Delgado Living High <i> Off</i> the Hog

Many of the fastest motorcycle road racers in the country will be at Willow Springs Raceway this weekend for the California Cycle Jam Nationals, a $100,000 national championship event of the Western Eastern Racing Assn. Pro Series.

Among them will be Nancy Delgado, 27, who is deadlocked with Tommy Hayden, 16, in the Formula III series for 125cc machines. They will battle in a 10-lap race Sunday over a nine-turn, 2.5-mile desert road circuit.

Delgado was born in New Mexico, grew up in Bolivia, learned to ride in New York City and lives in Atlanta, where she runs a housecleaning business to help pay for her racing. Last year she rode a Harley-Davidson in the U.S. Twin-Sport class, creating a situation many people couldn’t quite come to grips with--a 5-foot-4, 110-pound woman handling a 495-pound Hog.

“People have this image about Harley riders,” she said. “But just because I race a Harley doesn’t mean I have to weigh 180 pounds, have tattoos, smoke or drink beer. I drink carrot juice and the only tattoos I have are road-tattoos.”

Those are the ones you get from falling off at speed--something Delgado admits having done often during her learning years.

She was tending bar in a restaurant in Queens seven years ago when she met Steve Bolvari, a Hungarian with a shaved head and a love of motorcycles. Delgado was tired of riding the New York subways and welcomed Bolvari’s suggestion that she switch to a cycle.

“In Bolivia, everyone rode a motorcycle, but I left before I was old enough to ride,” she said. “I’d always thought it looked like fun, but once I got the chance, I found out I was no natural, that’s for sure. I kept falling over and Steve kept picking me up, but once I got the hang of it, I was hooked.”

After a year of riding New York’s streets--mostly dodging taxis and collecting traffic tickets--Delgado decided it wasn’t worth the effort. But she loved motorcycles enough to take a riding class at New Hampshire International Speedway. She began racing in 1988, moved up to amateur expert in two years and turned pro in 1991.

This year, in the 125cc class, she is riding a 148-pound Honda that can accelerate, corner and stop as fast as a Winston Cup stock car.

“I didn’t realize, until my first ride on the 125, how much I had been wanting to run a real race bike that was more my size,” she said. “Instead of the bike taking me for a ride, I finally felt like I had control.”

One of Delgado’s pet peeves is hearing that she is nothing but a token female in a male world.

“One day I was introduced to a fellow racer’s sister as the ‘token female racer,’ so I reintroduced myself as the ‘token female racer that always finishes ahead of your chauvinist brother.’

“I think women have an advantage because we tend to stick to it longer and not let our egos get in the way. A lot of men go out there and feel they have to go as fast as they possibly can and they crash.”

Always looking for ways to earn money, Delgado hired out as a stunt double in a Korean gangster movie being filmed in New Jersey. She had to jump off the back of a motorcycle at 35 m.p.h. into a pile of manure.

“Hey, it sounds insane, but the manure was dry and the 800 bucks was easy money,” she said.

Hayden, the Owensboro, Ky., youngster with whom she is tied, has a younger brother, Nicky, who is third in the standings, only three points behind. Nicky is only 14.

“Those Hayden boys are destined to be world champions,” predicts Doug Gonda, an official of WERA, the largest motorcycle road-racing sanctioning organization in the country.

Tommy Hayden, known as the Flying Flea, won the series opener at Road Atlanta. Rodney Fee of Los Angeles was the winner at Seattle and will be in Sunday’s race.

Kurt Hall, a multinational champion from Hilton Head, S. C., is also entered in the Formula III race, as well as Formula II, in which he is the favorite. Hall fell last Sunday during a 24-hour race at Nelson Ledges, Ohio, and injured his right foot but is expected to ride at Willow Springs.

Hall’s fall ended the seven-race winning streak of the Lake Elsinore-based Team Suzuki Endurance. The team had a four-lap lead after eight hours when tire failure sent Hall tumbling in a 90-m.p.h. turn. Since joining Team Suzuki as its lead rider, Hall had won 40 endurance races.

Formula USA, a series with no restrictions on equipment, will be the main event of this weekend’s two-day championship. It is the brainchild of Bill Huth, owner of Willow Springs Raceway, and features methanol-fueled, four-stroke superbikes that reach speeds of 170 m.p.h.

Chuck Graves, a Team Valvoline Suzuki rider from Granada Hills, is defending Formula USA champion, and his teammate, Michael Martin of Dallas, is the leader in the standings. They will be the favorites in the 12-lap feature.

Willow Springs is about 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, five miles west of California 14 at the Rosamond-Edwards AFB exit.

Motor Sports Notes

MIDGETS--The United States Auto Club’s Western States series will return to Saugus Speedway on Saturday night. Also featured will be limited modified stock cars. . . . USAC three-quarter midgets will race Saturday night at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa as part of the county fair. The racing is free with admission to the fair.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--The annual Coors Dry Fair Derby will give Costa Mesa speedway fans their only opportunity Friday night to watch their favorites during the Orange County Fair.

STOCK CARS--Cajon Speedway will hold a NASCAR Winston Racing Series program Saturday night for sportsman, Grand American modifieds and street stocks. . . . The Kragen championship series for late models will continue Saturday night at Santa Maria Speedway. . . . The Saturday night program at Ventura Raceway has been canceled.

BAKERSFIELD--The California Racing Assn. sprint car season continues Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale. . . . More than 200 drag racing cars are expected for the American Nostalgia Racing Assn.’s Hot Summer Nite I Saturday at Bakersfield Raceway. Twelve top-fuel cars, headed by series leader Wild Bill Alexander of La Crescenta, are entered.

SPORTS CARS--Steve Millen, the Exxon Supreme Series GTS champion, has returned to his Newport Beach home after having been hospitalized by a 150-m.p.h. crash during the IMSA Camel Continental June 27 at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Millen suffered a broken jaw, left arm and four ribs, and a hairline skull fracture when his Nissan twin turbo was hit by teammate Johnny O’Connell in mid-race. Millen and Brent O’Neill had collided and were stalled in the middle of the track when O’Connell crested a blind hill at top speed and hit Millen’s car. The 40-year-old Millen is expected to spend six to eight more weeks recuperating. Coincidentally, his rebuilt car will be driven by O’Connell, who was not injured, in Sunday’s IMSA Grand Prix at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.

MISCELLANY--A combination motocross/off-road racing program will be held Sunday on a new closed course at Temecula Motorsports Park. It will include the opening round of the Temecula Sunrise off-road championships and the fifth round of the Continental Motosports Club’s motocross series. . . . The CMC is also moving into water sports on a man-made lake adjacent to the Sunrise Valley Raceway in Adelanto. The facility is expected to open next month with its first major event in September. The lake will be 800 feet long and 400 feet wide.

NECROLOGY--Wilson Springer, for many years a motor racing writer for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and later a motorcycle industry publicist, died in Medford, Ore., at 76 after open-heart surgery.