Motor Racing / Shav Glick : More Than 225 Cars Will Race at Riverside

The 10th annual Los Angeles Times Grand Prix of Endurance will offer a little something for everyone when more than 225 cars converge on Riverside International Raceway this weekend for what may be last International Motor Racing Assn. competition at the venerable old race track.

Of course, that’s what they said last year, too.

If indeed, it is the last IMSA race, it is going out in style with a record purse of $272,000.

If it’s an Oscar winner you want, Paul Newman and his blue eyes will be peering down the track from the Newman-Sharp turbocharged Nissan 300ZX in Sunday’s 300 kilometer race for GTO and GTU cars.

If you’d rather see an Indianapolis 500 winner, Parnelli Jones, the 1963 winner, will be driving another Nissan in a race that he is also sponsoring--the three-hour Parnelli Jones Firestone Firehawk Endurance--on Saturday.

How about an Olympic gold medalist or two? Bruce Jenner, the 1976 decathlon champion, will drive a Ford Mustang in the same race with Newman. And skier Phil Mahre, the 1984 slalom champion, will share a ride with his brother Steve in a Pontiac Firebird in Parnelli’s endurance race.

Or how about an America’s Cup skipper trying his luck on land? Tom Blackaller, whose USA lost to Dennis Conner in the challengers’ semifinal round in Australia, will drive a Mazda Tiga in the Camel Lights race.

The races will be different from past years. They will run on a different course, at different lengths, and there will be more of them.

For the first time, the 2.54-mile short course will be used and the feature race will be 500 kilometers (312 miles). In the past, races were on a 3.25-mile circuit and were five or six hours in duration.

Also for the first time, the Camel GT field will be split into two races. The GTP and Camel Lights, which are lighter and less powerful prototypes, will run together in the 500- kilometer Grand Prix. The GTO and GTU cars will run 300 kilometers (187 miles) in a separate race.

A 45-minute race for front-wheel-drive International Sedans, formerly the Champion Spark Plug Challenge, will open Sunday’s program at 9:45 a.m.

The three-day schedule will start Friday with an all-day practice session. Qualifying will be Saturday, followed by two races, a 30-minute sprint for Sports 2000 cars and the 3-hour Firestone Firehawk championship.

Even the qualifying will be different this year. Instead of having all the cars on the track for a specific period, with each lap timed, the GTP cars will qualify one at a time, similar to Indy car qualifying.

The GTP race could be called Porsche vs. the World. There are 12 entries, of which six are Porsche 962s and the other six are one-of-a-kind machines: a Ford Mustang for Scott Pruett and Pete Halsmer, a Jaguar XJR-7 for Hurley Haywood and John Morton, a Nissan ZX for Elliott Forbes-Robinson and Geoff Brabham, a Buick Hawk for Jim Crawford and Whitney Ganz, a Corvette for Doc Bundy and Sarel van der Merwe and a Buick Alba for John Andretti and Kenper Miller.

The Porsche contingent is led by five-time series champion Al Holbert, who has won a record 47 IMSA Camel GT races in his career, but not one of them at Riverside. Holbert, who has won three Can-Am races on the Riverside track, will share the drivers seat with Chip Robinson, the championship points leader after four races.

Other 962 entries are Jim Adams and John Hotchkis Sr., Darrin Brassfield and Wally Dallenbach Jr., Bruce Leven and David Hobbs, Brian Redman and Chris Kniefel and the defending champions, Rob Dyson and Price Cobb.

STOCK CARS--Hershel McGriff, 59, will open defense of his Winston West championship Sunday in the AC-Delco 200 at Sears Point Raceway, north of San Francisco. It will be the first of an 8-race season, of which two will be at Riverside, June 21 and Nov. 8. . . . Four main events plus the season’s first destruction derby will fill the Saturday night show at Saugus Speedway.

MIDGETS--Sleepy Tripp, after missing several races while touring Australia and New Zealand, is closing in on Mario Bringetto’s lead in the United States Auto Club’s Western States series, which will resume Sunday night at Ascot Park. Also on the program will be a three-quarter midget main event.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--British riding veteran Phil Collins, whose brother Peter was once the world champion, will begin campaigning on SoCal tracks this week. Collins rode last year in a U.S. vs. World match at Ascot Park and the experience led him to forgo the British League this season to ride on the Ventura, San Bernardino, Costa Mesa and Ascot Park weekly circuit. . . . Speedway USA, located on the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds at Victorville, will open its weekly season Saturday night with track champion Gary Hicks facing a challenge from Mike Faria and Steve Lucero.

SPRINT CARS--Brad Noffsinger, defending California Racing Assn. champion, will continue his bid to wrest the points lead from Mike Sweeney when the Parnelli Jones Firestone series returns to Ascot Park on Saturday night. Noffsinger’s first win of 1987 last week moved him within seven points of Sweeney, 621 to 614, after seven races.

MOTORCYCLES--Led by Wayne Rainey, on a Honda, and Kevin Schwantz, on a Suzuki, the United States swept Britain, 9-0, in the annual Shell Transatlantic Challenge road racing series in England. National flat track champion Bubba Shobert broke his elbow during training for the series. . . . A Racers Against Drugs drag racing program will be combined with a Hollywood stunt show Sunday at the L.A. County Raceway in Palmdale. Earnie Adams, whose attempt to set a world record for jumping over trucks was canceled last week because of high winds, will try again, winds permitting. . . . Ascot Park will have CMC motocross competition Friday night.

OFF-ROAD--When the drawing was held for starting positions in the May 9 Mint 400, some intriguing contests were set up. Three-time overall winner Jack Johnson, driving a Nissan truck for the first time in the four-wheel-drive division, will start directly behind Rod Hall, the winningest driver in the sport with eight 4x4 class wins in the Mint. Larry Ragland, who won overall last year in a Porsche-powered single-seater, has switched to a Chevrolet mini-truck and will start just ahead of Roger Mears, winner of the last two series events in a Nissan. Mark McMillin, defending unlimited single seat champion, will start first in the race of four laps around a 106-mile course south of Las Vegas.

RALLY--The Rim of the World, one of the West Coast’s top rallies, will be held May 2-3 starting in Lancaster and running through the Angeles National Forest in the Lake Hughes area. Defending champions are Rickey and Howard Watanabe. The course-opening pace truck will be driven by off-road champion Spencer Low. The Rim of the World rally was originally planned to be held near Lake Arrowhead--hence its name--in 1976 but it was moved to the less crowded roads near Lake Hughes. . . . Alfa Romeo Club director of competition Charlie Theriot will conduct a driving school Saturday and Sunday at Willow Springs from 8:30 a.m. to sundown.

NEWSWORTHY--The SoCal Timing Assn. will celebrate its 50th anniversary Sunday with a picnic at Prado Regional Park in Chino. On display will be old race cars and old race bikes from half a century back.