Martin Pulling Out All Stops to Compete in L.A. Street Race

NASCAR regulars Mark Martin, Ken Schrader and Chad Little are scheduled to drive in the Ford Los Angeles Street Race on Labor Day, but not in the cars they drive on the Winston Cup circuit.

All will be in Featherlite Southwest Series cars for the 200-kilometer race around a 1.4-mile street course in Exposition Park, weaving around the Coliseum, Sports Arena and museums. The race is part of NASCAR’s 19-race Southwest Series, which includes races at Mesa Marin Speedway in Bakersfield, Cajon Speedway in El Cajon and Saturday night at Erie, Colo.

Martin, in a tense struggle with Jeff Gordon and Dale Jarrett to win his first Winston Cup championship, has planned a hectic weekend in order to drive a Ford Taurus here.

He will drive a Busch Grand National car Saturday, Sept. 5, and a Winston Cup car Sept. 6 at Darlington, S.C., then fly here in a chartered jet for the Kragan Zone 200, feature event of a three-day racing festival produced by LA Events.

Labor Day night he and his entourage will fly home to Daytona Beach, Fla., for a day or two before heading for Richmond, Va., and another Busch and Winston Cup night doubleheader.

Martin’s car, the same one he drove to victory in a Northwest Tour race three years ago on a road course in Portland, Ore., is being prepared by Harry Lewin in Jack Roush’s garage in Long Beach. The car was a Thunderbird in 1995, but is being refitted to look like a Taurus. Lewin also will furnish the crew for Martin’s car.

A Winston Cup car is steel bodied, has a five-inch longer wheel base and puts out about 700 horsepower; a Southwest Tour car has a fiberglass body and uses a 390 carburetor, which restricts horsepower to a little over 500. However, being about 500 pounds lighter, Southwest Series cars are usually faster on street circuits.

Also entered, in addition to such tour regulars as M.K. Kanke of Granada Hills and Keith Spangler of Chatsworth, is Willy T. Ribbs, who in 1991 became the first and only black driver in the Indianapolis 500.

Schrader, who will race practically anywhere an event is scheduled, and Little, a former Winston West champion, also will fly out Sunday night from Darlington for the Labor Day race.

However, neither Jarrett nor Rusty Wallace, whose Winston Cup cars have been prominently displayed in advertising for the Labor Day race, will be in the race.

The last time Schrader drove locally, in 1995, he won a NASCAR Craftsman Truck race at now-closed Saugus Speedway. He also won a Southwest event at Phoenix last February.

On Sunday, the Winston Cup drivers will be at Loudon, N.H., for the CMT 300. Martin, who won his fifth race last Sunday at Bristol, Tenn., trails Gordon by 67 points. Gordon has won eight. Jarrett, like Martin seeking his first championship, trails Martin by 156 points.

“This championship won’t come down to performance so much as it will be about who doesn’t finish a race,” Martin said. “The points are so tight between Gordon, Jarrett and me that it will come down to who has the worst finish rather than the best.”

Since winning the California 500 in May, Martin has had 14 consecutive top-10 finishes and six straight top-five finishes.

FAST BOATS RETURN

After a 15-year absence, 6,000-horsepower blown fuel hydroplanes--first cousins to drag racing’s top fuel dragsters--will return to Long Beach Marine Stadium on Sunday as part of the city’s International Sea Festival.

John Irvine of La Habra and Shannon Stewart of Hesperia will face off in side-by-side match races during a California Outboard Boat Racing Assn. program that will include circle boat racing, two-man crackerboxes, champ boats and barefoot skiers.

Irvine’s 18-foot 6-inch hydroplane, Mega Power Mega Force, has a best of 5.4 seconds elapsed time for the liquid quarter-mile at a speed of 223 mph. Currently, he is second to defending champion Duane Patton of Visalia in the International Hot Boat Assn. championship series, which will be at Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas on Oct. 3-4.

“I’ve always wanted to run in Long Beach Marine Stadium because I’ve heard about all the great races they had there years ago when Eddie Hill was racing boats,” Irvine said. “We want to bring back the excitement of top hydros and get Long Beach back as a regular site for racing.”

Stewart is the IHBA elapsed time record holder with a 5.36 in his California Quake. He is fifth in points.

Irvine, who will turn 43 on Saturday and is seeking his first championship, was the IHBA points leader until last Sunday at Marble Falls, Texas, where he lost in the semifinals to Patton.

“It was one of the closest finishes in IHBA history,” Irvine said. “We both ran 212 [mph], but he beat me on reaction time. It took the judges 10 minutes to figure out who won. He got me by one-hundredth of a second.”

Irvine was also a runner-up in one of the tightest points races in the IHBA. In 1996, he came to the final event at Firebird Lake in Arizona with a 200-point lead over Charlie Fagan of Albuquerque, N.M. All Irvine needed was to qualify and win the first heat, even if Fagan won the final round.

“My boat broke on the first round,” Irvine said. “I still could have won the championship if Fagan had lost, but he didn’t. Firebird was always a jinx place for me until this year when I won the opening race there.”

The World Finals will be at Firebird Oct. 15-18.

“I hope the spectators like what they see when Shannon and I race Sunday because we want to develop a following in Southern California. For some reason, this is one area where interest has been down. Last week, at Marble Falls, we had 42,000 in attendance and we’ve averaged between 30,000 and 40,000 at most stops.”

LAST LAPS

For the first time in the 1990s, someone other than John Force will be leading the funny car standings when the National Hot Rod Assn.’s Winston Drag Series reaches the U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Ron Capps, Don Prudhomme’s driver, has a 69-point lead over Force after winning last Sunday at Brainerd, Minn. It was Capps’ fourth win this season. Two of his wins, at Dallas and Seattle, came against Force in the final round.

Jim Edmunds, longtime publicity director for the NHRA, has retired after 29 years with the Glendora-based organization. . . . Also retiring after a long career racing sports cars is Gianpiero Moretti, who finished on a high note, winning the U.S. Road Racing Championship’s six-hour race at Watkins Glen, N.Y., in a Yokohama Ferrari. Along with co-drivers Didier Theys and Mauro Baldi, Moretti also won the Daytona 24-Hour and the Sebring 12-Hour races this year. He announced his retirement in victory circle.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP, CMT 300

* Schedule: Today, first-round qualifying, 1 p.m. (Speedvision); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 8 a.m.; Sunday, race, 10 a.m. (TNN).

* Track: New Hampshire International Speedway (oval, 1.058 miles, 12-degree banking in corners), Loudon, N.H.

* Race distance: 317.4 miles, 300 laps.

* Defending champion: Jeff Gordon.

* Last week: Mark Martin won the Goody’s 500 in Bristol, Tenn., ending Gordon’s bid for a modern-era, NASCAR-record fifth straight victory. Martin, a five-time winner this year, edged Roush Racing teammate Jeff Burton by 2.185 seconds. Gordon finished fifth.

* Next race: Southern 500, Sept. 6, Darlington, S.C.

*

CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS, Kroger 225

* Schedule: Today, qualifying, 4 p.m. ; Saturday, race, 11:30 a.m. (ESPN).

* Track: Louisville Motor Speedway (triangle, 0.438 miles, 12-degree banking in corners), Louisville, Ky.

* Race distance: 98.55 miles, 225 laps.

* Defending champion: Ron Hornaday.

* Last week: Stacy Compton won the Lund Look 275K in Topeka, Kan., edging Terry Cook by 0.892 seconds. Compton also won in April in Portland, Ore.

* Next race: Virginia Is For Lovers 200, Sept. 10, Richmond, Va.

*

INDY RACING LEAGUE, Atlanta 500 Classic

* Schedule: Today, qualifying, 3 p.m. (Speedvision); Saturday, race, 6 p.m. (TNN).

* Track: Atlanta Motor Speedway (oval, 1.54 miles, 24-degree banking in turns), Hampton, Ga.

* Race distance: 320.32 miles, 208 laps.

* Last year: This is inaugural race.

* Last race: Sweden’s Kenny Brack raced to his second straight victory, beating Robbie Buhl by 7.542 seconds at the Radisson 200 on Aug. 16 in Fountain, Colo. Brack ran out of fuel on the final turn.

* Next race: Las Vegas 500, Oct. 11, Las Vegas.

*

FORMULA ONE, Belgian Grand Prix

* Schedule: Saturday, qualifying, 4 a.m. (Speedvision); Sunday, race, 4:30 a.m. (Speedvision), also 10 a.m. (Fox Sports West).

* Track: Spa-Francorchamps (road course, 4.329 miles), Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium.

* Race distance: 190.48 miles, 44 laps.

* Defending champion: Germany’s Michael Schumacher won the race for the fourth time in six years, beating Italy’s Giancarlo Fisichella by 26.753 seconds in rainy conditions.

* Defending champion: Schumacher.

* Next race: Italian Grand Prix, Sept. 13, Monza, Italy.