Supercross Rider Tortelli Making French Connection

Sebastien Tortelli, two-time world motocross champion from France, was talking about Supercross--a stadium version of motocross--when he said, “We spend more time in the air than we do on the ground.”

He was referring to the profusion of jumps that send riders skyrocketing, but he just as well could have been referring to the demanding travel of Supercross riders.

Take Ezra Lusk, Tortelli’s Honda teammate, for example. Lusk was in Paris last week for the Bercy Invitational, where he finished fourth. Then it was back home--he bought a house in Lake Elsinore early this week--to train on Honda’s track near Corona for Saturday’s second round of the World Supercross Championship series in the Rose Bowl.

After the Rose Bowl event, he and Tortelli will take off for Leipzig, Germany, and the final round at Messehalle.

“I think I’ll come home and take a little rest after that,” said Lusk, one of the favorites in the Rose Bowl competition. “Next year’s Supercross season is only about a month away [Jan. 8 at Edison Field in Anaheim] and I want to be ready. This is the year I think we can win the championship.”

Lusk won both races at Anaheim last year, plus one in San Diego--”I was undefeated in California,” he said--but managed only two others and finished second to six-time winner Jeremy McGrath for the season.

McGrath has also spent much of the off-season in the air. Since mid-September, he has raced in Italy, France, England, Chile, back to France and now the Rose Bowl.

“In between most of those races, I came home and trained,” said McGrath, who won the World Supercross title in 1992.

McGrath will be the favorite Saturday on his Chaparral Yamaha, although he finished only 16th after crashing in the rainy first round in France. Lusk did not ride in the opening round.

“It was too long a season, riding the Supercross and the 250 outdoors and I needed a little time off,” Lusk said. McGrath, after winning the Supercross title, elected not to ride in the national 250cc class.

Tortelli, who won his first race in the United States, the 1998 season opener in the Coliseum, is one of a group of French riders following in the wake of Jean Michael Bayle, who won world motocross championships before winning a Supercross title. Bayle, after winning both Supercross and 250cc national titles in 1991, turned his talents to Grand Prix road racing.

Tortelli wants to emulate Bayle’s success in motocross.

“After winning the world 250cc championship, there was nothing left for me to attain in Europe, so I decided to come to America for the Supercross championships,” he said. “There is very little Supercross in Europe, so if you want to prove yourself, you must come to America.”

Tortelli, 21, left his home in Agen, France, to move to Temecula, where he and his wife spend their time between trips. Unfortunately, he has been hampered by injuries since coming here.

He broke his foot in September 1998, which cut his practice time for this year’s heavy schedule. After finishing 12th in the Supercross season, he won the 250cc season opener at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino and was leading in the series after six events when he fell at Unadilla, N.Y., and dislocated his wrist. That ended his season.

“The world championships are a good way to get the European and American riders together,” he said. “The winners are usually from the United States or France.”

Frenchmen David Vuillemin and Mickael Pichon finished 1-2 in the world round on the Stade de France circuit last month. Tortelli finished fifth. Another French rider, Frederic Bolley, won the world 250cc championship on a Honda, but was injured in a crash during practice at Stade de France and will skip Saturday’s race.

The world series started out with four events, but a round in Brazil was canceled because of insufficient financing.

The overall champion, after the final round in Germany on Nov. 27, will collect $100,000.

Saturday’s opening ceremonies will start at 2:10 p.m., with the first heat at 2:30.

TURKEY NIGHT

Only the Indianapolis 500, which began in 1911, has a longer history than the Turkey Night Grand Prix, a U.S. Auto Club midget race that started in 1934 at Gilmore Stadium.

The Home Depot GP will have its 59th outing next Thursday night at Irwindale Speedway, 100 laps on the half-mile paved oval. The race will be at Irwindale for the first time. Since Ascot Park closed in 1990, the Turkey Night race has had a vagabond history, going from Saugus to Bakersfield to Perris and Ventura.

Its champions include four Indy 500 winners--Bill Vukovich, Johnnie Parsons, A.J. Foyt and Parnelli Jones. Ron Shuman won it eight times between 1979 and 1993. Mel Kenyon won in 1963 and again 12 years later in 1975.

Sleepy Tripp has won two USAC national midget titles and seven Western Regional championships, but has never won on Turkey Night. He finished second in 1978 and 1987. Wally Pankratz has been trying since 1983 and has a third in 1991 to show for it. His father, Bob, was fourth in 1947. Sam Hanks, the 1957 Indy 500 winner, was second for three consecutive years but never won.

Mario Andretti, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart have also tried. Andretti was fourth in 1967. Gordon was fifth in 1989, the year before he won the USAC crown.

Stewart, fresh from a remarkable year as a Winston Cup rookie, will be in Saturday night’s 100-lap race. It will be his third Turkey Night, his best finish a seventh.

Traditionally a dirt-track race, only twice before has it been run on pavement, in 1975 when Kenyon won at Speedway 605, across the San Gabriel Freeway from the current track, and in 1991 when Stan Fox won at Saugus Speedway.

Besides Stewart, the bulging entry list boasts three-time USAC champion Jason Leffler, who has won twice this year at Irwindale; 1996 champion Kenny Irwin Jr., like Stewart now a Winston Cup regular; PJ Jones, runner-up in the 1990 race at Ascot Park, and defending champion Jay Drake of Val Verde.

The Turkey Night race took on added significance Thursday when the USAC season finale at Phoenix was canceled. This makes Irwindale the final race for both the USAC national and western regional series.

Leffler, with a 121-point lead over Ryan Newman, has clinched the national crown. Marc DeBeaumont leads Shane Scully, 525-485, in the regional series, with a race Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway before Turkey Night’s finale.

SPRINT CARS

The Sprint Car Racing Assn. will hold its 42nd and final race of the season Saturday, the 40-lap Jack Kindoll Classic at Perris Auto Speedway.

Richard Griffin has all but clinched his second straight series championship. The driver from Silver City, N.M., has a 93-point lead over Cory Kruseman of Ventura. Only 100 points are at stake Saturday night.

Kruseman, defending champion in the Kindoll Classic, finished second to Rickie Gaunt of Torrance and won $10,000 as champion of the Non-Winged World Championship series.

LAST LAPS

Robby Gordon is leaving CART and will return to NASCAR Winston Cup racing next year with his own team. Team Gordon, headed by the driver and co-owners Mike Held and John Menard, is in the process of moving its Orange County operation to the Charlotte, N.C., area. . . . Leo Mehl, 63, Indianapolis Motor Speedway vice president and executive director of the Indy Racing League the last three years, will retire Dec. 3. . . . Steve Ramirez of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune received the National Hot Rod Assn. media-man-of-the-year honor last Tuesday night at the NHRA awards banquet.

The Skoal Bandit’s ride is over. After 19 seasons in Winston Cup, the U.S. Tobacco Co. will end its racing involvement with the NAPA 500 on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The team began in 1981 when Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds debuted a car with Stan Barrett driving in the Daytona 500. Harry Gant replaced Barrett and drove until he retired in 1994. Ken Schrader drives the latest Skoal Bandit stock car.

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This Week’s Race

WINSTON CUP, NAPA AutoCare 500

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, 11:30 a.m. (ESPN2); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 8 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 9:30 a.m.)

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

* Race distance: 500.5 miles, 325 laps.

* Last year: Jeff Gordon won, tying Richard Petty’s 1975 Winston Cup record of 13 victories in a season. Gordon beat Dale Jarrett by 0.739 seconds in a race shortened from 325 laps to 221 because of rain.

* Last race: Jarrett finished fifth at the Pennzoil 400 in Homestead, Fla., and earned his first championship. Tony Stewart won the race, becoming the first driver to win three races in his rookie season.

* Fast facts: Stewart has 28 top-15 finishes this season. . . . Rick Mast is the only driver to start every race this season and remain running at the end. . . . Petty and Dale Earnhardt have each won the race four times. . . . Ricky Rudd must win to extend his Winston Cup record to at least one victory in 17 consecutive seasons. . . . NASCAR signed a six-year TV contract with Fox, NBC and TBS that pays $400 million annually. The new deal gives NASCAR more money annually than baseball and hockey get from their national TV deals, but less than the NFL and the NBA.

* Next race: End of season.