Services for Robinson, Former Champion, Are Today

Former stock car racing champion Jim Robinson of North Hollywood, who never recovered from head injuries suffered in a racing accident Feb. 7, 1988, at Phoenix International Raceway, died last Thursday of complications from pneumonia.

Robinson, who would have been 50 on Jan. 28, died at Pacifica Hospital in Sun Valley. A three-time Winston West champion who built his own racing engines in his Jim Robinson Automotive garage, he had been in a hospital ward since the accident.

Graveside services at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall will be at 1 p.m. today.

“Jim totally understood what people were saying but couldn’t communicate except with his right hand,” said Ouida Robinson, his divorced wife, who looked after him with their two daughters the last eight years. “He would respond to questions with a thumbs up or thumbs down sign, and he had use of his right arm enough to swing a bat when we took him outside in a wheelchair.”

Robinson had qualified a borrowed orange-and-white Pontiac Trans-Am for the Copper World Classic, opening race of the 1988 season. His car, an Olds Delta 88, was en route to Australia, where Robinson and 15 other West Coast drivers had been invited to race at the Calder Thunderdome, near Melbourne.

After starting on the pole, Robinson was leading on the ninth lap when his car and one driven by Gary Collins of Bakersfield brushed bumpers while heading toward the second turn at about 130 mph.

“Three inches more and we’d have never touched,” Collins said. “I thought I’d missed him.”

The brush sent Robinson’s car into a reverse spin, up the track and into the wall on the driver’s side. Robinson suffered extensive head injuries from the impact.

Robinson was 42 at the time, at the top of his craft. He won three consecutive Winston West championships from 1983 through 1985 and won 12 races in his career. One of his victories, at Shasta (Calif.) Speedway in 1985, is considered one of the greatest races in Winston West history. Robinson edged veteran Hershel McGriff by five-thousandths of a second--about three inches--in the Pepsi-Cola 150.

“They tell me I won, but I don’t know for sure,” Robinson said after the race, which was run in 100-degree weather. “The last 25 laps I was incoherent. I was just looking at the white line around the inside of the racetrack.”

He also was modified champion in 1977 at Saugus Speedway, where several times he was voted “most popular driver.”

He came to California from Clovis, N.M., where he was known as “the Racing Cowboy” because he also competed in rodeos.

Survivors include his father, Frank, of Wildwood, N.J.; mother, Vivian Bradley, of Hobbs, N.M.; a sister, Mildred Necaise, also of Hobbs; daughters Brenna McNeil and Glenna Panarisi, both of Canyon Country; and three grandchildren.

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Jeff Gordon, Winston Cup stock car champion and 1995 driver of the year, will be among members of the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Assn. All-American team feted Saturday night at the Long Beach Hilton.

Others expected to attend the 26th annual awards dinner and receive their All-American trophies include Tom Kendall, Trans-Am champion from La Canada; John Force, National Hot Rod Assn. funny car champion from Yorba Linda; Dave Blaney, who dethroned perennial World of Outlaws champion Steve Kinser; Greg Moore of Canada, runaway winner of the Indy Lights series with 10 victories in 12 races; and Ivan Stewart of Alpine, Calif., winner of six of seven desert off-road races while winning the SCORE Trophy-Truck championship.

Also being honored are Linda Vaughn, motor racing’s lifetime trophy girl; Chris Pook, founder of the Long Beach Grand Prix; and former driver turned car owner Richard Petty, who will not be present because of Winston Cup test commitments.

The dinner is open to the public. Ticket information: (818) 842-7005.