On the Road to Respectability

By SHAV GLICK

April 1, 2005 12 AM PT

Oval-track racing has dominated the national scene so far this year, starting with the Daytona 500 and continuing, on the West Coast, with NASCAR races at Fontana and Las Vegas and the Indy Racing League at Phoenix.

Now it’s time for some street and road racing.

A Grand American sports car event at California Speedway and an open-wheel championship at Willow Springs Raceway get things going locally this weekend.

In St. Petersburg, Fla., a historic race will be run Sunday when the IRL runs through downtown streets in the first non-oval race in the sanctioning body’s history.

Next week the sounds and excitement of street racing return west for the 31st Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, opening race of Champ Car’s second season as the successor to CART.

After a decade or more of lagging interest and minimal sponsor support, road racing seems to be in the midst of a renaissance with the introduction of the Daytona prototypes in the Grand American Rolex sports car series. There will be 21 of them at Fontana, modern-day throwbacks to the wonderful Can-Am cars of the 1970s.

Wayne Taylor and Max Angelelli will be seeking their third consecutive victory in Sunday’s Ferrari/Maserati 400-kilometer feature race in their Pontiac-powered Riley. They won the Daytona 24 Hour and two weeks ago at Homestead-Miami Speedway repeated their success in a shorter race in the Rolex series.

Several powerful teams are poised to halt the Taylor-Angelelli march toward the series championship. Noteworthy is the Ganassi Racing pair of Scott Pruett, last year’s Fontana winner, and Luis Diaz of Mexico City, and their teammates, Cort Wagner of Los Angeles and Stefan Johansson of Sweden, in Lexus-Rileys.

Butch Leitzinger, who came within 1.198 seconds of catching Angelelli at Homestead, will try again in a Pontiac-Crawford with 62-year-old Elliott Forbes-Robinson his driving partner.

In Saturday’s 200-mile Grand-Am Cup, Bill Auberlen of Redondo Beach and Justin Marks of Chico will be coming in off an impressive victory in the first Grand-Am race held in the Dominican Republic. They will be together in the Grand-Am in their BMW M3, but will split up for the GT portion of the main event Sunday. Auberlen will be paired with Joey Hand and Marks with Tom Milner in factory BMWs. Racing both days will be over a 2.8-mile, 21-turn infield course that includes part of the speedway’s two-mile oval.

Bill Huth, 81, who built Willow Springs Raceway from a dusty road course into a racing complex of eight individual tracks, decided he wanted to see someone run the first one-minute lap around his main track, a 2.5-mile road course, so he invited anyone with a fast car to show up this weekend for the Essex House Open Wheel Championship.

Even though the track has been widened and made faster, it is not likely anyone will better Nigel Mansell’s 1 minute 6.3-second run in a Formula One car in 1982, but a track full of F1, Indy cars, Formula Atlantics -- and more -- should make for a show worth watching.

“It’s a pro race for guys not in the big time,” said Huth, who is putting up a $25,000 purse. To make sure some high-bucks team doesn’t sandbag his race, Huth has a claiming rule. Any car or engine can be claimed by any other entrant for from $50,000 for an engine to $200,000 for a race-ready F1 car.

Favorites include Jim Santos of San Jose in a 2000 CART Reynard, Eddie Nehir of North Hollywood in a ’96 CART Lola, Greg Gordon of Colorado Springs in a 2001 IRL Chevy and Chuck McConnell of Arroyo Grande in an ’81 McLaren-Ford that was driven by John Watson, winner of the 1985 Long Beach Grand Prix, last of the Formula One seaside races.

The 100-mile race will be held in two 50-mile segments, starting at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Last Laps

Steve Lewis’ powerful 9 Racing midget team, winner of 10 U.S. Auto Club championships, will switch from Ford power to Toyota next season, it was announced jointly Thursday. The engine package will combine the V-8 cylinder head used by Toyota racing trucks and a 4-cylinder aluminum block designed by Ed Pink. The new machines are expected to debut in the 2006 Copper World Classic in Phoenix.

Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya will miss this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix because of a shoulder injury he suffered while playing tennis in Madrid, Spain. Test driver Pedro de la Rosa will replace Montoya.

Panther Racing announced that Buddy Lazier, 1996 Indianapolis 500 winner, would drive one of their Chevrolet-powered Dallaras in this year’s 500. It will be the 12th Indy start for the 37-year-old from Vail, Colo. Two other veteran drivers were entered this week -- Adrian Fernandez, 41, driving a Honda-Panoz for Mo Nunn, and Richie Hearn, 34, in a Chevy-Dallara for Sam Schmidt. Hearn was third in 1996.

Passings

Jim Lindsley, a pioneer dry lakes racer who set records at El Mirage and the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, died Saturday after a long illness. He was 88.

In 1953, Lindsley became the fifth American to exceed 200 mph when he put two Chrysler V-8 engines in a redesigned ’32 Ford roadster and averaged 207.07 mph for a two-way flying mile.

Lindsley, a resident of Grand Terrace, was president of the Bonneville 200 MPH Club in 1964 and was named its man of the year in 1966 and again in 1985.

Services will be at 11 a.m. today at Sky Rose Chapel of Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier.

This Week

NASCAR NEXTEL CUP

Food City 500

* When: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 2:30 p.m.); Sunday, race (Ch. 11, 9:30 a.m.).

* Where: Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway (oval, .533 miles, 36 degrees banking in turns).

* Race distance: 266.5 miles, 500 laps.

* 2004 winner: Kurt Busch.

* Next race: Advance Auto Parts 500, April 10, Martinsville, Va.

NASCAR BUSCH

Sharpie Professional 250

* When: Saturday, qualifying (Speed Channel, 8:30 a.m.), race (Channel 11, 11 a.m.).

* Where: Bristol Motor Speedway.

* Race distance: 133.25 miles, 250 laps.

* 2004 winner: Martin Truex Jr.

* Next race: O’Reilly 300, April 16, Fort Worth.

FORMULA ONE

Bahrain Grand Prix

* When: Saturday, qualifying (Speed Channel, 2 a.m.); Sunday, qualifying, 12:30 a.m. (Speed Channel, 3 a.m.); race (Speed Channel, 4 a.m.), repeated at 9:30 a.m.

* Where: Bahrain International Circuit (road course, 3.37 miles, 12 turns), Sakhir.

* Race distance: 192.09 miles, 57 laps.

* 2004 winner: Michael Schumacher.

* Next race: San Marino Grand Prix, April 24, Imola.

IRL

Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

* When: Saturday, qualifying, 11:45 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 12:30 p.m.).

* Where: Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. (1.8 miles, 14 turns).

* Race distance: 180 miles, 100 laps.

* 2004 winner: Inaugural event.

* Next race: Indy Japan 300, April 30, Suzuka.

ROLEX SPORTS CARS