MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Turkey Night Event: Full Circle to Saugus

Cary Agajanian’s choice of Ray Wilkings’ Saugus Speedway as the site of the 51st annual Valvoline Turkey Night Grand Prix tonight is almost a case of history repeating itself.

Cary was forced to find a new home for the midget car extravaganza when Ascot, the site of 30 of the Thanksgiving night races, was closed last year.

On Jan. 29, 1956, J.C. Agajanian, Cary’s late father, was the promoter of the first outdoor midget race in the history of the then-new United States Auto Club and selected Bonelli Stadium as the site. Shorty Templeman, USAC’s first midget-car champion, won that race. Bonelli Stadium later became known as Saugus Stadium and then Saugus Speedway.

Before he started promoting midget-car races at Ascot Park in 1960, the elder Agajanian put on nine races--six for midget cars and three for stock cars--at Bonelli. His last midget race there, on July 17, 1966, was won by Parnelli Jones, three years after he had won the Indianapolis 500 in Agajanian’s car.

Tonight, Jones’ sons, P.J., 22, and Page, 19, will be among the favorites in the 100-lap race over Saugus’ one-third mile paved oval. Last Saturday night, at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale, Page and P.J. finished 1-2 in a USAC main event against most of the same drivers who will be on hand tonight.

USAC historians said it was the first time brothers had finished 1-2 in a race since 1974, when Bobby and Al Unser finished that way twice, in the California 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway and the Michigan 200 at Michigan International Speedway.

Tonight’s race will be the second time the Turkey Night race has been run on asphalt. The other was in 1975, when Ascot was unavailable. Mel Kenyon was the winner at the 605 Speedway in Irwindale. All the other races were on dirt, first at Gilmore Stadium in 1934 and later at Gardena Stadium and Ascot Park.

Page Jones recently won a midget-TQ doubleheader at Ventura Raceway, becoming the first USAC driver to accomplish such a feat on dirt. Last July 4 at Cajon Speedway in El Cajon, he was the first to win both main events on pavement.

Both brothers have won USAC western regional races on the tiny Saugus oval, P.J. three years ago and Page last July 13.

Sleepy Tripp, who has already clinched the USAC regional championship for the sixth time, has withdrawn from tonight’s race and the 40-lap season finale Saturday night at Imperial Raceway, near El Centro, for lack of a car. One of his midget racers is en route to New Zealand, where he and several other USAC drivers will race over the holiday season, and his sponsor sold the other one.

As has been the case in most of the previous 50 Turkey Night races, however, the entry list is heavy with out-of-state drivers hoping to upset in USAC’s most prestigious midget event.

Stevie Reeves of Indianapolis holds an 11-point lead over Mike Streicher of Findlay, Ohio, with two races remaining in what has been one of the closest national-championship points races in history. Streicher, although he has won only one of 35 races, held a substantial lead until Reeves got hot late in the season and won three of four races before the series came to California.

Stan Fox of Janesville, Wis., who won the final Turkey Night race at Ascot Park last Thanksgiving, is back with a car especially built by owner Steve Lewis for Saugus. Reeves will drive Lewis’ other car.

Also entered are Robbie Stanley of Brownsburg, Ind., the new USAC sprint car champion; Brent Kaeding, the Northern California champion and a former Turkey Night winner; Johnny Parsons of Brownsburg, Ind., a veteran Indy car driver whose father, Johnnie Parsons, won Turkey Night in 1955; Brad Noffsinger, two-time California Racing Assn. sprint car champion from Huntington Beach; and Mike McClellan of Dayton, Ohio, three-time Indianapolis Speedrome champion.

Racing Notes

HONORS--Scott Parker, four-time national dirt track motorcycle champion, was named American Motorcyclist Assn.’s athlete of the year at its annual banquet last week. He won the same award in 1988. . . . Allen Heath of Northridge, who drove in USAC midget races despite having lost a hand in a 1953 racing accident, was named posthumously to the Midget Racing Hall of Fame. Heath drove with the aid of a hook and was nationally ranked in the mid-1960s.

Ferdinand (Ferry) Porsche, A.J. Foyt and Dr. Terry Trammell will receive special awards at the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Assn. All-American team banquet Jan. 4 at the Burbank Airport Hilton. Foyt, who was selected for the honor after announcing that the 1991 season would be his last, said Wednesday, “I’m going to lose 35 pounds and if I feel right, I’ll probably be at Indy again for the 500.”

ROAD RACING--Randy McDaniel of Orange finished second to Craig Taylor of Plano, Tex., in the USAC Formula 2000 series after Taylor beat McDaniel in a pair of races last weekend at Laguna Seca. . . . Craig Hall, 21, younger brother of Indy car driver Dean Hall, won the IMSA Barber Saab run-off over a group of nine finalists that included Elton Julian of Los Angeles and former motocross champion Broc Glover of Rancho Santa Fe. The winner receives a year’s ride in the 1992 Saab series. . . . Long Beach finished third in final American City Racing League standings after Bill Fickering led his team to its first victory in the season finale last week at Phoenix. Los Angeles finished sixth, Newport Beach seventh and Simi Valley last in the 14-team league.

MISCELLANY--The Speed-O-Motive Dynomax streamliner that Al Teague drove to a world land-speed record of 409.986 m.p.h. for piston-driven cars at Bonneville, will be on display during the Long Beach International Auto Show this weekend at the Long Beach Convention Center. . . . The ersatz Mint 400 off-road race, scheduled last weekend at Las Vegas Speedway, was postponed indefinitely because of lack of entries. . . . Final event of the Budweiser Pacific E.T. drag racing series will be held Saturday and Sunday at Bakersfield Raceway.