Drake Is Latest to Follow Gordon, Stewart Script

Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart have shown that one way to get ahead in NASCAR’s Winston Cup scene is to come from a background of U.S. Auto Club open-wheel racing.

Gordon won USAC midget and Silver Crown--front-engine roadster--championships in 1990 and 1991 before shocking the stock car crowd by winning three Winston Cup crowns in four years.

Stewart swept three USAC titles-- midgets, sprint cars, Silver Crown-- in 1995, the only triple-crown champion in history. He also won an Indy Racing League crown before climbing into a stock car, becoming rookie of the year in 1999 and the leading winner in Winston Cup last year.

Jay Drake may be next.

Drake, who won 24 open-wheel races last year, among them a USAC-record 19, is attending a stock car driving school this week in St. Augustine, Fla., and may soon be testing a Busch Grand National car.

“If you want to get ahead in racing, NASCAR seems to be the wave of the future,” Drake said Thursday by phone. “Jeff and Tony have opened a lot of doors for guys like me.”

Drake, 31, opened the 2001 season by winning one of open-wheel racing’s most prestigious events, the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals, in Tulsa, Okla.

“It’s a heck of a deal just to make the show,” said Drake. “There were 190 cars and only 25 made the main event. Guys come from all over the country to run the Chili Bowl. The first two times I tried, I didn’t even get in.”

Stewart ran there too, entered under the name Smoke Johnson because he didn’t want promoters publicizing his presence. He won the second F Main, one of 10 “main events” for racers who fail to make the final 25.

The track at the Chili Bowl, not to be confused with a restaurant in Highland Park, is barely a sixth of a mile, smaller even than tiny Ventura Raceway’s.

Drake hopes to follow in Stewart’s footsteps and sweep the three USAC titles this year.

“I’ve never had a car for all three before, but I’ve got rides in all of them this year,” he said. “Right now, there are 73 races on the USAC schedule, and I’ll probably squeeze in a few others, like the [Sprint Car Racing Assn.] non-winged sprint cars, when there’s an opening.”

And what will he do with his USAC rides if a Busch opening materializes.

“That’s the kind of a problem I’d love to have,” he said.

Drake, who lived with his father, a former three-quarter midget racer, in Val Verde, moved to Indianapolis in 1997 to be closer to the heart of racing.

He had to come back west, however, to win his 19th USAC race last year and move into a tie with A.J. Foyt and Sleepy Tripp for most wins in one year. During the Turkey Night Grand Prix at Irwindale, Drake won the TQ preliminary race, No. 19 for 2000.

“That whole deal was put together the night before the race,” he said. “I was there for Turkey Night. I hadn’t missed one, either watching or racing, since I was 14. All those years, it was eat Thanksgiving dinner and shoot to the race.”

Drake won it in 1998 at Bakersfield Speedway, which he calls “a huge thrill to put my name up there with guys like A.J. and Parnelli [Jones] and Ron Shuman.

“I had no idea of racing the TQ until Jason Bean, the guy who paints my helmets, lined up Dennis Hart’s TQ for me to drive. I had a lot of fun. It was the first time I’d been in a TQ for six years.”

He will be back at Irwindale for a USAC Silver Crown race on March 24.

CITY TO HONOR PARKS

Fifty years ago, Wally Parks, then editor of Hot Rod magazine, met with key Los Angeles police officials to discuss creation of a national organization that would help eliminate illegal street racing.

That meeting led to the formation of the National Hot Rod Assn., with Parks as its president.

Monday, on the steps of Parker Center, Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Bernard Parks will honor the NHRA on its 50th anniversary. Gordon Browning, one of the L.A. officers who met with Parks 50 years ago, will also be on hand.

Several drag racing vehicles will be on display-- John Force’s funny car, Kenny Bernstein’s top-fuel dragster, Don Prudhomme’s vintage front-engine dragster. Frank Hawley will also have one of his two-seater school dragsters, which Riordan is scheduled to drive.

According to the official city press release, the mayor will do a burnout on Los Angeles Street.

Proceedings start at 10:30 a.m.

The NHRA season will begin next Thursday with the 41st AutoZone Winternationals at Pomona Raceway.

STOCK CAR RACING IN PRINT

NASCAR’s Winston Cup series will get the stock car season underway next month with the Daytona 500, but until then, there’s a new book out for those who can’t wait to get enough of their superspeedway heroes.

“Ultimate Stock Car,” which is about much more than just Winston Cup or NASCAR, is a unique collection of anecdotes, tidbits and history compiled by Bill Center, longtime motor racing editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Nearly every page in the 190-page coffee table book has colorful photographs, from drivers and cars to nostalgic racing scenes and cutaway images of engines and frames.

It covers the scope of stock-car racing, from the days of Barney Oldfield at the turn of last century through the eras of Bill France, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Featured, naturally, is Daytona Beach, the self-proclaimed World Center of Speed.

Also chronicled are drag racing, Trans-Am, IROC and even Craftsman trucks.

If you ever wondered how many races Junior Johnson’s team won (115), who was the first winner driving a Jaguar (Al Keller in 1954) or what Bill France looked like when he arrived in Florida, it’s in there.

The book, published by DK Publishing Inc., is $29.95.

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For NASCAR fans more suited to TV than reading a book, the History Channel will have a two-hour special, “Time Machine: The History of Stock Car Racing,” to be shown Feb. 17 at 8 p.m.

CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY

The Fontana facility is adding 5,500 grandstand seats, bringing its permanent-seat capacity to about 92,000.

The new seats--and the old ones too--will become available next week as sales open for the two racing weekends, in April for NASCAR’s Winston Cup and November for CART champ cars.

For the first time, tickets may be purchased online on the speedway’s Web site, https://www.californiaspeedway.com. They also may be ordered by phone: (800) 944-RACE, or in person at the speedway ticket office.

SUPERCROSS

Travis Pastrana, the injury-prone superstar-in-the-making, will miss the next two events, Saturday night in Phoenix and Feb. 3 at Edison Field, while recovering from a concussion.

When the 17-year-old resumes racing Feb. 10 at Indianapolis, he will switch from the 250cc series to the 125cc Eastern regional competition.

Pastrana, whose career had included eight previous concussions, suffered his ninth two weeks ago when he took a fall in San Diego. At last Saturday’s race in Anaheim, he was running as high as fourth place when he pulled off the track, complaining of dizziness.

He was taken to UC Irvine Medical Center, where a CT scan was negative, revealing no permanent injury or damage. However, Pastrana and Suzuki team manager Roger DeCoster decided a two-week rest would help.

LAST LAPS

Brian Collins of Las Vegas was a surprise Trophy Truck winner in last weekend’s SCORE Laughlin Desert Classic, and Steve Sourapas of Rancho Santa Fe was the overall winner in a Class 1 Chevy-powered Jimco. It was the first win for Collins, driving a Ford F-150. The two days of racing will be shown March 2 on Speedvision.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Ken Norton is the latest to announce he wants to be an Indy Racing League car owner. Norton, who won the World Boxing Council title in 1978 and did some off-road racing later, will have supermodified champion Troy Regier as his driver, but the team has no sponsor.