MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Some Holiday Reading for You

When it comes to buying Christmas presents for racing fans, the next best thing to a race car, or a ticket to the Indianapolis 500, is a book on racing. There are several written every year, mostly biographies of leading drivers, but this year there are some that have a more universal appeal.

The biggest, heaviest and most expensive ($150, with a limited edition signed by drivers at $500) is “The Legends of Motorsport,” a chronicle of international racing from 1959 to 1973 by photographer Dave Friedman. The 335-page book, which comes boxed, contains 400 black-and-white photographs of drivers, cars and competition that reflect the mood of what has been called racing’s golden era.

Many of the pictures were taken at Riverside International Raceway of drivers such as Jimmy Clark, A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney, Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti, Stirling Moss and Parnelli Jones. Featured are sections on Formula One, Indy cars, Can-Am sports cars and Trans-Am stock cars.

It is available only from Motor Racing Images, 1245 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 903, Los Angeles 90017.

No one has written a book on Ascot Park, the legendary half-mile oval in South-Central Los Angeles that closed in 1990 after 33 seasons of racing, but the memories of an earlier Ascot--Legion Ascot Speedway, which ran in the 1920s and 1930s out along Soto Street in East Los Angeles--have been recalled in words and pictures by John R. Lucero of Garden Grove.

Lucero, a former writer for the Los Angeles Mirror and Herald Examiner, has updated earlier table-top editions with 130 new pictures--making 635 in all--from an era that included Ernie Triplett, Rex Mays, Al Gordon, Ralph DePalma and others. The pictures alone of ancient cars wheeling around the dangerous track make the $45 price a bargain.

Books are available from Lucero at (714) 537-6690.

If you are ever in Macao or Ireland or Malaysia--or even Tennessee--and want to see a motor race, Tony Sakkis’ “A Racers Guide to the Universe” will tell you where to go and how to get there.

The 1992 inaugural edition lists all the known racetracks in the world, including maps of road courses, along with schedules of most major types of racing. The expanded 1993 edition is expected to be out next month with not only 1993 schedules, but also a complete review of 1992 seasons.

Sakkis, a San Francisco-based free-lance writer, also tells how to obtain tickets and, in some instances, where to stay. The book, $14.95 this year, will be reduced to $11.95 for the 1993 edition.

Oh, yes, in Macao there is the Circuito Da Guia, in Ireland the Mondello Park circuit in Dublin and in Malaysia the Shah Alam track in Selangor. Tennessee? There are several to choose from.

Somewhere between a book and a fancy magazine is the “American Racing Classics,” a hardback volume that is produced four times a year by Griggs Publishing Co. of Concord, N.C. Each issue has up to a dozen well-illustrated articles, mostly on historical subjects.

The October issue, for instance, had stories on the rise and fall of Ontario Motor Speedway, Bill Elliott’s $1-million-winning 1985 Thunderbird and the 1950 Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C., the first superspeedway race in NASCAR history.

When the National Hot Rod Assn.’s Winternationals open the drag racing season at the Pomona Fairplex in February, there will be a new look to the facility.

Gone will be the Pomona Raceway tower, which has served as NHRA’s base of operations since 1952. The three-story tower will be razed next Tuesday to make way for a three-level, 14,600-square foot building directly behind the drag strip. It is part of a $4.5-million renovation project.

Motor Racing Notes

STOCK CARS--Next year’s Winston Cup champion will receive $1.25 million, up $250,000 from what Alan Kulwicki collected last week at the NASCAR awards banquet in New York. The 1993 point fund offered by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. will be more than $3 million for the first 25 finishers. . . . Richard Petty and wife Lynda received the Unocal 76/Myers Brothers award from the National Motorsports Press Assn. for “making the greatest contribution during the year to the sport of stock car racing.”

Driver Bill Sedgwick, car owner Wayne Spears and crew chief Chris Robinson will be rewarded Saturday night in Reno as repeat champions of the Winston West series. . . . Sportsman, street and modified stock cars will race Saturday night at Imperial Raceway, near El Centro.

OFF ROAD--Tire executive Dan Newsome, racing director for Uniroyal Goodrich, was voted person of the year by SCORE International. Brian Goodrich, 29, of Chula Vista--who is not related to the tire company--was named rookie of the year after winning the Baja Bug class championship. Overall point winners were Steve Sourpas of Encinitas, four-wheel drive; Scott Morris of Las Vegas, motorcycles; and Jeff Courts of Los Angeles, all-terrain vehicles.

INDY CARS--Dominic Dobson will drive the Pro Formance team’s Chevy-Lola for a limited schedule next year that includes the Indianapolis 500 and the Long Beach Grand Prix. The team is sponsored by Tobacco Free, a nonprofit foundation targeted toward revealing the hazards of using tobacco products. A second driver, probably John Paul Jr. or three-time Indy winner Johnny Rutherford, will be in a Pro Formance car at Indianapolis.

MOTORCYCLES--After an absence of one year, the United States Grand Prix--a world championship race--will return to Laguna Seca Raceway next Sept. 12, with former world champion Kenny Roberts as the promoter. Roberts, who won many races at Laguna Seca, is also owner of the Yamaha team, which includes world champion Wayne Rainey of Downey.

MISCELLANY--Nigel Mansell has been named international driver of the year by the British magazine Autosport. He was on crutches when he received the award at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel last week after an operation several days earlier to remove a bone from his left foot. Indy car champion Bobby Rahal received the Gregor Grant Award for outstanding achievement at the same dinner. . . . David Kudrave of La Canada, who drove in the Indy Lights series last season, will represent the United States in Argentina’s inaugural Formula 3000 race Sunday at Buenos Aires. Kudrave, who recently tested for Cobra Motorsports at Silverstone and Snetterton in England, will drive a Reynard-Cosworth/Nicholson 92D.

NECROLOGY--Curly Merrill, 83, long-time timer and scorer for Southern California racing tracks and organizations, died Sunday of emphysema in his hometown of Ontario. Services are today at 3 p.m. at the Richardson-Patterson Mortuary, 128 W. G St., Ontario.