Japanese Get Taste of American Racing

The stock cars of NASCAR, already the most successful motor racing program in the world with the Winston Cup series, are going global.

Japan will hear the thundering roar of 3,800-pound American passenger car look-alikes Sunday (tonight in the United States) when 27 teams roll their machines out onto the Suzuka Circuitland road course for 100 laps of racing.

“The NASCAR Suzuka Thunder Special 100 will be a historical milestone in stock car history as American cars and drivers compete in Japan for the first time,” said Bill France, president of NASCAR.

All the superstars of Winston Cup racing--Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Terry Labonte, Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, Ernie Irvan and Co.--will be there, and so will the leading drivers of NASCAR’s other series, such as Winston West, Busch Grand National and Craftsman Truck.

Lance Hooper of Palmdale and Butch Gilliland of Anaheim, drivers who have made names for themselves on the West Coast but not yet on the national level, will represent Winston West.

Gilliland, 39, drove to his first victory in a Figure 8 race at Ascot Park when he was 17. Hooper, 29, was only 2 weeks old when his mother took him to Saugus Speedway where his father, Ray Hooper, was racing.

“It’s an honor and a thrill to be part of it,” said Gilliland, who drives for Stroppe Motorsports in Long Beach in his ninth year in the Winston West series. “Bill Stroppe was a pioneer in international races, so we’re sort of following in his footsteps.”

Stroppe’s cars and trucks gained fame in winning the Pan American road race in Mexico three times in the 1950s and in off-road racing in Baja California with Parnelli Jones as driver of the team’s Ford Bronco in the ‘60s. Stroppe also competed in the Marlboro Safari Rally in Africa.

Stroppe died last November after a long illness. His widow, Helen, took over Stroppe Industries and hired Gilliland, who owns his own truck and automotive service in Anaheim, to help with the management.

Although expenses for the trip to Japan are being paid by the race organizers, the invitation has led to extraordinary expenses for both Gilliland and Hooper’s teams.

“We wanted to be at our best so we built a new $80,000 Ford Thunderbird designed especially for road courses,” Gilliland said. “With help from the Ford Motor Co., Tom Erickson put it together in five weeks, right here in Stroppe’s shop.”

In his first race in the new car, Gilliland won the Sonoma 100 at Sears Point Raceway, a twisting 2.52-mile road course.

“The car was so flawless that I knew if I just raced the track and didn’t concentrate on anyone else, I’d get up to the front. It’s the most awesome road-race car I’ve ever driven. I can’t wait to get it on the Suzuka course.

“Suzuka is primarily a right-turn track, similar to Riverside, and I drove there enough times to be familiar with what it takes. I feel at home on road courses. I think it’s because of my motorcycle experience when I was younger. When you get into high-speed turns and you have to trust the car that you’re in and have the ability to push it to the edge, that’s when the feel you get from riding a motorcycle comes in handy.”

The victory was Gilliland’s third this season. He also won on short-track ovals at Madera, Calif., and Monroe, Wash.

Hooper’s case was different, but just as expensive.

Because he was leading in Winston West points, on his way to becoming the first rookie in 43 years to win the championship, and because there was a race in Las Vegas after the cars were loaded for the trip to Japan, Hooper’s team owner decided to build a backup car, just in case.

“You never know what can happen in practice or qualifying and we only had two Pontiac Grand Prix race cars,” said Ray Claridge, the Golden West Motorsports team owner. “When we realized that one would be on its way to Japan before the Las Vegas race, we decided we’d better have a third one ready.”

Like Gilliland, Hooper won with a new car in its first time out, at the Altamont track in Tracy, Calif.

“It was the first time the new Pontiac body style won a race,” Claridge said. “Since then, it’s caught on pretty good in Winston Cup. Joe Gibbs and his McDonald’s team are switching to Pontiac next year.”

Hooper, the youngest in a racing family that has won championships in four decades, also won at Madera, Mesa Marin in Bakersfield, and Portland, on his 29th birthday.

“Our car is different from all the others because we run on recycled oil,” Hooper said. “Unocal calls it ‘re-refined’ motor oil. We’ve had no engine problems since we started working with the California Integrated Waste Management Board. They wanted to find out how the reused oil held up under racing conditions. It couldn’t have worked better.”

Hooper’s ambitions lean toward Winston Cup and his progress report indicates that he should be about ready.

“My family’s been in racing so long, I almost feel like I was born in a race car,” Hooper said.

In 1990 Lance started racing sportsman cars at Saugus where he was rookie of the year, then won the championship the next season. He won nine consecutive races in 1992 but missed the championship.

After running his own team out of the family garage in Palmdale, Hooper landed Claridge’s Golden West Trailers in Acton as a sponsor in 1994, and last year Claridge bankrolled the entire operation.

Hooper responded by winning the Featherlite Southwest Tour championship in one of Golden West’s distinctive blue, orange and yellow Pontiacs.

Curiously, it was the third Southwest Tour championship in four years for a resident of Palmdale. Ron Hornaday Jr. won in 1992 and 1993. Hornaday, now driving a Chevrolet truck for Dale Earnhardt, will also be racing in Japan.

“The biggest change, besides the financial help, was being able to work on the car at Ray’s place in Van Nuys.” Hooper said. “He’s got everything there that we can need.”

Claridge owns Cinema Vehicle Services, which supplies automobiles, trucks, vans and motorcycles for use in movies and commercials. There is everything from a Rolls-Royce to a go-cart on the huge lot, most of the vehicles battered enough to make it look like a wrecking yard.

“Having Lance’s cars on the lot gives us a little different perspective,” Claridge said. “Most of our work with the movies is making cars look like they’ve been in a wreck. We bang ‘em up pretty good. With Lance, we take the dents out and try to make it look as new as possible.”

Hooper’s car was featured Oct. 30 when city officials held a NASCAR Day ceremony at Terminal Island in the Port of Los Angeles where the cars were being loaded for the trip.

Built in 1962, Suzuka, about 250 miles southwest of Tokyo, was the first genuine race course built in Japan and has been the site of Formula One races and the Suzuka eight-hour motorcycle race. Although the circuit measures 3.65 miles, the stock cars will race on the 1.4-mile east course.

More than 150,000 spectators are expected for the race, which will be televised by TBS at 7 p.m. It will be run in two 50-lap segments. The field will be inverted after the first 50 laps.

To give the race a special international flavor, four Japanese drivers, all champions in their homeland, will also be in the Thunder Special 100.

One other factor could make this race more historical even than its international aspect. If it rains Sunday, the race will go on as scheduled, something that has never happened in NASCAR Winston Cup racing.