MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Off-Road Plan Is on Right Track

From 1973 through 1988, the most exciting off-road racing in the world for spectators was held at Riverside International Raceway along Thompson Ridge, an off-camber stretch of dirt where gravity was feared as much as other drivers.

The last race held at Riverside was a SCORE Off-Road World Championship event, on Aug. 14, 1988.

Since then, off-road racing has been limited to either stadium events, which are restricted by size, or desert racing, which is usually so far from civilization that few spectators can attend.

Dr. Bud Feldkamp, a Redlands dentist who tamed many a desert trail in his long buggy-racing career, hopes to revive the atmosphere and excitement of Riverside with a newly designed one-mile course at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino. The track, designed by off-road legend Ivan Stewart, will open this weekend with the Chevrolet Off-Road Winter Series.

“We have a stretch that will really remind you of Thompson Ridge,” Feldkamp said. “Ivan drove a lot of races at Riverside so he knew exactly what I wanted, and he did the job. It’s not quite as long as Riverside’s was, but it’s just as severe.”

Feldkamp, who won his class in the recent Baja 1000 driving a Chevrolet truck, took over Glen Helen’s racing program five years ago and is building a multipurpose racing facility on 256 acres that will include a half-mile dirt oval, a speedway motorcycle track, a drag strip and several motocross courses.

This week’s Winter Series is a three-day event with four programs featuring unlimited trucks. There will be one complete show Friday, one Saturday and two Sunday, with each being taped for broadcast on ESPN2 in January. There will also be races for other off-road classes each day.

The series marks the debut of the Short-Course Off-Road Drivers Assn., a midwestern sanctioning body, on the West Coast. The regular SODA series consists of eight races in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Jack Flannery, who operates a logging business in Wisconsin Dells, Wis., is coming West with his Chevy Thunder truck to challenge Southern California truck-driving veterans Walker Evans, Rob MacCachren, Jim Smith, Curt LeDuc and Robby Gordon, who plans to race Sunday after testing his new Indy car Friday and Saturday in Florida.

“I used to go to Riverside to see what the West Coast guys were running, to see how their technology compared to ours,” Flannery said. “I never won at Riverside, but I did take the overall win one year at Willow Springs. I’m really looking forward to racing in California again.”

Evans is a veteran of SODA racing in addition to his stadium and desert schedule.

“It’ll be fun to have an off-road of this magnitude in my own backyard again,” said the Riverside veteran, who will turn 57 on Sunday. “It reminds me of the days when we used to run at Riverside. I always liked short-course racing, so when Riverside closed I headed to Wisconsin to drive in the SODA series.”

Stewart, who will not race in the Chevrolet series because Toyota does not have a short-course truck available, and Evans finished one-two in Riverside’s final mini-metal challenge, but the big winner on the track’s final day was Gordon, then a 19-year-old off-road racer. He won the heavy metal main event and a dune buggy race on the same day.

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Motor Racing Notes

INDY CARS--Bryan Herta will be introduced today as car owner-driver Bobby Rahal’s new teammate. Herta, who drove last year for Chip Ganassi, will replace Raul Boesel, who moved to Barry Green’s Team Green as a replacement for Indy car champion Jacques Villeneuve, now a Formula One driver. . . . Adrian Fernandez has been named to drive the Tasman Motorsports team’s second car in the Indy Car World Series, joining Andre Ribeiro of Brazil in a pair of Honda-powered Lolas for Tasman President Steve Horne. Fernandez, from Mexico City, has driven for Rick Galles the last two seasons. . . . The Miller Brewing Co. announced it will discontinue its annual pitstop contest before the Indianapolis 500, another victim of the IRL-CART Indy car confusion.

OFF ROAD--Gregory Oberst, 36, of Seal Beach, is one of 10 candidates for the two-man 1996 Camel Trophy team that will represent the United States in a 1,000-mile journey through the jungles of Kalimantan, Indonesia and the southern half of Borneo. Testing will begin Dec. 9 at Hollister Hills, Calif. Oberst is a firefighter and paramedic engineer for the city of Huntington Beach. . . . Ivan Stewart will collect $60,000 as winner of the Tecate Trophy-Truck championship at Saturday night’s SCORE International awards banquet in San Diego. The Alpine, Calif., driver, in a Toyota, was the only entrant to complete all seven races. Danny Porter of Orange, driving a 1600cc VW-powered desert buggy, was the overall Eveready Desert Racing series champion. Porter averaged 43.2 mph for 2,837 miles during the series.

POWERBOATS--Former world speedway motorcycle champions Bruce Penhall and Dennis Sigalos made racing history when they repeated as world powerboat champions, driving Ocean Spray to the D class championship in rough waters off Key West, Fla. It made Penhall the first to win back-to-back world titles in different sports. He won speedway titles in 1981 and 1982. Last year, he and Sigalos won the world modified class in Ocean Spray. Matt Alcone of Newport Beach also won a world championship in the superboat class.

ROAD RACING--Buttonwillow Raceway Park, a three-mile road circuit financed and built by the Sports Car Club of America’s Cal Club, will have its first open house for racing this weekend. A variety of cars will be on the track from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Buttonwillow is 126 miles north of Los Angeles, one-half mile west of Interstate 5 on Lerdo Highway. . . . C.J. Mears of Bakersfield, son of off-road veteran Roger Mears, emerged as champion of the U.S. Auto Club’s Russell Pro Triple Crown series with a second-place finish behind Brazilian Aluizio Coehlho in the series finale at Willow Springs Raceway.

MOTORCYCLES--National hillclimb champion Paul Pinsonnault and 600cc dirt track champion Chris Carr have been added to the nominees for the American Motorcyclist Assn. athlete-of-the-year award. Previous nominees include Scott Parker, Miguel Duhamel and Jeremy McGrath. The winner will be recognized Dec. 16 at the AMA banquet in Las Vegas. . . . Kevin Schwantz, former world road racing champion, won his first stock car event during the Valvoline NASCAR Night of Thunder in Sydney, Australia. The lanky Texan, who quit motorcycle racing last April, drove a Chevy Lumina.

MISCELLANY--Pat Owens will hold his fourth annual Motorsports Display Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at Hansen Dam Park in Sylmar to focus attention on former students of L.A. Trade Tech who have had careers in motorsports. On hand will be Dave Phipps, seven-time Saugus Speedway champion, and former national motorcycle champions Eddie Mulder and Skip Van Leeuwen.