holbert, Rick Mears, Marshall Teague, Herb Thomas and Cale Yarborough.

RALLY--Jon and Shirley Ward, a husband-wife team from Littlerock, Calif., won the La Carrera Panamericana (Mexico Road Race) driving a 1953 Kurtis 500S that was built and prepared by Ward. The event covered 1,900 miles in six days, from Tuxtla Gutierrez, near the Guatemala border, to Nuevo Laredo, on the U.S. border.

MISCELLANY--The American Road Racers Assn. will hold a series of Grand Prix motorcycle races Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway. . . . The National Motorcycle Racing Assn. will hold its final event Sunday at L.A. County Raceway, near Palmdale. . . . The third race of the Budweiser-Desert Valleys Racing Assn. stock car season is scheduled Saturday night at Imperial Raceway, near El Centro.