Motzouris Finds a Home in Azusa

You might not expect to find a world-class jet ski racer living in Azusa, but the quiet mountainside community in the San Gabriel Valley is home to Dustin Motzouris, a former personal watercraft world champion.

At least it’s home most of the year.

Motzouris, 19, came to Azusa when he was 15 from Empangeni, South Africa, a small beach town near the Swaziland border. After the International Jet Sports Boating Assn. world championships at Lake Havasu, Ariz., in October, he will return home and race in South Africa’s jet ski season. He will also see his girlfriend, Mandy, who is in college back home.

This weekend he will be at Silver Strand Beach in Coronado for the IJSBA’s Moto Surf competition, event No. 4 on the eight-race schedule.

Why Azusa?

“It reminds me of home,” Motzouris said. “It’s close to Kawasaki’s race shop in Baldwin Park, it’s close to where we train, and I love riding my mountain bike right above Azusa.”

Motzouris and his Kawasaki teammate, multi-world and national champion Chris MacClugage of Canyon Lake, do their training and testing on a private lake in an abandoned gravel pit south of the Irwindale Speedway.

“We ride there every day we’re in town,” Motzouris said. “It’s perfect. When we find a problem, we head to the shop a couple of miles away, get it fixed and get back to the water.”

Motzouris rides in the series’ premier events, the stand-up Pro Ski and the sit-down Pro Runabout 1200. He finished second to MacClugage last year but a broken collarbone has hampered his conditioning program this year. Last Sunday, at Galveston, Texas, he finished fourth in Pro Runabout 1200 and sixth in Pro Ski.

“I fell during an indoor race in France in April and I’m still not 100% because upper-body strength is so important and I couldn’t do a thing for a couple of weeks except ride a stationary bike,” he said. “When you go through a turn on the water at 70 or 80 mph, or fly over a series of waves like a motocrosser over a triple jump, you need all the strength you have to control the boat.”

Motzouris first came to the United States with his father, a boat builder, in 1994 to watch the world championships at Lake Havasu.

“I had been racing back home for a couple of years and after we saw how big racing was in the United States, I talked my parents into letting me come over here for a full season as an independent rider,” he said. “I was only 15, but I came with Ricky Sneddon, one of South Africa’s best riders, and traveled with him to the races.”

The precocious Motzouris finished second on the IJSBA tour and won the world amateur championship in the Expert Ski Modified class. It also earned him a ride with the Kawasaki factory team.

“It was quite a gamble my folks took, but they knew how passionate I was about racing, so they took the gamble, and it’s paid off,” he said. “I’m only 19, but I’ve traveled all over the world racing and I hope to stay with it for another 10 or 15 years.”

After he towels off for the last time, he and Mandy hope to live here.

Qualifying is scheduled Sunday at 10:30 a.m. with final rounds in seven classes--five for men and two for women--starting at 1 p.m.

WINSTON WEST

The Winston West stock car racing series has always seemed like a stepchild in the NASCAR family. Although its cars are almost identical to the glamorous Winston Cup machines, it rates somewhere behind not only the Busch Grand National division and the Craftsman truck series, but also the Weekly Racing Series, a collection of small-track races around the country.

To look at them, you can’t tell a West car from a Cup car. They are identical in weight, wheelbase and engine displacement. The only exception is that West cars have a slightly lower compression ratio in their 350-cubic-inch V-8s.

Winning the championship of a series usually means a promotion, or at least a return as defending champion, but not in Winston West.

Two of the four most recent champions, Sean Woodside in 1999 and Lance Hooper in 1996, lost their rides after winning.

Woodside, relegated to Featherlite Southwest Tour events this year, will make his first appearance as Winston West champion on Saturday night in the Home Depot 250 at Irwindale Speedway. Earlier in the day, he will race in a Southwest Tour event at Sears Point Raceway, north of San Francisco, then fly in a corporate jet to make the Irwindale race.

Brendan Gaughan, who took over Woodside’s ride in the McNally Racing Chevrolet, is the series leader after winning at Mesa Marin. Other entrants include Steve Portenga, last year’s Irwindale winner; Eric Norris, whose father, Chuck--better known as Walker, Texas Ranger--will be in the pits, and Bill Sedgwick, who won Winston West titles as a driver in 1991 and 1992 and as a crew chief on Ron Hornaday’s car in 1994.

Clint Mears, son of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears, will make his Winston West debut at Irwindale. He should be familiar with the half-mile oval, having worked as an instructor for Frank Hawley’s Race Training Center.

“The new TV package NASCAR put together for our short-track races should help in getting us some attention,” Sedgwick said.

Eight races, among them Saturday night’s, will be shown nationally, tape-delayed, on Speedvision.

GANASSI ON THE MOVE

Not content with having won four consecutive CART open-wheel championships and the Indianapolis 500, Chip Ganassi is moving into NASCAR.

Ganassi will take over Felix Sabates’ Team SABCO, with drivers Sterling Marlin and Kenny Irwin, on July 1.

He will also continue running his CART team of Juan Montoya, the 500 winner, and Jimmy Vasser.

SPEEDWAY BIKES

Traditionally, speedway motorcycle races are four laps around a tiny oval in which the riders on 70-horsepower brakeless bikes appear to be sliding most of the time. It’s all over so quickly fans hardly have time to catch their breath.

Saturday night, the show at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa will be different--25 laps instead of four, a virtual cycling marathon. This will be the 10th annual Coors Light 25-Lap Classic.

Instead of an all-out dash, this has become a tactical race. Chris Manchester won the first two by sprinting the entire distance. But Brad Oxley, 1999 national champion, has won four of the last five by “going for it for five laps, cruising for 15 and gassing it again for the last five.”

Charlie Venegas, fresh from winning the prestigious Jack Milne Cup two weeks ago, is expected to be Oxley’s main challenger. A sleeper could be 16-year-old Ryan Fisher.

The speedway contingent will race Friday night at Ventura Raceway in the conventional four-lap mode. Also on the program will be sidecars from Canada and New Zealand, as well as the United States, and Pro 600 dirt-track bikes.

On Saturday night, vintage motorcycles will take over Ventura Raceway in conjunction with the 13th annual Antique and Classic Motorcycle Show at Seaside Park. All vintage entries must be 1974 or older.

LAST LAPS

Historic Muroc Dry Lake will reverberate with the sound of high-speed machinery this weekend when the Southern California Timing Assn. holds its “Return to Muroc” meeting at Edwards Air Force Base, north of Lancaster. Entrance is at the south gate only. Competition will be on a 1.3-mile course, both Saturday and Sunday. . . . Irwindale Speedway will host the 18th annual Literature Faire & Exchange for auto and motor racing memorabilia from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. With more than 175 vendors, it is the largest event of its kind in the country.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP, Save Mart/Kragen 350K

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, (ESPN2, 2 p.m.); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 10:45 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 1 p.m.; ESPN2, 9 p.m.)

* Where: Sears Point Raceway, Sonoma, Calif.

* Next race: Pepsi 400, July 1, Daytona Beach, Fla.

BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL, Lysol 200

* When: Saturday, qualifying, 8:30 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 9 a.m.).

* Where: Watkins Glen International, Watkins Glen, N.Y.

* Next race: Sears DieHard 250, July 2, West Allis, Wis.

CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS, Bully Hill Vineyards 150

* When: Today, qualifying, 11 a.m.; Saturday, race (ESPN, 10:30 a.m.)

* Where: Watkins Glen International, Watkins Glen, N.Y.

* Next race: Sears DieHard 200, July 1, West Allis, Wis.

CART, Freightliner/G.I. Joe’s 200

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, 11:30 a.m.; Saturday, second-round qualifying, 10:45 a.m. (ESPN2, 2:30 p.m.); Sunday, race, 2 p.m. (ESPN2, 4 p.m.).

* Where: Portland (Ore.) International Raceway.

* Next race: Marconi Grand Prix, July 2, Cleveland.

NHRA, Sears Craftsman Nationals

* When: Today, second-round qualifying, 4:45 p.m.; Saturday, eliminations, 1 p.m. (ESPN2, 5 p.m.).

* Where: Gateway International Raceway, Madison, Ill.

* Next race: Mopar Parts Mile-High Nationals, July 16, Denver.