MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Tourism to Use Fast Sales Pitch

Drag racing’s 280-m.p.h. billboards have been used by the United States Army as a recruiting tool, by Jolly Rancher to sell candy, McDonald’s to push hamburgers and Rug Doctor to encourage home improvement, besides the usual beer, tobacco and automotive companies.

Now comes tourism: the Hawaiian Vacation.

Hawaii is underwriting Roland Leong’s Dodge Daytona funny car--the fastest in the history of drag racing--for the rest of the National Hot Rod Assn. schedule. The Hawaiian Vacation, with former U.S. Nationals winner Gordie Bonin driving, will make its debut this weekend in the Slick 50 Nationals at Houston.

It’s a wonder it hasn’t happened before.

Leong, a native Hawaiian, has been campaigning race cars with the name Hawaiian on their sides for nearly 30 years. When he was a teen-ager, fresh from Honolulu, Leong and Don Prudhomme teamed in 1965 and raced the original Hawaiian in victories in the Winternationals and U.S. Nationals.

“Back in the ‘60s, every car had to have a catchy name, so I decided on the Hawaiian because I’d just moved to the mainland from the islands,” Leong said.

More recently, Leong’s cars were backed for nine years by Hawaiian Punch, but the sponsorship dissolved two years ago.

That left Leong, and the world’s fastest funny car, idle for a year. In the final event of 1991, the Winston Finals at Pomona, Jim White ran a world funny car record 291.82 m.p.h. in the Daytona. No one has bettered it since.

That is the car--updated with recent technology--Bonin will drive. Bonin has not raced funny cars regularly since 1982, when he quit to become marketing service manager of the NHRA.

The entrance of Hawaii--officially the Hawaii Visitors Bureau--into drag racing began last October when state Sen. Dennis Nakasato, head of the senate Tourism, Recreation and Transportation Committee, attended the Winston Finals at Pomona.

“The senator flew the red-eye over here, arrived at 6 a.m. in Los Angeles and drove to Pomona,” Leong said. “He watched one round of racing, the Budweiser Classic (for top fuel cars), and left to fly back to Honolulu. He said he wanted me to come to Hawaii to present my case (for sponsorship), that he couldn’t believe the number of people and sponsors involved.

“I flew over there for what was supposed to be four days, and it lasted several weeks, talking to the politicians about drag racing. We finally signed the deal right after the Winternationals (Feb. 7).”

Leong will receive $925,000, according to stories in the Honolulu Advertiser and Star Bulletin.

“It costs about $1.2 million to run a full season with a funny car,” Leong said. “But we should more than make up the difference in purse money and associate sponsors.”

Nakasato said he proposed the project because, “You can’t beat a rolling billboard,” alluding to the Hawaiian Vacation team’s 18-wheeler truck and trailer that hauls the race car to 16 sites around the country. “We have to get away from the usual newspaper and TV and periodicals. We blow half a million dollars for 30 seconds of TV exposure on the West Coast.”

The Hawaiian Vacation will also have a new crew chief, Leonard Hughes of Candies & Hughes, the most successful team in NHRA history with 53 national event victories and seven series championships. Hughes drove in the first NHRA funny car race--the 1969 Winternationals at Pomona.

Hughes, like the others, has been out of racing the last two seasons, but Leong lured him back with the opportunity to prepare and maintain the fastest funny car ever. Wes Cerny, who was in charge during the 1991 season when White increased the national speed record from 281 to 291 in one season, is now with Kenny Bernstein’s top fuel team.

Briefly

ELECTRIC CARS--More than 50 specially crafted electric racing vehicles will compete in the third annual Arizona Public Service Solar & Electric 500 this weekend in Phoenix. Stock car and open-wheel Indy-type cars will race Sunday at speeds of more than 100 m.p.h. Featured will be a rematch between the now-electric Lola Indy car built by Tom Brawner of Phoenix and driven by Bill Roe, and a rear-engine lightweight vehicle driven by Ely Schless. Schless won last year. Pit work will be crucial, with stops of 16 seconds anticipated for battery exchanges.

MOTORCYCLES--Former world champion Eddie Lawson of Upland, who announced his retirement as a motorcycle racer after the 1992 season, is making a one-race comeback Sunday in the Daytona 200--a race Lawson won seven years ago on the Daytona International Speedway course. He will ride a Vance & Hines Yamaha as a replacement for the injured Jamie James. Scott Russell is defending champion on a Kawasaki. . . . The American Motorcyclist Assn. will open its 40th Grand National dirt-track season Saturday in Daytona Beach, Fla., with the Camel Pro short track national.

SPORTS CARS--The California Sports Car Club will hold a seven-race program of regional championship races Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway. Practice and qualifying will be held Saturday, with racing Sunday starting at 8 a.m.

MISCELLANY--California Racing Assn. wingless sprint cars will be at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale on Saturday night. . . . Also in Bakersfield, at the drag strip near Famoso, the opening round of the Firestone-TNN ET tournament is scheduled for Saturday. . . . The National Motorcycle Racing Assn. will begin the Coors Winter Challenge series on Sunday at the L.A. County Raceway in Palmdale. . . . Sportsman and modified stock cars will race Saturday night at Imperial Raceway near El Centro.