Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Brad Oxley Will Try to Become a World-Beater Tonight at Ascot

Brad Oxley is a thin young man from San Clemente who looks like anything but a speedway motorcycle racer. Still, his past, present and future are locked into the squirrel-cage sport of two-wheel riders who spin crazily around tiny dirt tracks, four abreast, at speeds up to 40 m.p.h.--without brakes.

Oxley is 6-1 1/2 in a sport designed for riders 5-5 to 5-9.

“I’m 6-2 with my racing boots on,� the ebullient blond competitor hastens to add. He is the tallest world-class rider in the sport, but he weighs only 155 pounds.

Tonight, Oxley will be one of the leaders of a six-man American team that will face a European all-star aggregation headed by two-time world champion Erik Gundersen of Denmark in the Budweiser American Cup Challenge at Ascot Park’s South Bay Speedway.

Last Thursday night on the same 220-yard oval, Oxley swept the card, winning six straight races, including both the scratch and handicap main events. It was the first time Oxley had ever swept a card, and it was the first time any rider had accomplished it at the two-year-old South Bay facility built by Chris Agajanian, youngest son of the late J.C. Agajanian.

“It was just my night, I guess,� Oxley said. “The bike was dialed in, and so was I. Everybody has a night like that some time. I hope it carries over this week. I raced against most of these (European) guys in England, and usually they smoked me off. I hope to get even here.�

Thursday wasn’t Oxley’s only hot night last week, however. Wednesday at the Inland Speedway in San Bernardino, he won five of six races, and Friday at Costa Mesa, he won the scratch main event.

Riding with Gundersen tonight will be Peter Collins of England, 1976 world champion; Jan Anderson, five-time champion of Sweden; Karl Maier of West Germany, 1982 world long-track champion; Kai Niemi, the Finnish national champion, and Alex Dryml of Czechoslovakia.

Oxley’s teammates include U.S. champion Alan Christian, California champion Steve Lucero, Robert Pfetzing, Mike Faria and Mark Dwyer.

Oxley rode for the Wimbledon team of the British Speedway League in 1981-82 and was named rookie of the year in his first season, but the flagging British economy and homesickness brought him back. The high point of his two years in London was getting married--not to an English girl, but to his high school sweetheart from San Clemente, Tamara. They have a son, Bryce, 2.

“I prefer Southern California, where I have my work, my riding, my friends and my family,� Oxley said. “Over there, I had only the riding.�

Oxley’s goals are all speedway-oriented, as might be expected from the son of Harry Oxley, the man who--with former world champion Jack Milne of Pasadena--revived the sport in this country 15 years ago, after it had all but disappeared for three decades.

“I want to keep racing, as long as I enjoy it,� Oxley said. “I want to win a U.S. national, hopefully this year or next, and I want to learn everything there is to know about speedway racing, especially the presentation and the promotion of it. I’ve been involved in speedway, in one way or the other, since I was 10 years old.

“I have so much to learn, though. If I had to take over from my dad right now, it would be scary. I can’t believe he held down a full-time job, helped raise four kids and still brought back speedway to where it is today. I’m in awe of what he accomplished.�

Fans who arrive early on Friday nights at Costa Mesa are sometimes surprised to see their favorite rider up on a tractor, moving the dirt around, putting the final touches on the track before the evening’s program. Brad not only races, he also builds and maintains the tracks at Costa Mesa and Long Beach, site of the American qualifying round for the world championships.

“I’m proud of the way the Long Beach track came out,� he said. “In three days, I took a quarter-mile jogging track, graded it, widened it from 30 to 60 feet in the corners and gave it six feet of banking. It’s more like a European track than any other in this country.�

European tracks range between 350 and 450 yards. Ascot is 220, and the smallest is Costa Mesa, which is barely 180.

“We will be at a definite advantage Thursday night,� Oxley predicted. “Our riders would have trouble winning two out of five races on their turf. Here it should be the other way around.

“Gundersen is in a different class from all of us, but Ascot might bring him back to our level. They’re only here for this one event, one night, and we race three nights a week, 110 races in seven months, on tracks like Ascot. That has to make a difference.�

The two six-man teams will compete in 18 heats of four laps each. Former world speedway champion Bruce Penhall will also compete in two match races, against former Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones in a quad race, and against nine-time world champion Ivan Mauger of New Zealand on speedway bikes.

SPRINT CARS--California Racing Assn. champion Eddie Wirth got off to a slow start in defense of his title this season, but he’s on a hot streak now. In his last eight CRA starts, the lanky former motorcycle champion has four wins and four seconds. Wirth will continue his chase of point leader Brad Noffsinger in a 30-lap main event Saturday night at Ascot Park. . . . The Ronnie Allyn Cavalcade, including super modifieds, midgets and foreign sprinters as well as winged sprint cars, will be held Friday and Saturday nights at Baylands Raceway Park, near San Jose. Allyn was a Los Angeles motorsports reporter, publicist and scorer for more than 20 years before his death several years ago. Lealand McSpadden and Chuck Gurney head the sprint car entries.

SPORTS CARS--Don’t make your room reservations yet for the IMSA Camel GT race at Del Mar, which is listed for Nov. 8-9. Litigation may hold up the Del Mar inaugural until 1987. . . . The California Sports Car Club will hold a series of regional championship races Aug. 3 at Riverside International Raceway. . . . How serious is former Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner about his racing career? He is to be inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame Friday in Houston, but he will miss it in order to practice in his Ford Mustang for Sunday’s IMSA 100-kilometer GTO/GTU race at Sears Point.

MOTORCYCLES--The CMC Dodge Summer Series for motocross will end Friday night at Ascot Park. . . . The American Road Racing Assn. will hold a series of twelve 25-mile races Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway. . . . Inland Speedway in San Bernardino will hold a Chopper match race next Wednesday night along with its weekly speedway program.

STOCK CARS--The Kodak 100 for NASCAR sportsman cars will headline a Saturday night program at Saugus Speedway that will also include street stocks, a destruction derby and the popular ego challenge for passenger cars.

MIDGETS--Denise Bennet of San Pedro will challenge veterans Robby Flock, Rusty Rasmussen and Wally Pankratz in a United States Auto Club western regional race Sunday night at Ascot Park. The tiny Bennet is the first female driver to set fast qualifying time for a USAC midget race and in the last two regional races, in Santa Maria and Ventura, she finished second. Three-quarter midgets will also race in the doubleheader.