Coach Discovers He Has the Drive to Try This Sport
Hayden Fox, TV’s “Coach,” can be seen only on reruns these days.
Craig T. Nelson, the actor who portrayed Fox, can be seen live Saturday, driving in the Johnson Controls 100 Trans Am race during Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach festivities.
At Long Beach in 1991, Nelson drove in the pro-celebrity race, finished third and was hooked on becoming a race car driver. He eventually formed his own team, Screaming Eagles Enterprise.
“If I could have found a solid sponsor, money-wise, I would have stayed in it,” he said the other day, after a few test laps in the Corvette he will drive Saturday. “I loved every minute of it--except trying to raise money. You know, it’s a heck of an expensive hobby.”
In 1997, he completed his ninth and final season on “Coach,” and also retired as a team driver-owner. He hasn’t raced since.
A few months ago, however, Trans Am champion Paul Gentilozzi was looking around for a driver for his Rocketsports team and remembered being impressed with Nelson’s abilities in IMSA’s World Sports Car class, where Nelson was named most improved driver of the year in 1995. He also campaigned in the American City Racing League.
“I sent him a vial of gasoline, told him, ‘Sniff this,’ and he was on his way back,” said Gentilozzi with a big laugh. “He’s not your typical Hollywood driver. We tested him and he impressed us.
“We’re not looking at Craig T. as an actor who can drive, but rather a driver who happens to act. Over the years, I’ve worked with a lot of drivers from the entertainment industry, but seldom have I seen someone as focused on personal performance as he is.”
Nelson won two Emmys as outstanding lead actor in a comedy series for “Coach,” and was nominated four times for Golden Globe awards.
When practice begins today for the Trans Am season opener, Nelson will be in the Corvette that Gentilozzi drove to the championship last year. Gentilozzi has switched to a Ford Mustang Cobra.
Although he has always been a General Motors driver, Gentilozzi said he switched because, “I believe, under the current rules, that the Mustang is the best race car. The chassis are all basically the same, so it’s really the body and engine combination that drives your choice of car. The Ford engine makes more power and the Mustang body is every bit as aerodynamic as anything else out there.”
As for Nelson in the Corvette?
“The car is a lot different from what I drove before,” he said. “I had never driven a car before where you had to climb in the window. Getting in and out of the car is a major achievement in itself. I had to learn a whole new technique.”
Nelson is committed to three street races, Long Beach, Belle Isle in Detroit and the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Grand Prix. They make up the Johnson Controls Triangle, which will pay $50,000 to any driving sweeping them.
“Paul won seven races in the Corvette last year, so it must be pretty good,” Nelson said. “I ran three days on the road course at Fontana [California Speedway] and felt pretty comfortable when I finished. I’m really looking forward to the first four turns at Long Beach. No one else has raced them, so I won’t be at any disadvantage.”
The first four turns on the reconfigured 1.85-mile Grand Prix course are new, since the course now goes past the new Aquarium of the Pacific.
“This is really a dream come true,” Nelson said. “I had been thinking about something like this for more than a year, sort of hanging around on the outskirts of racing. With no TV series to take up my time, I can structure my other work around the race schedule. It’s sort of a window of opportunity for me.”
MOTORCYCLES
Two widely different American Motorcyclist Assn. national championships are scheduled this weekend for Southern California two-wheel fans.
Riders in the MBNA Superbike series will be at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond, about 90 miles north of Los Angeles.
And the North American Observed Trials and the American Trials Assn.’s 29th El Trial de Espana will be contested at Reed Valley, near Aguanga, about 100 miles east of Los Angeles.
Round 3 of the Superbike series features series leader Mat Mladin on a Suzuki, defending champion Doug Chandler on a Kawasaki and Daytona 200 winner Miguel Duhamel on a Honda.
Duhamel edged Mladin by .014 of a second in one of the closest Daytona finishes in the race’s 58-year history. It was the Canadian’s third victory in the 200-mile classic.
Chandler won his second straight Superbike championship last year, joining Reg Pridmore and Fred Merkel as three-time AMA champions. Pridmore’s son, Jason, rides for the Suzuki team. He finished sixth at Daytona while still recovering from a broken arm he suffered a the last race of 1998.
Other Suzuki favorites are Steve Crevier, 600cc SuperSport series champion, and Steve Rapp, who finished fifth in his first Superbike race aboard a factory Suzuki.
Riders will practice and qualifying today on the 2.5-mile, nine-turn track, with more qualifying Saturday and the 600cc final Sunday at 11 a.m., followed by the Superbike final.
The country’s finest trials riders will be at Aguanga for the two-day competition there. Proceeds from Sunday’s El Trial de Espana benefit the U.S. Trial des Nations team, which will compete Sept. 26 in Luxembourg.
The AMA nationals will start at 9 a.m. Saturday.
REMEMBERING LONG BEACH
Winning the 1992 Toyota pro-celebrity race is a happy memory for five-time top-fuel drag racing champion Joe Amato, but his favorite story of that event arose out of practice for the race at Willow Springs.
“They sent two of us out together and the plan was, in practice, if you got a fender up on a guy, he let you in.
“[Actor] Tim Allen was the one we ran with and I got a fender up on him. He should have let me in, but he didn’t pay attention.
“He ran me off into the weeds, a 360 [degree spin] into the dirt. He thought that was funny.
“He said, ‘I wasn’t going to let you in. I can say I spun Joe Amato into the dirt!’ He thought that was neat.”
MORE LONG BEACH
Race historian John Procida notes that in the 25 years that the Grand Prix has thrived in Long Beach, 20 other cities have put on street races and not been successful.
Street races have come and gone at Dallas, Detroit, New Orleans, Phoenix, Reno, Niagara Falls and Las Vegas, among other cities.
More and more, the CART FedEx series is looking like Formula One Jr. Of the 27 drivers in this weekend’s race, only eight--Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser, Bryan Herta, PJ Jones, Scott Pruett, Alex Barron, Robby Gordon and Richie Hearn--are American-born.
The foreign contingent includes nine drivers from Brazil, three from Canada, two from Mexico and one each from Colombia, Italy, Japan, England and Scotland.
SPEEDING TICKET
Alex Zanardi has not scored a point in two Formula One races, but he picked up an expensive speeding ticket.
When the two-time CART FedEx champion broke the 50-mph pit lane limit by six mph during the Brazilian Grand Prix, F1 officials docked him $5,000.
USAC MIDGETS
Bud Kaeding, who won the U.S. Auto Club’s Western Division sprint car race opening night at Irwindale Speedway, will be back Saturday to test his skills in a midget race against series champion Rick Hendrix, current series leader Clay Klepper and former champion Robby Flock.
Klepper, who was fourth in Irwindale’s midget opener, has five consecutive finishes in the top 10 this year.
Besides the 30-lap midget main event, there will be a 20-lap three-quarter midget feature, plus spec trucks and Grand Am modifieds.
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Long Beach Grand Prix
* What: The silver anniversary Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Race 3 of the 20-race CART FedEx champ car series.
* When: Today, Saturday, Sunday.
* Where: An 11-turn, 1.85-mile temporary circuit through the streets of downtown Long Beach.
* Schedule: Today--practice and qualifying. Saturday--practice and qualifying, Toyota pro-celebrity race, Kool-Toyota Atlantic race. Sunday--PPG-Dayton Indy Lights race, Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Johnson Controls Trans Am race.
* Tickets: Grand Prix ticket office at 430 E. First St., Long Beach; all Ticketmaster locations.