Dressed for Success : Palmdale’s Hooper Boasting Trophy Jackets From Saugus Speedway With Look of a Winner

Jackets, jackets and more jackets. Lance Hooper doesn’t know what to do with all of them.

Hooper is awarded a handsome racing jacket for every Sportsman main event he wins at Saugus Speedway. It’s a perk from officials at Saugus who like to reward the winners of the track’s most prestigious class.

It is only the Fourth of July, and already Hooper has five jackets. Well, he had five jackets.

“I’ve got one, my wife’s got one, my mom’s got one, my dad’s got one and my brother’s got one,” a grinning Hooper said. “Now I’ve got to take care of my crew.”

Such is life in the Hooper camp these days, where smiles and jackets abound.

Hooper, 24, is the new boy-prince at Saugus Speedway, a young talent who has seized the 1991 racing season with a blazing first half and made great strides toward zipping up the Sportsman points title with almost three months of racing remaining.

Hooper has won five of 11 main events at Saugus, although he counts six victories. One main-event triumph was taken away after Hooper was disqualified for refusing to tear down his engine when a protest was lodged by fellow racer Pat Mintey Jr.

Overall, Hooper has won 10 of the 15 main events he has finished. At Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino, the Palmdale driver won 50-lap races on consecutive weekends in May. And in Las Vegas on June 8, Hooper posted a win at a track on which he had never raced before, beating, among others, local racer Dick Cobb, a six-time points champion in the NASCAR Sunbelt Region.

“I can’t believe it,” said the soft-spoken Hooper, whose boyish face makes one question whether he’s old enough to have a driver’s license, much less a race car.

“I don’t want to believe it. When I think about it, I still can’t believe I’m having this sort of season.”

But then success on the race track is nothing new to the Hooper family, which is well-known in local racing circles.

Lance’s father, Ray, moved west from Chicago in the early 1960s and posted a points championship in the Limited Stock Division at Saugus in 1970. And Lance’s uncle, Leon, had won a points championship at Saugus in 1968.

Lance’s older brother, Ray Jr., followed with a Saugus Sportsman points championship of his own in 1982.

“He’s been going to the races since he was two weeks old,” his father said of Lance. “My wife would take him in the stands in his little bassinet.”

Hooper soon graduated from cribs to carburetors, learning firsthand from his dad how to build a race car.

After he graduated from Saugus High in 1985, Hooper became crew chief of his brother’s car on the Southwest Tour. The experience proved invaluable.

“He knows every nut and bolt and screw and how to turn it to make the car work,” his father said.

But it wasn’t until last season that Hooper raced in earnest. His father bought Lance a Sportsman ride for 1990. Hooper did not post a main-event win, but he did win rookie-of-the-year honors.

He also won the hand of his high school sweetheart Jenny, marrying her midway through the season.

But over the winter, two-time defending Sportsman points champion Will Harper of Tarzana announced he was leaving Saugus for the Southwest Tour.

Then, 10 days before the season opened at Saugus, Jenny gave birth to a daughter, Nicole. Hooper celebrated by posting the fast time among Sportsman cars on opening night.

The next time the Sportsman cars took the track, on April 13, Hooper took the checkered flag in the 40-lap main event. But when he reached the pits, his buoyant mood was quickly deflated. Mintey, a former schoolmate and one of Hooper’s best friends--”since we were in diapers,” according to Hooper--had lodged an official protest.

The protest hurt Hooper. Not only was someone questioning his honesty, but it was an old friend doing the accusing. Hooper refused to tear down his engine and race officials disqualified him, handing the win to second-place driver Joe Heath of Northridge.

“I’m still mad,” he said. “(Pat and I) still talk, but nothing like we used to. It’s sad, but hopefully, one day, it’ll all blow over. But right now, I’m in a points battle and that night cost me 29 points.”

Hooper came back the next week to win the main event. He then watched as officials tore down his engine. Hooper didn’t like the distrust shown by officials, but had to stomach it rather than forfeit another main-event win.

He was vindicated--it was a clean win. “And I’ve just driven the same since then,” he said.

Mintey said that while he doesn’t regret making the protest, sometimes racing can be unfriendly. He hopes, however, the friendship can be restored.

“I really hated to see it happen to him, but that’s the way it goes,” Mintey said. “We’ve had a friendship for almost 20 years, so I hope things will come around.”

Hooper’s 222 points lead runner-up Gary Sigman of Carson by 17 in the Saugus standings. But then it’s a long fall to third-place driver Russ Beckers of Sepulveda, who has 151 points.

Hooper built much of that lead in May, a month that included a streak of seven consecutive main-event wins--three at Saugus and four at Orange Show--and mind-boggling displays of driving.

Take, for example, his effort May 11. Hooper broke a transmission in qualifying and was forced to the B main event to qualify for the A main. That he did, but he started 23rd in a field of 24 cars.

Hooper, to the wild cheers of fans at Saugus, worked his way to third place. On the final lap, leaders Keith Spangler and Dave Phipps tangled. Hooper sped past to take an unlikely win.

Although Hooper pays the bills by working full time as an auto mechanic for Southwest Tour points leader Ron Hornaday Jr. in Newhall, he’s clearly planning on a future in racing. He hopes to follow his brother to the Southwest Tour next season and may continue to climb beyond that.

“If the right people called me and the right doors opened for me, I wouldn’t think twice about moving back East,” Hooper said, speaking of the prestigious Winston Cup Tour. “Hopefully, . . . there will be a lot of press and a lot of people will read about me.”