MOTOR RACING : For Bayle, True World Championship Road Leads to U.S.

Roger DeCoster, the five-time world motocross champion, was going over a list of the best American riders, ranking them by their lifetime performances, when he looked across the room and pointed out a young man in racing leathers.

“Give him another year or so and he’ll be right up at the top of this list,” DeCoster said. “He has unlimited potential. He can go as far as he wants in motocross.”

He was talking about Jean-Michel Bayle, a French rider who, although only 21, already had won two world motocross championships, one when he was 18 in the 125cc class and the other the next year in 250cc.

That was a year ago, and Bayle had just moved to Redondo Beach from his home in Manosque, a country village between Marseille and Monte Carlo in the south of France, to continue his career in this country.

“I came to the United States because I found that, even though I was a world champion, that when riders came to Europe from the U.S., they were the ones who usually won,” he said. “I wanted to feel like I was truly the world champion, and to do that I had to come here and race in their Supercross.”

Bayle, after a false start last year that was interrupted by injuries, won this year’s stadium series going away. His second-place finish two races ago in Oklahoma City clinched the title and a $100,000 Camel Series bonus. He won seven of the first 15 races and is the first foreign champion since the series began in 1974.

Last year, despite missing nearly two months of racing, Bayle won five stadium events and finished second to Honda teammate Jeff Stanton in the series.

Saturday night in the Coliseum, in the Coors Light Challenge--the original Super Bowl of Motocross--Bayle will close out his championship season.

“Racing in the Coliseum was a dream of mine for many years before I came here,” Bayle said. “It is well known in Europe as the most historic Supercross in the world. And it is the best, too, with its famous jumps off the edge of the stadium.”

Bayle rode in the Coliseum for the first time last year and lost by inches to Damon Bradshaw, a teen-age phenom from Charlotte, N.C., the lead changing several times on the final lap.

Bayle, who got off the line slowly, moved from 11th to first when he squeezed past Bradshaw on the final lap in a side-by-side race up the incline at the peristyle end of the Coliseum. Bradshaw passed him coming back down the hill and held on to win.

“This one means a lot to me,” Bayle said. “It is the big one. I have already won the championship so I don’t have to worry about finishing to get points. I can go all out for the win. Winning in the Coliseum would be a perfect ending to the season.”

French TV networks are here to record Bayle’s performance. They spent Tuesday at Carlsbad Raceway, filming the 6-foot-1, 150-pound French champion, and they will be at the Coliseum Saturday night.

Bayle plans to race only one more year in Supercross and then take his talents to the world road racing championships.

“I have never raced on the road, but I have practiced enough to know that I can go fast,” he said. “I would like to race a 250cc bike in 1993.”

Although he has won the 125cc and 250cc titles in motocross, Bayle has no inclination to run for the prestigious 500cc championship that DeCoster once dominated.

“I have won already two world championships, and now I have won the Supercross against the best riders in the world, better than the 500cc riders,” Bayle said. “I would like to defend my championship and then move on.”

Bayle got 1991 off on a winning note in January when he defeated the best riders in the world in winning the King of Bercy crown in the four-day Paris Supercross in the Palais Omnisports.

Full motocross programs were run each night before sellout crowds, and Bayle won three of the four. Only two-time Supercross champion Stanton and former champion Jeff Ward, both Americans, could beat Bayle in one of the four main events. Among the also-rans was Eric Geboers, the world 500cc champion.

“I first rode in the Paris race in 1986, when I was 16, and it was there that I realized that the Americans were the best,” Bayle said. “I could never beat them until this year. It was a big thrill for me to win Europe’s biggest Supercross in my own country.”

Motorsports Notes

STOCK CARS--Winston Racing Series sportsman cars will return to the spotlight Saturday night at Saugus Speedway along with Grand Am modifieds and street stocks. . . . Sportsman cars also will run Saturday night at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino.

Cajon Speedway has added 20 laps to its sportsman main event Saturday night, making the Winston 50 one of the season’s biggest races. Point leader Chuck Miinch is expected to battle former champion John Borneman for the victory. . . . Dirt track cars will compete in the California late model series Saturday night at Santa Maria Speedway. . . . Mini-stocks and modifieds will race Friday night at Ventura Raceway.

MOTORCYCLES--British Speedway League rider Greg Hancock, a resident of Costa Mesa, will return home this week to ride at the Orange County Fairgrounds track against local regulars on Friday night. Hancock, who rides for Cradley Heath in England, also is racing at other Southland tracks--Lake Perris tonight, Victorville Saturday night and Glen Helen in San Bernardino next Wednesday night.

Five Southern California speedway riders will be in the Overseas Final on Sunday at Bradford, England, in hopes of qualifying for the world individual championships. They are Rick Miller, Sam Ermolenko, Kelly Moran, Billy Hamill and Ronnie Correy. Eleven riders will advance from Bradford toward the World Final in Goteborg, Sweden, on Aug. 31.

SPRINT CARS--Defending champion Ron Shuman continues to lead the California Racing Assn. standings after a second-place finish behind fellow Arizonan Lealand McSpadden last week at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix. The CRA returns to California Saturday night for a 30-lap main event at Kings Speedway in Hanford. Shuman leads Billy Boat by 116 points.

ANTIQUE CARS--The Vintage Auto Racing Assn. will conduct a Sprite-Mini Challenge this weekend at Willow Springs Raceway. In addition to the rivalry between the British makes, which has attracted more than 35 entries, VARA will hold its regular program of eight races each on Saturday and Sunday.

MIDGETS--The 51st running of the Turkey Night Grand Prix--forced to find a new home when Ascot Park closed last November--will be held Thanksgiving night, Nov. 28, at Saugus Speedway. It will be only the second time on pavement for the United States Auto Club’s longest running midget race. It was run at Speedway 605 in Irwindale when Ascot was temporarily unavailable in 1975.

MISCELLANY--La Rana Desert Racing has scheduled the Lucerne Valley Jam 200 off-road race Saturday off Camp Rock Road in Lucerne Valley. . . . Don Basile, who managed Carrell Speedway in the early 1950s and later worked at Ascot Park and Speedway 117, celebrated his 75th birthday Tuesday at his home in San Diego.