Winston West Race at Irwindale Has Echoes of Saugus Speedway

If a race track could talk, Saugus Speedway would have plenty to say about the Irwindale 250 NASCAR Winston West race tonight at Irwindale Speedway.

“Irwindale Speedway?” the old track might muse. “Isn’t that the place my promoter, Ray Wilkings, built after my owners closed me? Wilkings was general manager here for 11 years, and I go back another 26 years with his family.

“You say Ron Hornaday Jr., Bill Sedgwick, Butch Gilliland and Sean Woodside are all entered? I remember them all.

“Why, Hornaday and Sedgwick started here back in 1979. Both won track championships in the ‘80s. In fact, I remember when Hornaday was a kid. His dad won track championships before going on to win two championships in what they now call the Winston West series.

“Hornaday and Sedgwick teamed up to win a Winston West race here in ‘94,” the one-third-mile oval might continue. “The Valencia Dodge 250. Sedgwick was the crew chief--on a car he drove to the ’92 and ’93 series titles.

“Hornaday got the ride that year and he led all but six laps. It was legalized robbery. The other guys never had a chance.

“And I knew Woodside would be good. You know he won track championships the last two years I was open before moving up to the Winston West?

“Don’t even get me started on Gilliland. He’s a bittersweet memory. Raced 65 Winston West races in nine years without a victory before I let him get his first here in ’95. He’s won 11 more Winston West races since, and the series championship in ’97.

“His first victory turned out to be my last hurrah, though, because my owners announced they were closing me four days later.

“Gilliland took the first laps at Ray’s new joint. Talk about passing the torch,” the venerable oval might comment. “By the way, you think those guys remember me?”

*

Wilkings emphatically states Irwindale “is not Saugus!”

There are no train races, chain races, demolition derbies or figure-8 races.

The grandstands have 12 luxury suites, every seat has a back and the press box is enclosed.

There are two tracks instead of one. A one-half-mile main track wide enough to accommodate three cars abreast on its 12-degree banked turns, enclosing a one-third-mile oval with four-degree banking. Saugus was flat and two cars wide.

The 3,400-pound Winston West cars, which have the same chassis as Winston Cup cars with slightly less horsepower, will be banging doors and bumpers on the one-half-mile track.

Yet there is still a connection between the old and the new, a connection that has not been forgotten.

“When I heard that the people from Saugus were coming out here, I knew it would be a great track,” Gilliland said. “Some of the things they’ve done right out here they couldn’t do at Saugus.”

Hornaday, who has won two NASCAR Craftsman Truck championships in the series’ four-year existence, last saw the Irwindale facility after final grading before the asphalt surface was laid. He jumped at the opportunity to renew old associations, although it will mean two long days, both concluding with midnight airplane flights.

Hornaday flew to Ontario after the Grainger 225-kilometer Craftsman Truck race at Portland International Raceway on Friday night, and will take another red-eye tonight to North Carolina, where he will celebrate his 41st birthday Sunday with his family.

“Ray’s a good buddy of mine,” Hornaday said. “It’s fun, it gives me a chance to come home and race and a chance to take Ray’s money.

“I’m just excited because where the series was when my father was racing it and when Lee Elder was racing, it went downhill for a little bit,” Hornaday added. “It’s an honor to go back, and these guys are tough. I’m not just going down there to take their money, I’m going to learn something, too.”

Hornaday and Woodside acknowledge what their Saugus experiences have meant to their careers.

“I don’t think [Wilkings] knows what he’s done for my career,” Hornaday said. “My restarts and things like that all came from Saugus Speedway, that’s where I learned it all.

“They started all the fast cars in the back. That’s how you learn how to pass people and learn how to nudge people out of the way without them even knowing that you nudged them.”

Said Woodside: “The flat surface at Saugus is probably the reason that a lot of the people who ran there do so well at other tracks. You don’t have the banking there to hold cars on the track.

“It’s also fairly narrow and you had to run in close quarters every time. It got me used to the bumping and banging, and I had to learn how to finesse other cars out of the way with the front bumper.”

Sedgwick and Woodside intend to compete in some local events at Irwindale this season during a scheduled Winston West hiatus.

.

Tonight, Sedgwick will drive the Chevrolet Monte Carlo that Darrell Waltrip drove during the 1996 Winston Cup season.

Hornaday is driving a Pontiac Grand Prix Woodside drove in 1997 and 1998.

Woodside, who has finished second both years on the Winston West tour and is currently tied for second, is in a Monte Carlo sponsored by the same auto parts chain that sponsors Hornaday’s truck.

Gilliland will pilot a Ford Taurus.

*

The IMCA Sprint Cars will be featured tonight at Ventura Raceway. Kevin Kierce of Reseda leads the points standings with 403 in 11 races. Chris Wakim of Simi Valley (367), Bill Welch of Ojai (363) and rookie Steve Conrad of Agua Dulce (360) are in the title hunt.

Kathy Pierson of Camarillo earned her first IMCA Modified victory June 19. Pierson won the track’s Pony Stock championship in 1997 then raced a limited number of Street Stock events in 1998 before tackling the modifieds this year.