AUTO RACING : For L.A., a High-Speed Chase With a Twist

It’s NASCAR, but it’s definitely not Winston Cup. It’s not even Busch Grand National, or even Winston West.

The Ford L.A. Street Race, the Labor Day main event, is a Featherlite Southwest Tour points race, sprinkled with such names as Ken Schrader, Ron Hornaday and Kenny Irwin, last year’s Winston Cup rookie of the year and surprise pole-sitter for today’s Pepsi Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C.

Schrader and Irwin will fly to Los Angeles tonight after the 500 and will be at Exposition Park for second-day qualifying Monday morning. The race is at 1 p.m. Monday around a one-mile course circling the Sports Arena.

The racing circuit includes a stretch on Figueroa Street, with most of the course on roads inside the park, between the Sports Arena and the Coliseum.

The Southwest Tour is one of NASCAR’s eight touring series.

Today’s program, in addition to Southwest Tour first-round qualifying, will feature the American IndyCar series, composed of vintage look-like-Indy cars. It will be 60 miles, starting at 3:30 p.m.

The other support races for Ultra Wheel spec trucks, PRO racing series cars and Ford’s EV Ranger trucks will be Monday.

Jack Roush, whose multi-car team of Fords has revolutionized Winston Cup racing, will enter three Southwest Tour cars that were prepared in his West Coast shop. They will be driven by Irwin, Schrader (who campaigns Chevrolets the rest of the year) and Mario Hernandez, a Cuban American who is replacing the injured Adrian Fernandez. It will be Hernandez’s first stock car race.