Arciero Seeking Champ Car Race at New Track

With Cleveland and CART ending their relationship in the FedEx Championship Series, look for the Champ cars to move into the Sacramento area.

Irvine developer Frank Arciero, co-owner of Santa Margarita-based Arciero-Wells Racing in Santa Margarita, is constructing the Yuba County Motorplex, a 1.35-mile, D-shaped oval near Marysville, about 40 miles north of Sacramento. Plans for the facility, which include a drag strip, call for it to be completed during July or August, 2001.

“We haven’t sat down with CART to tell them ‘This is the date,’ but we’re going to do it pretty soon,” Arciero said.

Arciero said he is not aware of CART planning to add a stop to the series next year, but is reasonably confident the series will add Yuba County to the schedule in 2001. It makes sense, given the series races at the tracks of team owners Roger Penske in Michigan, Nazareth and Fontana, and Chip Ganassi in Chicago.

“I’m almost 100% positive that we’ll get champ cars,” Arciero said, “and I hope it’s the first event there.”

There are 20 champ car races this season. Arciero said a NASCAR event is also a legitimate possibility.

“Two years ago, they said that once we got the pavement down, to let them know,” Arciero said. “I know they have a tight schedule, but I know they want to come to Northern California. There is no oval up there.”

* One of Arciero’s drivers, Scott Pruett, had his best finish of the season, seventh at the Molson Indy in Toronto. Orange County driver Max Papis matched his season-high with a fifth-place finish and, for the 11th time in 11 races, completed the race.

INDY RACING LEAGUE

Dana Point owner Dick Simon saw his chances for a victory ruined Saturday at Atlanta. His driver, Stephan Gregoire, was in second place on Lap 87, through about one-third of the race, when he slowed for a crash immediately in front of him involving Steve Knapp and San Juan Capistrano’s Jeff Ward. Gregoire was rear-ended by Ronnie Johncox. Gregoire, pushed into the wall, finished 24th.

It was especially disappointing because Simon held such high hopes for this race because of previous success he had at similar race tracks.

“We were going into the lead at that point, we felt we were going to win that one and it’s extremely disappointing,” Simon said.

Ward (26th), uninjured in the crash, dropped to third in the series standings, six behind race winner Scott Sharp and 27 behind Scott Goodyear.

SCORE

Among the drivers who won in Barstow on Saturday at the 28th annual SCORE Fireworks 250, the fourth race of the desert series, were San Clemente’s Jeff Lewis in Class 7 open mini trucks (5 hours, 25 minutes 56 seconds to cover 236 miles) in a Chevrolet S-10 4x4, Orange’s Jared Hardin in Class 7S stock mini trucks (6:49.23) in a GMC Sonoma, and La Habra’s Larry Plank in Protruck limited production trucks (5:07:42) in a Ford F-150.

Lewis remained undefeated this season, and Plank finished 10th overall on the rugged four-lap, 59-mile layout. There were 151 starters, 92 finishers.

* Ivan Stewart, who won the Baja 500, said in the wake of the accident that he would not again compete in that race because fans’ proximity to the drivers made it so dangerous. Craig Stewart, Ivan’s son, was one of the injured spectators.

“I’d always like to have Ivan Stewart behind the wheel--he’s been a cornerstone of our success,” said Cal Wells III, owner of the Rancho Santa Margarita-based team for which Stewart drives. “He and I need to get together and talk about it.

“I’d like him to do what he’s most comfortable with.”

SPEEDBOATS

Laguna Beach owner/driver Matt Alcone and his throttleman, Jerry Gilbreath of Priest River, Idaho, briefly piloted their US1 Fountain to the World Kilo Record at the Norwegian Grand Prix in Arendal, Norway, only to have it broken later by the Dubai-based team of Al Tayer and Felix Serralles (161.26 mph/259.68 km/h).

The previous Class 1 world record was 253.31 km/h.

Alcone Motorsports, disqualified in the first round for missing a marker during last weekend’s competition, averaged 158.45 mph (255.16 km/h), breaking the existing U.S. record of 154.7 mph set in 1997.

NASCAR

Winston West driver Butch Gilliland still plans to run a full Winston Cup schedule next season, but he hopes his luck is better than it was over the weekend at the Winston West Series event in Monroe, Wash. Gilliland fell from sixth to seventh in the points standings with a 17th-place finish because of an accident. Joe Bean, who finished fifth, moved ahead of Gilliland by 21 points. Gilliland trails first-place Brandon Ash by 162 points.

Gilliland was one of seven drivers who missed the qualifying window and started 21st, but ran in fifth place most of the race, and was fourth at the time of the accident, 50 laps from the end of the 200-lap event.

The car will be repaired at Gilliland’s Anaheim race shop before continuing Aug. 14 in Portland.

IRWINDALE

Mission Viejo’s Tim Enoch spun out of second place and finished sixth, but retained the slightest advantage overall in the Star Mazda Series West Division Championship that raced Saturday at Irwindale Speedway. Enoch, 27, is tied for the overall lead with Sacramento’s Joey Hand (who finished fifth); each has 187 points, but Enoch holds a tiebreaker advantage over Hand after five of 12 races.