Symonds Finds Happy Trails at 70 : Motor racing: Agoura Hills grandfather emerges as the Mini Stock division points leader at Saugus Speedway.

When is Gregg Symonds going to stop this silly racing business, climb into his motor home where he belongs and start collecting those little stickers of states that senior citizens love to attach to their rear windows?

OK, enough jokes about aging drivers. Seems as though Symonds, an energetic, 70-year-old stock-car driver from Agoura Hills, can’t steer clear of such cracks no matter how hard he drives. Few could blame him if he just once countered with a feisty “Stick it in your exhaust pipe!”

Symonds will reach for the Rand McNally and hit the road when he’s good and ready. Until then, the semi-retired general contractor who in fact already has piloted his motor home from coast to coast is more concerned with matters in the Mini Stock division at Saugus Speedway.

Midway through the season, Symonds, who had never touched the wheel of a stock car until last season, surprisingly has emerged as the division’s points leader, leading the pack into tonight’s program as the division returns to Saugus after a one-month hiatus.

In four main events, Symonds, whose introduction triggers enthusiastic applause from the crowd, has driven his red and white 1974 Toyota Celica to one victory and two other top-five finishes, while qualifying for all four trophy dashes. He has won two trophy dashes and, spoils in hand, graced the cover of the speedway’s weekly program.

Symonds, a grandfather of four, is not the oldest driver to compete at Saugus. That distinction belongs to Vernon “Gabby” Garrison, who was 71 at the time of his retirement in 1987. But Symonds could become the oldest track champion in the speedway’s 53-year history.

“That would be a feather in my cap,” Symonds said. “Hey, we need more grandfathers out here. Just because you’re past 55 or 50 or 40, that doesn’t make you old.

“The calendar says I’m 70, my head says I’m 21 and the body’s somewhere in between. Don’t believe all those stories: ‘You’re too old to drive.’ ”

Tell that to the competition. Although Symonds said he is well-liked by most drivers in a division filled predominantly with competitors less than half his age, “they don’t take kindly to me (winning),” he said.

“They see the old man out in front of them and they’re not going to let the old man beat ‘em. I can see it in their eyes.”

Symonds’ success has some of them seeing red.

“A lot of the younger guys, when they go home at night, have to say, ‘I got beat by an old man,’ ” said Garrett Yamada, 28, a former two-time Saugus Mini Stock champion.

Among those trailing Symonds is Rock Ake Jr., 30, of Moorpark, the division’s defending champion. Ake is currently seventh in points.

“He wants it really bad,” Ake said of Symonds. “He’s got determination and he’s doing everything right that I can see. Last year, he was just learning this particular kind of racing. This year, it’s paying off.”

Symonds is new to stock cars, but not to racing. He has competed as a motocross racer and driven in desert off-road races for years.

In 1987, Symonds struck up a friendship with Yamada during an off-road race. Yamada wanted to give up Mini Stock racing; Symonds wanted to give it a try. A deal eventually was made and a septuagenarian short-track star was born.

“It was a kick because I was always telling my folks, ‘I’m going out racing with Gregg’. . . . ‘Gregg and I are going racing,’ ” Yamada said. “Then they meet Gregg and they say, ‘ This is Gregg?’

“I’m really impressed by what he’s done. He’s aggressive and he listens to what you tell him. He had never raced a road-race car or any other type of paved-surface car before, so he didn’t have any bad habits. When you go from a road-race car to racing circle tracks, you go into turns completely different. It was new to him, but he found it easy.”

Symonds failed to win a main event in his first season, but ran consistently and finished fourth for the season. He jokingly attributes his rookie performance to “youth and inexperience.”

“I had no idea what was happening for the first six races,” Symonds said. “As I got toward the end of the season, I had more experience. And this year, the experience is starting to show.”

Davida Symonds says she doesn’t see much of her husband of 50 years on race days, although she has visited the track and plans to be in the stands tonight to see Symonds strive to improve his lead. Of course, travel will have to wait.

“Sometimes, I’d like to travel a little more because we have a nice motor home,” she said. “(Racing) cuts down on the time we have for trips. But I admire him for wanting to keep going. I realize he could be hurt, but I have confidence in him.”

Racing on Saugus’ one-third-mile paved oval and occasional fender-benders go together. And Symonds has had his share of on-track altercations.

Just don’t try to tell him he’s the one holding up traffic.

“I’ve got one guy who’s giving me a bad time because of a couple of situations on the track,” Symonds said. “But he’s a worse driver than I am, in my mind. There’s one of those at every track.”

But few drivers Symonds’ age are within reach of a track title. From there, Symonds has speculated on a move to higher levels of racing, perhaps Saugus’ frontline Sportsman division and maybe even the NASCAR Southwest Tour. Anything is possible.

“The only thing that could prevent me is that I certainly have to consider my age,” Symonds said. “I don’t know if I will still be able to drive when I’m 90.”

He’ll be busy for the next three weeks.

Tonight marks the first of three consecutive weekends in which the Mini Stocks are scheduled to race at Saugus.

After that, Symonds and his wife will fly to England for a brief vacation. But they plan to return in time for the next scheduled running of the Mini Stocks on Aug. 1. “No way am I going to miss it,” Symonds said.

Not until the season ends in October, perhaps, will Symonds and his wife finally see the highway through the windshield of their motor home.

A track title for Gregg, and the couple truly will enjoy happy trails.