Lewis’ Fondness of Midget Racing No Small Passion

The path for most people in racing -- drivers, car owners, sponsors and promoters -- is to move up as they succeed, from karts to midgets to late model stocks or sprint cars to Indy cars or NASCAR.

Not Steve Lewis. He started with midget cars, won eight U.S. Auto Club national championships with midgets and now wants midget car racing to take its place among the more successful motor racing classes.

Toward that goal, he is promoting his second $50,000 twin 25s for the little open-wheel cars next Saturday night at Irwindale Speedway. His first one, last summer at Indianapolis Raceway Park, was highly successful, prompting Lewis to try another.

“On the way home from Indianapolis, I said to my wife, ‘I think I’ll call [track owner] Jim Williams as soon as we get home and see if he’d like a twin 25s at Irwindale,’ so I did and it looks like we’ll have another big one.”

Lewis, whose offices and racing shop are in Laguna Beach, is publisher of Performance Racing Industry magazine and owner of a trade show that each year in the Indianapolis Convention Center is the largest in the world devoted exclusively to motor racing.

“I never raced, I never felt a commitment to be a driver, but since the night my parents took me to my first race at the Orange Show Stadium in San Bernardino when I was about 9, I’ve had a love affair with midget cars and drivers,” Lewis said. “My folks weren’t really race fans, so I talked neighbors into taking me to the races.

“Later, when I was about 16, I used to tell my mother I was going to the library and instead I would dash off to some track, Riverside, Orange Show or Morrow Field in Colton. When I brought my report card home, my mother said she couldn’t understand why my grades weren’t better when I spent so much time in the library.”

When Lewis met Don Horvath, then an up-and-coming driver, he became Horvath’s stooge, running errands, going for coffee, getting all the little things drivers think they need. Through Horvath, he met Don Edmunds, who had built his first midget car for Horvath in 1962.

Horvath was later killed in a racing accident at Vallejo Speedway.

“I confided to Edmunds that I wanted to buy a race car,” Lewis said. “He didn’t say anything, but one day I got a call from Don. He said, ‘Bring $3,500 down to the shop, I have a car for you.’ He wanted me to help him drum up some interest for the midget cars he was building.”

Stan Fox became the driver of Lewis’ pearl white No. 9 car until he suffered career-ending injuries in the 1994 Indianapolis 500. One of his biggest wins was in the final race at Ascot Park, the 1990 Turkey Night Grand Prix.

Lewis never won a USAC championship with Fox because Fox never wanted to run the full schedule, preferring to race in 12 to 15 big-purse races. After Fox’s injury, Lewis turned to other drivers and won championships with Stevie Reeves in 1993, Tony Stewart, 1995; Kenny Irwin Jr., 1996; Jason Leffler, 1998 and 1999; Kasey Kahne, 2000, and Dave Darland, 2001 and 2002.

Kahne, along with Bobby East and J.J. Yeley, will be in Lewis’ cars at Irwindale. Darland will also be there, driving for Alan Budnik.

Each of Lewis’ three cars will have 9s on its sides, Yeley in 9, East in 19 and Kahne in 91.

“My first car was No. 9 and when I saw the way Paul Kniem painted the number on the car, I loved the way it looked so much that the number became an icon for me,” Lewis said.

Lewis got into promoting much the way he became a car owner.

“Two years ago, during the trade show, I was talking with Jason Smith, the USAC midget director, and I said someday I’d like to put on a race,” Lewis recalled. “He said, ‘We could arrange that.’ He called Ron Anderson at IRP and said, ‘Steve wants to promote a race. Look at your date book.’

“When he said Sept. 26, the Friday night before the Formula One race at the Speedway, I said, ‘I’ll take it.’ We all shook hands and I left the trade show a promoter.”

“Bob East, who builds our midgets, said I had to do something different to make it exciting enough to attract attention. He said I had to put up a lot of money and he came up with the idea of two 25-lap races with a big bonus if one driver could win them both. That was the key element.”

Dave Steele won them both at IRP and collected the $50,000 bonus. After winning the first, the field was inverted and he had to start last but he charged through the field to collect the richest purse in midget car history.

The same bonus package will be offered at Irwindale and Steele will be back. He has a liking for Irwindale, having won the opening-night midget race there in 1999.

Ford sponsored the twin 25s at IRP, but dropped sponsorship for the one at Irwindale. Lewis called DaimlerChrysler and the event now is the Mopar Twin 25s.

Mario and Michael

Mario Andretti foresees, if the timing is right, that he and son Michael might run a team in CART.

Mario, retired senior spokesman of open-wheel racing, is on the CART board of directors. Michael, about-to-be-retired senior driver in the Indy Racing League, has said next month’s Indianapolis 500 would be his last as a driver.

“I have set certain standards for myself as far as having my own team,” Mario said at last Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. “I am not going to knock down doors looking for a sponsor and I do not want some young prospect who needs coaching. I’m not into that, I want a proven winner with a proven team with substantial sponsorship.”

Who wouldn’t?

“Michael might be the answer,” Mario said. “He has a strong team and there is no question that we could run up front in the CART series. We would be stronger together.”

Michael, who was the point man in a group that bought Team Green’s CART team last year, has proven winners in Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan, who broke his arm in an accident during last Sunday’s IRL race in Japan.

At the time of the defection of his son to the rival organization, Mario was unhappy with the decision because both he and Michael had bitterly opposed the IRL from the day Tony George announced that he was forming his own organization in opposition to the established CART.

“Timing is everything in racing, and Michael felt the timing was right for a change,” Mario said. “He put a lot of thinking into it, just as he did about his decision to retire. I respect that.

“He and I are different. He said he did not enjoy driving as much as he should. That’s where I was different. I always enjoyed driving, but if he does not enjoy it, I agree, he should get out.

“Michael also always liked the business side of racing. I hated it. He has a totally different way of looking at it than I did. He actually likes looking at the ledger sheets. The bottom line is that he should do whatever he is happy with.

“As a fan, though, I hate it that he won’t be driving. He is an exciting driver to watch and I think he’s still at the top of his game. It’s something that Andretti fans, as well as myself, will miss.”

The Real Winner

Paul Tracy was the official winner of the 2003 Long Beach Grand Prix, but the real winner was Jim Michaelian, president of the Grand Prix Assn.

For nearly 25 years, the LBGP was blessed with what insiders called “Pook weather.” In all the years, in the rainy month of April, rain had never fallen on the race.

When Chris Pook moved to the presidency of CART a year ago, he said he’d turned the weather over to Michaelian.

So what happened? It rained hard Saturday night in Long Beach and poured Monday. Sunday? A perfect day of sunshine for the race.

Cajon Program Canceled

Cajon Speedway has canceled its Saturday night program after the shooting death of track promoter Steve Brucker. Brucker, 51, whose family has operated the track in El Cajon since 1961, was gunned down at his home last Monday. Authorities said a man in his 30s opened fire on Brucker when he answered the door. Racing will resume next Friday night when four Winston Cup drivers will compete in the KGB Race of Champions.

Ives Receives Honor

Hank Ives, director of publicity for the first seven Long Beach Grand Prix events and a longtime motor racing publicist, received the Allen Wolfe Spirit of the Grand Prix Award from the Long Beach Press-Telegram and the Grand Prix Assn. Wolfe was the paper’s motor racing writer before he died of a heart attack the week before the 1999 race.

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This Week

FORMULA ONE

San Marino Grand Prix

* When: Today, qualifying; (Speed Channel, 5 a.m.); Saturday, qualifying (Speed Channel, 5 a.m.); Sunday, race (Speed Channel, 4:30 a.m.).

* Where: Enzo and Dino Ferrari Autodrome (road course, 3.057 miles, 15 turns); Imola, Italy.

* Race distance: 189.534 miles, 62 laps.

* 2002 winner: Michael Schumacher.

* Next race: Spanish Grand Prix, May 5, Barcelona.