From Off-Road to Off-the-Planet

Ivan Stewart says he is never bored racing his Toyota truck 100 m.p.h. over dusty Baja trails, but he might find it less exciting than usual Saturday when he tries for his second consecutive victory in the Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250.

That’s because Tuesday he flew with the Navy’s Blue Angels, approaching the speed of sound while looping, barrel-rolling and soaring above Imperial Valley.

“It makes bouncing over the roads down in Baja seem awful tame,” Stewart said from his home in Alpine. “I have never had such a thrill, such an experience, in my life. The thrust, the power, the technology gave me such a high, I may never come down.”

Stewart, 49, took the controls of a $15-million F-18 Hornet during the 45-minute flight.

“After a few minutes, I got kind of cocky doing loops and spiraling when it hit me that I was going more than 500 m.p.h. and the ground could come up real fast,” Stewart said. “But the pilot (Lt. Ryan Scholl) assured me he had a handle on things if I goofed up.

“The hardest thing was fighting blacking out. We reached 7 Gs and you’ve got to fight to push the blood back into your head. It was quite different from fighting to see through the dust in Baja.”

Stewart, who won the SCORE season opener in the Parker 400, is hoping the rain has made a muddy mess of the 250-mile San Felipe course, which is approximately 125 miles south of the Mexican border along the Sea of Cortez.

“I drew a lousy starting position, way back in the back, and if the course isn’t wet, it’s going to be difficult and dangerous to get to the front,” he said. “When you’re coming up behind guys at 80, 90 m.p.h., you don’t want a dust cloud hanging over the course.”

Stewart, who won three championships and 17 main events in Mickey Thompson stadium races with Toyota, is limiting his racing this year to desert off-road events.

“I had lost interest in stadium racing, so I wasn’t unhappy when Toyota pulled out of the series, and I have no interest at all in racing in NASCAR’s super truck series,” he said. “I think it’s great for the sport of racing, but it’s all on asphalt and I’m a dirt racing guy.”

Stewart will turn 50 about the time of the next Baja 500, so he is often asked about retirement.

“Every year I race, I think about it more than the year before, but I’m still competitive and I still have a burning desire to race, so I think it’s probably four or five years in the future,” he said. “I know there are a lot of kids out there who want my job, but they’re going to have to arm-wrestle me for it.”

In the San Felipe 250, Stewart will be after his fifth victory in the V-6 truck built last year by Cal Wells’ Precision Preparation, Inc., in Rancho Santa Margarita. Last year, he won the Baja 500, Fireworks 250 and the San Felipe race.

“One thing I’ve had going for me is a lot of horsepower from the Toyota engine, but I don’t know how it’ll feel having 300 (horsepower) or so in my truck after feeling that 15,000 pounds of thrust from each engine in the Blue Angels plane,” he said. “Can you believe, we accelerated vertically, straight up into the sky?”

In addition to the Trophy Truck class, in which Stewart will face defending series champion Rob MacCachren, former Baja 1000 winner Jim Smith and Indy car driver Robby Gordon, there will be racing for 11 other classes.

Gordon, who finished sixth in the Parker 400, is sandwiching the San Felipe race between two Indy car events. He ran as high as fifth in the Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami last Sunday before throttle problems dropped him to 13th, and he will leave Sunday after the San Felipe 250 for Australia and the Surfers Paradise race on March 19.

Motor Racing Notes

MIDGETS--Sleepy Tripp, back from a successful trip to New Zealand where he finished second in the World Derby, will return to U.S. Auto Club western regional competition Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale. Tripp, a seven-time regional champion, has 97 Western States victories, eight of them at Bakersfield. There will also be a three-quarter midget feature on the program.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--More than 2,000 fans sat in the rain to watch Mike Faria win the Coors Light Spring Classic last Saturday night at Costa Mesa. Brad Oxley defeated Billy Hamill in the handicap runoff. The weekly season starts April 7.

MISCELLANY--Blythe Speedway will open its weekly stock car season Saturday night.