Saugus Launches Its 56th Season Saturday

Points races in the NASCAR Winston Racing Series won’t start at Saugus Speedway until April 1, but promoter-general manager Ray Wilkings has scheduled a pre-opening Saturday night to inaugurate Saugus’ 56th season.

The evening’s program will include super late models, mini-stocks, street stocks--both oval and Figure 8--and a destruction derby. The super late stocks are the same as last year’s sportsman cars.

“We have made some changes in our traditional racing program this year to try and bring our Winston Racing Series more in line with what is being run elsewhere around the country,” Wilkings said. “The hope is that we will be able to control the escalating costs of racing and make our premier series more affordable and attractive to our competitors.”

The two new divisions, which will make their debut next week, are the late-model division and the pure-stock division. Late models will be the featured Saugus series, and the pure stocks will provide an entry level for new competitors.

“We are encouraged by the reported car counts for our new divisions and I am sure the competition will be intense,” Wilkings said. The late-model class is for American-made passenger car chassis with l990-or-later fiberglass or aluminum bodies of Buicks, Chevrolets, Dodges, Fords, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs.

Brian Kelly, last year’s pro-stock champion from Arleta, will campaign a late model this season, as will street-stock champion John Schultz and rookie of the year Jeff Schrader of Santa Clarita.

The Grand American modified class, one of the track’s most popular series, will be back, with Dave Phipps of Simi Valley seeking his eighth track championship. Phipps has won four Grand American titles and three sportsman division titles.

Dave Blankenship and Ed Horse of Reseda and Robert Rice of Hawthorne are expected to challenge Phipps.

Stock cars will be the staple of Saugus’ Saturday night schedule weekly through Sept. 30, except for two special nights.

NASCAR’s new SuperTruck series will visit the track April 15 for a nationally televised 200-lap race featuring former Saugus champions Bill Sedgwick and Ron Hornaday Jr., as well as trucks owned by Winston Cup veterans Dale Earnhardt, Terry Labonte, Darrell Waltrip, Geoff Bodine and Ken Schrader.

Hornaday drives Earnhardt’s black No. 3, and Richard Childress, who owns Earnhardt’s championship Winston Cup car, also has an entry driven by Mike Skinner, who won the series opener.

United States Auto Club midgets and three-quarter midgets will make an appearance on May 15, keeping alive a long tradition of open-wheel racing at Saugus.

Other events on the 1995 schedule are the Valencia Dodge 200 for Winston West stock cars on July 15 and two Featherlite Southwest Tour races, the Miller 100 on June 10 and the Red Dog 100 on Sept. 9.

Motor Racing Notes

SPRINT CARS--Ron Shuman, defending Sprint Car Racing Assn. champion from Tempe, Ariz., heads a field of SCRA drivers in the first California race of the season Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale. Also racing will be another Arizona driver, Lealand McSpadden, who won last week in Phoenix. Shuman and McSpadden have each won eight races in non-winged cars at Bakersfield.

STOCK CARS--Cajon Speedway will open its 1995 season Saturday night with a NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour race for late model stock cars. The Budweiser 100 will be 37.5 miles around the three-eighths-mile paved oval. Dale Williams, last year’s winner, is driving in the Busch Grand National series. Two-time series champion Ron Hornaday Jr., winner of the season opener at Phoenix, is favored.

MOTORCYCLES--Freddie Spencer, three-time world road racing champion, will ride a Ducati in the second annual L.A. Superbike championship, which will headline L.A. Motorcycle Week next Friday through April 2 at the Pomona Fairplex. The three-day program includes Round 2 of the AMA’s Grand National dirt-track series, featuring five-time national champion Scott Parker on a Harley-Davidson. . . . The U.S. Grand Prix road race, scheduled Sept. 6 at Elkhart Lake, Wis., after four years at Laguna Seca Raceway, has been canceled.

MISCELLANY--Scott Goodyear, second-place finisher in the 1992 Indianapolis 500, has entered this year’s 500 as a driver for Steve Horne’s Tasman Motorsports team. He will drive a Honda-powered Reynard as a teammate of Andre Ribeiro. . . . U.S. Auto Club midget racers, flooded out at Bakersfield, will try again Saturday night at Hanford Raceway. . . . Stock cars return to Sunrise Valley Raceway in Adelanto Sunday.

NECROLOGY--Rick Muther of Friday Harbor, Wash., former Indy and sports car driver, died recently of a heart attack. Muther, 59, was among the first U.S. road racers to try Indianapolis, finishing eighth in 1970, and started 42 national championship races. . . . George Newnam of Culver City, owner-mechanic for numerous United Racing Assn. and USAC midget championship cars, has died. Newnam, 74, was active recently in the Western Racing Assn. vintage car program.