Doctor Rides Fast Lane as a Blossoming Hobby

Stuart Baumgard of Encino slices through the turns of automobile race tracks across nation with the precision of a surgeon.

In fact, he is a surgeon.

When he is not working at his Beverly Hills sports medicine practice, Baumgard hops into his CanAm car and floors it for the race course.

“In some strange fashion,” Baumgard said, “my patients get a vicarious pleasure out of knowing their doctor races.”

Baumgard, 47, began racing in 1974 with the Sports Car Club of America, fulfilling the childhood dream that he had growing up in England to become a race car driver.

Baumgard said the pressure he feels while performing surgery pales in comparison to the stress of racing.

“Very rarely is there pressure in surgery,” Baumgard said. “That vanishes with experience. In racing, you can make the pressure as great as you want, all you have to do is go a little faster.

“Every time I go into a corner as fast as I can go, I see visions of God in front of me. But when I hit the straightaway, I’m an atheist again.”

Once, after driving at the Lime Rock race course in Connecticut, Baumgard was approached by one of his patients, who was amazed that a surgeon would risk his life in such a manner.

“You think he’s crazy?” another racer asked. “I’m a mortician!”

Baumgard, who will leave for Canada in August to compete at Calgary Speedway, feels that he is at a slight disadvantage to younger racers.

“When you are going at these speeds, it looks from the cockpit just like a video game,” he said. “It’s tough to beat a teen-ager at a video game.”

When his desire for racing temporarily runs out of gas, Baumgard enjoys another hobby--raising orchids.

“It sounds like the complete antithesis to racing,” Baumgard said. “But the two are quite similar. There are no telephones to disturb me in the greenhouse or on the race course.

“Both allow me to get away.”