Dyer Itching to Return to Action After Track Crash : Auto racing: Palmdale driver recovers from injuries, including a frightening numbness in his arm, and will rev it up again as Southwest Tour stops at Saugus.

Dennis Dyer could deal with the heavy crash and the stiff neck. They come with the territory in stock-car racing.

The numbness in his right forearm is what really alarmed him.

In March, Dyer slammed his new 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass into a concrete wall at Saugus Speedway at 100 m.p.h. The car was destroyed--along with Dyer’s chances of making a successful run at the NASCAR Southwest Tour title this season.

The crash occurred during an early-morning practice session, four weeks after the tour’s season-opening race. Dyer, 31, a six-year tour veteran from Palmdale, finally had landed a promising deal driving for a professional racing team. Although he did not finish the tour’s opener in Phoenix because of a mechanical failure, Dyer appeared to be on his way to greener straightaways and, possibly, many checkered flags.

Only now he was on his way to a hospital.

“I got out of the car and I was all there and everything was working fine,” Dyer said. “A half-hour later, my neck was getting stiffer and stiffer, but my arms were getting numb. That’s what made me nervous about the whole deal, the numbness.”

Six months have passed--two while Dyer’s neck and right wrist were immobilized in braces, two more while Dyer tried to persuade his doctor to give the OK for him to drive. Dyer has grown weary of watching race cars roar past him. He is ready to race--and eager to win.

Dyer will get his long-awaited chance Saturday night at 7, when the Southwest Tour is scheduled to run its second of two 100-lap races at Saugus Speedway.

Dyer attempted to return Aug. 22 at Colorado National Speedway near Denver. However, he failed to qualify for the main event. He will try again this weekend behind the wheel of another new Oldsmobile, identical to the one he wrecked in March. Dyer currently is 79th in the tour’s points standings after 12 of 17 events.

The remaining five races of the season--other than for the purpose of sharpening his skills--are meaningless for Dyer, who has become accustomed to frustration. Long before Dyer suffered a herniated disk, fractured vertebra and pinched metacarpal nerve--which caused the temporary numbness--the Southwest Tour had developed into a major pain in the neck.

In 1987, Dyer drove to a 100-lap victory at El Cajon Speedway near San Diego in only his second start on the tour. Since then, he has gone 65 consecutive starts without a victory--a tour record for futility among drivers who have taken at least one checkered flag.

Dyer is not enamored of the streak.

“It’s starting to (tick) me off,” he said. “I’m determined as hell. I’m going to win this thing and get the monkey off my back.”

Dyer has hardly embarrassed himself racing. Before joining the Southwest Tour, he spent six years at Saugus Speedway, competing in the Street Stock, Sportsman and Modified divisions. His best performance was in 1984 when he finished second in the Sportsman standings and established the evening’s top qualifying mark 14 times.

As an owner-driver, Dyer’s best season on the Southwest Tour came last season when he drove to six top-five finishes and was fifth in points.

That performance landed Dyer a position as full-time driver for Precision Racing in Palmdale. Dyer, a former construction worker, also accepted a position with the firm, which builds stock cars.

The crash in March, Dyer assures, only slowed his upward mobility--painfully so. Doctors examined Dyer’s wrist for three weeks before making a diagnosis. Surgery on his neck and wrist, Dyer said, still has not been ruled out. However, immediately after both braces were removed, Dyer began pestering his doctor for medical clearance to get behind the wheel.

“He didn’t want me to drive a passenger car or anything,” Dyer said. “It was one of those very empty feelings. I was feeling pretty good and I kept calling my doctor. He knew what I wanted and he would intentionally not call me back. It got to the point where (the new car) was ready and we needed to get it out on the track and get it tested.”

The time has come to put it to an even greater test. And Dyer is certain he will make the grid for this weekend’s lineup.

“As far as I’m concerned, it was medicinal to get back into this race car,” Dyer said. “I fully intend on making this show.”