This Force Is With All-America Team

Drag racing’s John Force, the first person to be named American motor sports driver of the year without turning, heads an impressive group of 13 drivers named to the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Assn. 1996 All-America team.

Force, who won 13 of 19 National Hot Rod Assn. funny car events en route to his sixth series championship, was joined by top-fuel champion Kenny Bernstein as drag racing’s selections. In winning his first top-fuel title, Bernstein became the first driver to win both major drag racing championships--top fuel and funny car.

It was Bernstein’s sixth time on the All-America team, and Force’s fifth. Runner-up in the balloting among AARWBA members was the late Blaine Johnson of Santa Maria, who was leading in top fuel when he was killed at the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park in August.

Winston Cup champion Terry Labonte and runner-up Jeff Gordon were named stock car racing’s representatives. It was Labonte’s first time on the team since 1984, when he last won the NASCAR championship. Gordon, winner of 10 races last season, was named for the fifth time, dating to 1990 when as a teenager he was a short-track selection.

Short-track choices this year were Mark Kinser, World of Outlaws sprint car champion, and Ron Hornaday, winner of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series.

In the open wheel category, AARWBA members selected one driver from the competing series--Jimmy Vasser of Championship Auto Racing Teams and Buddy Lazier of the Indy Racing League. Vasser, winner of the U.S. 500, was also CART series champion, while Lazier won the Indianapolis 500.

Road racing choices were both from the Sport Car Club of America’s Trans-Am series, champion Tom Kendall and runner-up Dorsey Schroeder. It was Kendall’s third Trans-Am title.

The All-America team, usually 12 drivers, grew to 13 when a tie occurred in the at-large category. Patrick Carpentier, Formula Atlantic champion, topped the at-large voting, but deadlocked behind him were David Empringham, the Indy Lights champion, and off-road racer Evan Evans, a paraplegic from Riverside who won his class for unlimited two-wheel-drive pickups in the SODA World Series of Off-Road Racing.

The team will be feted Jan. 4 at the annual AARWBA awards banquet at the new Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

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Racing fans will be in for a busy weekend when Roger Penske’s California Speedway opens next June in Fontana.

In addition to the California 500, a NASCAR Winston Cup race on June 22, there will be two or three races the previous day. Featured will be the True Value Firebird International Race of Champions and a 150-mile Winston West race. If entries for the Winston Cup inaugural reach anticipated record numbers, there will also be a consolation race.

The IROC will mark a return almost to its roots. The unique race, which matches 12 of the world’s best drivers from different types of motor sports in identically prepared cars, was first held at Riverside International Raceway in 1973, not far from the Fontana track.

Ironically, Les Richter, one of its founders, is now manager of the Fontana track, a two-mile banked oval. The 100-mile race will be the first appearance of IROC in Southern California since 1988, when Scott Pruett won the concluding event on Riverside’s road course.

“We are very excited to bring IROC back [to Southern California],” IROC President Jay Signore said. “Some of the most famous races in IROC history were seen at Riverside.”

Winston Cup driver Mark Martin, who won two races last year en route to the IROC championship, will receive an automatic invitation to the 1997 series. The other 11 drivers will be announced next month. The series will open Feb. 15 at Daytona International Speedway. Other races will be May 16 at Charlotte and July 26 at Michigan Speedway.

The Winston West race will mark the first time that West Coast drivers have had their own race on a Winston Cup weekend. In the past, they have competed in the same race with veterans such as Labonte, Gordon, Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace, and in earlier years, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough and David Pearson.

Motor Racing Notes

WESTERN STATES--The U.S. Auto Club will hold its annual Western States series banquet Saturday night at the DoubleTree Hotel in Ventura. Honored will be champions Jay Drake of Santa Clarita, midgets; Ricky Shelton, Huntington Beach, TQ midgets; and Kevin Urton, Elk Grove, sprint cars.

STOCK CARS--Lance Hooper, rookie champion of the Winston West series from Palmdale, is leaving the Golden West Motorsports team and moving to Charlotte, N.C., to pursue a career in the Winston Cup series. Ray Claridge, owner of the Golden West team, named Sean Woodside, 26, of Saugus, to replace Hooper in the blue and orange No. 07 Pontiac.