Arciero Prepares to Build Racing Complex

Frank Arciero wants a legacy.

Involved in motor sports since 1943 after arriving in the United States from Italy four years before, Arciero, an Irvine-based real estate developer and partner in Arciero-Wells Racing, is adding a racing stadium to his portfolio.

Arciero, 73, recently closed escrow on a $4.22-million land acquisition deal in Northern California.

It’s part of a $60-million, 895-acre raceway project to be called the Arciero Motorplex.

The motorplex, which will include commercial property, a golf course and amphitheater, will be about 30 miles north of Sacramento off Highway 65.

The track will be D-shaped like California Speedway in Fontana and the Michigan Speedway, but unlike those two-mile superspeedways, it will be 1.3 miles in length.

Residents of rural Yuba County voted more than 85% in favor of the race track. Original plans called for a 1.7-mile oval, but Arciero scrapped that idea.

“We decided to cut it down [in size] because of going too fast,” Arciero said. “Remember, I’m a car owner too, and I don’t want to see cars demolished at 230 mph. Plus, we can accommodate races other than NASCAR and CART.”

“I’ve been talking to different organizations, and they’re saying, ‘If the facilities are good, we’ll come,’ Well, this will be one of the best facilities in the United States.”

The complex will include a road course, 55,000 grandstand seats, a drag strip, racing school and car testing facilities.

Since Arciero is an team owner on the CART Championship Series, it is likely his drivers, Max Papis and Robby Gordon, will eventually be racing around his speedway in the spring of 2001, but “if it’s a dry year next year,” Arciero said, “we can race in the fall of 2000.”

Owning a track could also pay dividends for Arciero-Wells Racing and the developing Toyota powerplant.

“In the off-season, I can test as many hours as I want to,” Arciero said. “That will give me an advantage--like [California Speedway and race team owner Roger] Penske, he tests as much as he wants.”

Arciero said he has looked for a track--or a site--the past 25 years and spent nearly $3 million in the process.

“Some day, when I pass away,” Arciero said, “I want people to remember it was my track and it’s a great track.”

*

The record for lead changes in the U.S. 500 was 27; the record after the tragic July 26 race at the Michigan Speedway is 62.

Until three spectators were killed in driver Adrian Fernandez’s crash, the wing-like creation of San Clemente’s Mark Handford was the talk of the race weekend.

The Handford Device is a wing-like aerodynamic piece fitted to the rear of a car to create drag and reduce downforce specifically for the series’ two superspeedway races in Michigan and Fontana.

“What’s unfortunate about it, J. Kirk Russel [CART vice president of competition] called it the Handford Device for lack of a better name,” said Handford, the technical director of Swift Engineering in San Clemente. “My five minutes of fame is associated with making the car go slower.”

Though one way to create a slower car is to increase downforce and drag with a bigger wing, Handford took the opposite approach, designing a wing that reduces downforce and forces slower speeds because of reduced grip.

“One of the things we didn’t expect to come out of it, it makes it easier to race close to each other because the guys behind the leader are towed into the wake of the lead car,” Handford said before the race.

The Handford Device created more even racing at the U.S. 500 and, as Handford thought, showcased the drivers more than the engines.

“It should make the driver a bigger part of the outcome of these superspeedway races than he’s become in the last couple of years,” Handford said. “This should restore the driver [as a factor in the race] and eliminate a technology demonstration.

“Michigan and Fontana often gets very boring because the cars get strung out. This should make a race of it right up to the last lap.”

On the last lap Sunday, Greg Moore passed Jimmy Vasser to take the checkered flag.

*

Speedway promoter and rider Brad Oxley is planning two events during the Aug. 15 card at the Orange County Fairgrounds that are sure to be talked about: the first West Coast motorcycle demolition derby and the “Sleds of Death.”

Twelve demolition derby riders will be equipped with hard, plastic baseball bats and circle the bullring oval at the Orange County Fairgrounds until only one rider is left on two wheels.

“No one’s ever really done it, and no one wants to practice something like that,” Oxley said. “We’re going to see what happens; it could be the first and last motorcycle demolition derby.”

Oxley heard it was done once on the East Coast.

Oxley got the idea for the Death Sleds from watching a video that included a brief clip from the 1920s in which a motorcycle pulled a metal sled around a half-mile track at about 65 mph.

“If it sounds dangerous and wacky, well, it’s the wildest thing I’ve ever seen,” Oxley said. “I’ve seen only one little clip--maybe the first guy that got dragged was the last.”

Maybe. Two sleds are being built by Stanley Exhaust, a metal fabricator in San Clemente that is sponsoring the card. The sleds are designed to bounce off each other and the track wall.

Two teams will compete in a best-of-three match race. Brea’s Shawn McConnell has already agreed to ride in one sled, which will be pulled behind a 250cc motocross bike. Though Oxley says he is the perfect guy to pull a sled, he said he will ride in the other sled if he can’t find someone else.

“The guy in the sled doesn’t have a lot of control,” Oxley said. “It’s pretty much free sliding on the end of the chain.

“It’s really up to his pilot to not put him in too much danger.”

If the sleds work, they’ll probably return on Harley Night on Aug. 22, being dragged behind a couple of Harley-Davidsons.