MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : McGrath Sets His Goals High

The last time Jeremy McGrath rode his Honda motorcycle at Anaheim Stadium, he was just another hot, young Camel Supercross prospect. He had won the 125cc support class two years running but was still untested in the top-of-the-line 250cc class.

His first two races of 1993--a fourth-place finish at Orlando, Fla., and a fifth at Houston--did not prepare the motorcycling world for what was about to happen.

Anaheim and its Coors Light Challenge was next. McGrath, 21, gave the 56,000 spectators a demonstration of championship riding by winning his first Camel Supercross. Then he won five in a row and nine of the next 13 to become the first rookie stadium champion in American Motorcyclist Assn. history. His 10 victories broke the record of nine set the previous year by Damon Bradshaw on a Yamaha.

Saturday night, McGrath will be back at Anaheim Stadium for the Coors Light Challenge, race No. 3 in the 15-event series.

A Mickey Thompson stadium off-road race, scheduled last Saturday at Anaheim Stadium, was postponed to Feb. 12 because of earthquake damage. However, officials of both the Thompson Entertainment Group and the city of Anaheim said the damage, which was limited to the scoreboard area, posed no safety threat to spectators.

“I want to win a second championship,” McGrath said. “I want to do it by winning 11 or more races in one season.”

Such brash talk did not go unnoticed among his supercross peers, but when the youngster from Murrieta beat the best in the world in Japan and France during the winter, he silenced the skeptics.

First, McGrath won $50,000 in the Golden Cup Supercross in Fukuoka City, Japan, beating fellow Americans Brian Swink, Steve Lamson, Larry Ward and Michael Craig. A week later, he was in Paris, where he won the Bercy Supercross, generally considered the premier event in Europe. Among those beaten was Greg Albertyn, newly crowned world 250cc champion from South Africa.

McGrath is well on his way to his projected 11 victories, having won the Orlando and Houston races before the series headed West.

“I’d also like to get Rick Johnson’s record 28 career wins,” he said. McGrath will be going for his 13th at Anaheim.

The riders most likely to challenge McGrath are Mike LaRocco of La Porte, Ind., and Mike Kiedrowski of Canyon Country, two Kawasaki factory riders. LaRocco finished second in both races this season and also won the national 500cc outdoor championship in 1993. Kiedrowski finished second to McGrath in the stadium series last year and later won the national 250cc outdoor title.

Kiedrowski and McGrath, along with Jeff Emig of Highland, brought the United States its 13th consecutive Motocross des Nations title in Schwanenstadt, Austria.

Former three-time national supercross champion Jeff Stanton, McGrath’s Honda teammate, is also back, hoping to dethrone his youthful partner and become the first rider to win four titles. The Sherwood, Mich., rider won in 1989, 1990 and 1992.

Missing this year are Bradshaw, the 1990 and 1992 Anaheim winner who turned his back on a multimillion-dollar contract and quit motocross last November; and Guy Cooper, who retired from stadium racing at 31. Cooper will be on hand to be presented the Mickey Thompson Award of Excellence.

Suzuki rider Damon Huffman of Saugus, who won the 125cc race last year at Anaheim, will return as the favorite in the smaller displacement event. Huffman also won last year’s Rose Bowl race. Pedro Gonzales, the Mexican supercross champion, will also ride in the 125cc race.

This will be the only Los Angeles-area appearance of the supercross riders. The series will be at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego on Feb. 5.

Motor Racing Notes

DRAG RACING--Darrell Alderman, two-time National Hot Rod Assn. pro stock champion, will return to racing next week in the Chief Winternationals at Pomona Raceway, opening event of the NHRA season. Alderman has been suspended for two years because of drug use. . . . Ed (Ace) McCulloch will drive baseball player Jack Clark’s Taco Bell top-fuel car at the Winternationals. After 10 seasons driving for Larry Minor, McCulloch, 51, lost his ride when Minor switched to Cory McClenathan as his driver this year.

The second day of the Budweiser Warm-Up, rained out last Sunday, has been rescheduled for Friday at noon and Saturday at 9 a.m. at Bakersfield Raceway. Kenny Bernstein ran a top-fuel track record 297.71 m.p.h. on Saturday. Shelly Anderson ran 293.82 with a quicker elapsed time than Bernstein, 4.87 seconds to 4.88.

SPRINT CARS--Southern California’s two non-winged sprint car organizations are apparently going head to head this year. The long-established California Racing Assn., which sometimes had trouble filling its fields last year, will open its season Feb. 5 at Canyon Raceway, near Tucson. The newly formed Sprint Car Racing Assn. will open its 30-race season the same night at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix.

Steve Kinser, 13 times World of Outlaws champion, will become the first short-track driver to compete in the International Race of Champions. Kinser, who last Sunday won the 10-race Slick 50 World Series at Canyon Raceway, will compete against stock car drivers Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin and sports car drivers Geoff Brabham, Scott Sharp, Juan Manuel Fangio II and Tom Kendall when the IROC starts Feb. 18 at Daytona Beach, Fla. Indy car drivers will be named later.

STOCK CARS--Sandie Simkins, wife of the late Danny Simkins, accepted his Santa Maria Speedway track championship trophy before a capacity crowd at the awards banquet. Simkins, who died last Nov. 28 after a long bout with cancer, won his 10th championship in a 30-year career. The Danny Simkins Award of Excellence was presented to Bobbie Miller, who has been with the speedway since it opened in 1964. . . . Speedway Videos has released a 60-minute video, “Danny Simkins, a Profile in Courage,” designed to raise money to pay medical bills incurred during Simkins’ long illness. The tape is available for $24 from Speedway Videos, P. O. Box 3253, Paso Robles, Calif. 93447. . . . Racing in the KCF Challenge series at Kern County Raceway in Willow Springs will resume Feb. 13 after two earthquake-related postponements.