Motor Racing / Shav Glick : All-America Drivers to Be Honored

The 12-driver Auto Racing All-America team, as selected by the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Assn., will be honored Friday night, Jan. 9, aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

Bobby Rahal, 1986 Driver of the Year, heads the team and is the favorite to receive the Jerry Titus Award as the driver getting the most votes from the 490-member organization. Rahal won the biggest race, the Indianapolis 500, and went on to win five more races in Jim Trueman’s Truesports March and the CART/PPG Indy Car World Series championship.

Selected with Rahal in the open wheel, or Indy car, category was Michael Andretti, whose father, Mario, is a three-time winner of the Titus Award. Michael opened the season by winning the Long Beach Grand Prix, then won two more races and missed the championship by only eight points. He also had his Kraco March in front for 699 Indy car laps, more than any other driver.

Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond, the two stock car selections, were easy choices. Earnhardt, in Richard Childress’ Wrangler Chevrolet, won his second Winston Cup championship with five wins. Richmond, with six wins, was NASCAR’s winningest driver in Harry Hyde’s Folger Chevrolet.

Bill Elliott, last year’s Titus Award winner, was a second-team selection along with 1985 series champion Darrell Waltrip.

Two drivers are chosen from each of five categories--Indy cars, stock cars, drag racing, road racing and short track, plus two more from an at-large group.

Don (Big Daddy) Garlits, at 54 still king of drag racing’s top fuelers, was selected along with funny car champion Kenny Bernstein. It was the second straight year Garlits and Bernstein had shared drag racing honors as both repeated as National Hot Rod Assn. champions. Both also became the first to better 270 m.p.h. in their type cars. Garlits did 272.56 at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., and Bernstein did 271.41 at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.

Road racing selections were Al Holbert, winner of a rare Daytona-LeMans 24 Hour double, and Scott Pruett, the International Motor Racing Assn.’s Camel GT endurance champion. Holbert, in his own Lowenbrau Porsche 962, won his fifth IMSA championship along with his wins in the world’s two most prestigious endurance races. Pruett, in Jack Roush’s Mustang, won eight IMSA GTO races and the championship, and also won twice in Trans-Am.

The short-track and at-large selections are puzzling.

Steve Kinser, the King of the Outlaws, won 18 of 53 World of Outlaw sprint car main events for his seventh series championship and was a near-automatic short track selection. Kinser’s earnings of $340,760 set a sprint car record.

The other honoree will be Hershel McGriff, the 58-year-old veteran from Oregon, who won the Winston West stock car championship. Whatever “short track” means, McGriff was not a short-track driver. He was a NASCAR stock car driver just like Earnhardt, Richmond, Elliott and Waltrip. All three of his wins came on road courses, at Willow Springs, Tacoma, Wash, and Portland, Ore.

Besides being in the wrong category, the championship he won was a regional one, limited to the West Coast. If there were an all-Pacific Coast team, McGriff would be a natural, but winning the championship of the West hardly ranks him ahead of such national champions as Jack Hewitt, winner of six dirt track races in the United States Auto Club’s Silver Crown series; Rich Vogler, who won his fourth USAC midget championship and added three sprint car wins; or David Pearson’s 33-year-old son, Larry, who won NASCAR’s new Grand National series for sportsman cars.

At large, which is where Kinser would be placed if there was no short-track category, went to two Southern California residents who performed more or less in the minor leagues of racing.

Versatile Steve Millen, who won in a Toyota truck in Mickey Thompson’s stadium off-road circuit and in an Indy-type car in the American Racing Series, was selected along with teen-ager Tom Kendall, who was 19 when he became IMSA’s youngest champion by winning the Camel GTU series and also its first double champion when he teamed with Max Jones to win the Firestone Firehawk endurance championship.

Millen, a transplanted New Zealander who lives in Irvine, won the first oval race he ever drove, the ARS opener at Phoenix, but when car owner Jim Trueman died shortly after, he lost the ride. Later, he came back to win in another car at Mid-Ohio, and despite missing four of 10 races, he finished fourth in the standings behind champion Fabrizio Barbazza of Italy. In a busy season, in which he also drove in the Ivory Coast Rally in Africa, Millen won four stadium off-road races and finished second in the SCORE closed course championships at Riverside.

Kendall’s accomplishments were significant--particularly for one so young--but the UCLA student from Flintridge-La Canada will be the first to admit that his wins were in lesser divisions of road racing. The GTU is the slowest and least powerful of the Camel GT classes, and the Firehawk is only one of several endurance races for passenger cars.

Rating Millen’s ARS wins or Kendall’s GTU and Firehawk wins as more significant than ones on the Indy car circuit or the IMSA top-of-the-line GTP series does a disservice to drivers such as Al Unser Jr. or Derek Bell.

Unser showed his versatility by winning the International Race of Champions against the finest drivers in the world, the season’s final Indy car race at Tamiami Park in Florida, and with Holbert and Bell, the 24 Hours of Daytona. Bell was Holbert’s co-driver in IMSA and in the win at LeMans, and he also won the Sports Prototype world championship.

It would be like naming shortstop Gregg Jefferies to the All-America Baseball team ahead of Cal Ripken because Jefferies hit .353 and drove in 111 runs against Ripken’s .282 and 81 RBIs--not taking into account that Jefferies played in Double A for Lynchburg of the Carolina League while Ripken played in the big leagues with Baltimore.

The AARWBA banquet will be open to the public, with an autograph session at 7:45 p.m. Most of the 12 drivers are expected to be on hand, with the exception of Holbert, Kinser and Pruett, who have conflicting engagements.

MOTOCROSS--As a warm-up for the 11th Dodge Truck Golden State Nationals, sportsman and pro riders will compete Sunday at Carlsbad Raceway. The Continental Motosport Club’s eight-race series will start Jan. 4 at Sunrise Valley Cycle Park near Adelanto with racing for 125cc, 250cc, 500cc bikes and sidecars.

RALLY--The Toyota Olympus Rally, which was held this month in Washington state as the final event of the FIA world championship, will move into a different time frame next year. It will be June 25-29. Markku Alen, 35, of Finland, won the Olympus Rally to edge countryman Juha Kankkunen by two points, 112 to 110, for the world championship. Alen drove a Lancia Delta S4 while Kankkunen drove a Peugeot 205 Turbo. Alen also won in 1978, driving a Fiat Abarth. United States champion John Buffum was third in an Audi Quattro. Seventh, and first in the modified production Group A, was Rod Millen of Newport Beach in a Mazda 323.

OFF ROAD--International Race of Champions winner Al Unser Jr. will drive a Jeep Comanche in the Grand National Sport Truck class in the first event of Mickey Thompson’s Off-Road Championship Gran Prix season Jan. 10 at Anaheim Stadium. Unser will be racing against defending champion Steve Millen and Ivan Stewart in a pair of Toyotas, Roger Mears and Sherman Balch in Nissans, Danny Thompson in a Chevrolet, Walker Evans in a Dodge and Glenn Harris in a Mazda. . . . The SCORE International/High Desert Racing Assn. awards banquet will be Jan. 3 at the Anaheim Hilton.

INDY CARS--Former off-road and Super Vee driver Jeff MacPherson of Santa Ana will join veteran Geoff Brabham on the Albuquerque-based Galles Racing Team next season. MacPherson, 30, drove in three Indy Car races last season. He will replace Roberto Moreno on the Galles team.

STOCK CARS--For the third straight year, racing fans selected Bill Elliott as NASCAR’s most popular driver. Elliott will receive $20,000 from Winston, the series sponsor. . . . Hershel McGriff collected a $10,000 bonus for winning the Winston West championship, giving him a series record $67,765 for the eight-race season.

NEWS WORTHY--The National Hot Rod Assn. is moving its offices Jan. 5 from North Hollywood to 2035 Financial Way, Glendora. . . . David Kudrave, 20, of La Canada, is in New Zealand to drive a Dave White-prepared Ralt in the Formula Pacific series. The first race is Sunday. . . . The turbocharged Shelby Dodge Charger, winner of the Sports Car Club of America’s endurance championship, will be on display in the L. A. Auto Show’s race car exhibit Jan. 3-11 at the Convention Center.