Taking His Show on the Road : Racing: Benson, popular rock ‘n’ roll deejay from La Crescenta, loves to get behind the wheel.

How is Joe Benson driving? Better all the time, say those close to “Uncle Joe,” the disc jockey with the identifiable baritone and uinsatiable itch to take the wheel--any wheel.

Not that competitors are dialing any phone numbers printed on Benson’s bumper sticker.

Then again, few get a good look at Benson’s bumper.

Benson, evening deejay for KLSX (97.1 FM) in Los Angeles and one of Southern California’s most popular radio personalities the past 15 years, averages more than 50 appearances a year at local racing events, mostly as a stock-car driver or drag racer.

This season, Benson competes part time on three racing circuits and has scheduled appearances remaining at Ventura Raceway, Willow Springs International Motorsports Park in Rosamond and Antelope Valley Fairgrounds.

Admittedly, matters go more smoothly on the airwaves than the straightaways for Benson, 45, who lives in La Crescenta and began moonlighting as a race-car driver in 1987.

He has never won a main event, often struggles to keep up with the pack and still has difficulty shaking the label of “celebrity racer.”

Undaunted, Uncle Joe refuses to slow. And checkered flags are not really the point.

“The great drivers--the Unsers and the Andrettis and people like that--I know I’m nowhere near that level,” Benson said. “But if I can go out there and compete with people on an even basis, to me that’s the greatest kick . . . not to win so much, but to get out there and get better each lap and actually run a good race and not make any stupid mistakes.”

Last Saturday night, Benson drove to a top-10 finish at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino in the Western Legends Series, which features five-eights-scale antique cars powered by motorcycle engines. The main event was only the third Legends event for Benson, who joined the series this season after first spotting one of the diminutive vehicles at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium in February.

Benson, who has attended six professional racing schools, immediately enrolled for more instruction and made his debut in a Legends event at San Bernardino on July 4. Predictably, he ran near the rear of the grid.

Three weeks later, however, Benson placed fourth in a Legends race at Ventura, despite spinning out six times on the slick dirt oval.

“I had never driven on greasy dirt,” Benson said. “Halfway through, I stopped spinning and it started to work. I started out with such a deficit, but by the end of the race, I was running with the leaders and they couldn’t get away from me.”

Such has been the story of “Uncle Joe’s Racing,” as his team is officially titled, since Benson won a celebrity drag race at the 1988 Winternationals at Pomona Raceway.

Soon after, car owners sought him out as a driver, hoping to cash in on his popularity and the corporate sponsorship he secures from beer companies and motor oil manufacturers.

Under most arrangements, the car Benson drives is not his own. However, he does own a Nissan 300 ZX, which he drives in road races at Willow Springs. These days, Benson declines more offers than he accepts.

“I have no delusions about them asking me to drive because I’m a great driver,” Benson said. “It’s because they want the [public relations] and because of my background.”

Yet over the years, Benson’s abilities have steadily improved.

Benson holds competition licenses with NASCAR and three other racing organizations.

Until the closure last month of Saugus Speedway, Benson was a frequent competitor in the track’s Pro Four Modified division, placing sixth in the division’s points standings in 1994. Benson won a trophy dash, a heat race and finished second in a main event, one of his three top-five finishes.

“Racing is very much an extension of who he is,” said Jan Benson, Joe’s wife and constant racing companion. “He wants to improve and he wants to get better every time. He’s not so concerned about winning the race as he is about getting better every time.”

Spin-outs and so-so showings are becoming less frequent as Benson increases his commitment to racing. Fans might consider his appearances little more than a publicity stunt, but those close to Benson insist Uncle Joe knows racing.

“I’ve always considered Joe a very serious racer,” said Randy Balough of Thousand Oaks, a 14-year drag-racing veteran affiliated with Benson since 1989. Benson drives Balough’s 1957 Corvette roadster in drag races at Pomona and L.A. County Raceway in Palmdale.

Brian Stewart of Temecula, son of off-road racing great Ivan Stewart, owns the 1937 Ford sedan Benson is scheduled to drive again in a Legends event Sept. 2 at Ventura.

“He’s getting better in every way,” Stewart said. “We’re pretty picky about who we put in our cars. Had he not had his heart in it, we wouldn’t let him do it.

“The fans at the races are starting to identify that he’s pretty serious. But there are still a lot of people who just want to hang out, get his autograph and take his picture with them.”

All of which suits Benson fine.

He readily admits that the publicity helps his radio career.

For years, Benson, who moved to KLSX in January after 14 years at rival KLOS (95.5), has provided listeners with regular race reports during his Sunday night program and occasionally broadcasts live from racing venues, including the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Benson grew up in Illinois, attended the University of Wisconsin and came to Los Angeles after a brief stint at a radio station in Cleveland.

Benson became hooked on racing at an early age, building his own hot rod as a teen-ager and frequenting local tracks in his spare time.

Benson landed his first job in radio in 1968 and almost immediately began talking about racing between spinning discs.

That continued after he moved to Los Angeles in 1980, despite notions that L.A. was not a racing town.

“It started out with: ‘This is pretty cool, you might want to know about this,’ ” Benson said. “ ‘Rick Mears won such and such.’

“It was my show, it was something I liked and I said, ‘I’m going to go on and talk about it.’ Part of the thing about radio is, you can’t invent a persona. You have to be who you are for it to work in the long term.”

Benson’s appearances typically include fans lining up for autographs, radio-station bumper stickers and T-shirt handouts, and various promotional giveaways.

“He brought a lot to the track,” Saugus promoter Ray Wilkings said. “He was a genuinely good guy who would help promote everything you would want to promote at a race track.”

Drivers initially were skeptical of Benson’s abilities--a reception Benson anticipated. But over time, attitudes changed.

“One of the things that concerned me most was what the other racers were thinking,” said Gordon Clark of Northridge, who first invited Benson to drive his vehicles in SCCA events in 1991.

Today, Clark serves as Benson’s crew chief for the Nissan that Benson owns.

“Some of them were like, ‘Hey, why are you bringing this celebrity out there and giving us another hazard to work with?’ But Joe really surprised them. He’s done all the schools and he, actually, was a little better than I expected.”

But do drivers and fans consider Uncle Joe a racer?

Some do. Some don’t.

Either way, Benson isn’t overly concerned.

“I want respect from the racers, but at this point, I’m not really worried about it,” he said. “I know I can do well enough that most of the people I’m racing with have respect for my ability. The people I respect the most say that if I would have put more time into it, I’d be better.”