GEARING UP

By Jim Peltz

April 11, 2008 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

What’s happening in motor sports heading into this weekend:

1. NASCAR’s weekend at Phoenix International Raceway includes a Nationwide Series race tonight with a field that, as usual, includes several drivers from NASCAR’s top-tier Sprint Cup Series.

One is Clint Bowyer, the defending winner of the Bashas’ Supermarkets 200 on the one-mile PIR oval and the current Nationwide points leader.

Jeff Burton, his teammate at Richard Childress Racing and the current Cup points leader, also is scheduled to compete.

So is Kyle Busch of Joe Gibbs Racing, who last week extended a rare streak in stock-car racing.

By winning the Nationwide race at Texas Motor Speedway, Busch has won at least one race in all three of NASCAR’s major series -- Cup, Nationwide and the Craftsman Truck Series -- in the same season for four consecutive years.

Before Busch first won all three in 2005, it had been done only two other times, by Terry Labonte in 1995 and Kevin Harvick in 2003.

2. Bowyer and other drivers were still talking about the vicious wreck involving rookie Michael McDowell during Cup qualifying at Texas last week, and how he walked away shaken but uninjured.

The accident, in which McDowell’s Toyota Camry first slammed head-on into the wall and then barrel-rolled several times, “was scary for everybody,” Bowyer said.

“It says a lot about how far our sport has come from the safety aspect of it,” Bowyer said. “Let’s face it, before Dale Earnhardt’s death, that one right there may have killed him.”

He was referring to safety advances since Earnhardt, a seven-time Cup champion, was killed in the Daytona 500 in 2001, including safer retaining walls, head-and-neck restraints and NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow, which became mandatory this year.

Part-time driver Randy LaJoie, who also makes racing seats that emphasize safety, had a similar sentiment this week, saying “Dale Earnhardt saved that boy’s life.”

3. The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach said it expects a field of 20 cars for the race April 20, the largest since 2002.

The event will be the final race for the Champ Car World Series, which is being absorbed into the Indy Racing League’s IndyCar Series under an agreement that reunited the two leading U.S. open-wheel racing circuits.

The two series competed as one for the first two races this season. But the Champ Car drivers will be at Long Beach, and the IRL drivers at Motegi, Japan, because of prior commitments with both tracks.

The race on a 1.97-mile street course in Long Beach will include 19-year-old Graham Rahal, who won last week’s race; Justin Wilson, his teammate at Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing, and Oriol Servia, who finished second at Long Beach last year. The 2007 race winner, Sebastien Bourdais, now drives in Formula One.

4. The NHRA Powerade Series resumes this weekend at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Brandon Bernstein is the defending winner in the top-fuel class, and Robert Hight and Greg Anderson hope to repeat in funny car and pro stock, respectively.

5. In local racing Saturday night, late-model stock cars will lead the program at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale, with kids admitted free. USAC/CRA Sprint Car Series will be featured at Perris Auto Speedway, with Mike Spencer of Temecula holding a five-point lead over Cory Kruseman of Ventura.

Have a motor sports question for Jim? E-mail him at james.peltz@latimes.com.

THE RACES

NASCAR SPRINT CUP

Subway Fresh Fit 500

When: Saturday, race (Ch. 11, 5 p.m.).

Where: Phoenix International Raceway (tri-oval, 1 mile, 11 degrees banking in turns 1-2, 9 degrees banking in turns 3-4), Avondale, Ariz.

Race distance: 312 miles, 312 laps.

NASCAR NATIONWIDE

Bashas’ Supermarkets 200

When: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 2 p.m.), race (ESPN2, 6:30 p.m.).

Race distance: 200 miles, 200 laps.

Where: Avondale, Ariz.