Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Las Vegas 400 Off-Road Race to Be Run in Opposite Direction Saturday

The Nissan Mint 400, the richest, largest and toughest off-road race in the country, will have its 20th anniversary running Saturday over a 106-mile course south of Las Vegas.

The course is much the same as last year’s, except for one notable change--it will be run in the opposite direction.

“It’s the same, and it isn’t,” said Walter Lott, High Desert Racing Assn. president, who helped lay out the course. “Any off-roader can tell you that the back side of a bump looks nothing like the front side.”

This will be the second year the race has been south of the Vegas Strip after 10 years on the north side. The start and finish will be at Sloan, 15 miles south of Las Vegas. The course will run past Jean dry lake, over the 4,700-foot McCullough mountains and into Eldorado Valley before reaching Las Vegas Motocross Park, which should offer spectators the best viewing.

Eight-time winners Rod Hall, Walker Evans and Manny Esquerra will lead an expected field of more than 400 in quest of about $500,000 in purse and contingency awards.

Nissan is sponsoring the race for the first time and has entered a powerful five-driver team headed by Roger Mears, who has won four of the last five HDRA and SCORE International desert events. Mears, who won the Mint 400 in 1981, sharpened his reflexes last Saturday night by winning the Rose Bowl stadium Gran Prix.

Spencer Low, in a stock mini-pickup, and Jim Conner, in a 4 x 4, are regular Nissan drivers, but the team has added Jack Johnson and Sherman Balch for Saturday’s race.

Johnson, who has won the Mint five times--three on a motorcycle and two in a desert buggy--will switch to a radical four-wheel-drive truck and race against the big-bore trucks from Ford, Dodge, Chevrolet and Jeep. Balch will drive Mears’ older mini-pickup.

The race will start at 8 a.m. Saturday after a parade from the Mint Hotel through downtown Las Vegas to the starting line. The winning vehicle is expected to complete four laps of the 106-mile course in nine hours, but all entries completing the race in 18 hours are considered finishers.

Qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 May 24 will start Saturday, with a new speed record almost a certainty.

Rick Mears set the one-lap record of 217.581 m.p.h. and the four-lap record of 216.828 m.p.h. last year in winning his third pole position for the 500-mile classic. Mears, in a Penske-Chevrolet, will be trying to join A. J. Foyt and the late Rex Mays as a four-time pole winner.

Mario Andretti, one of eight former 500 winners entered, is the pole favorite. Andretti ran 218.204--the fastest lap in Speedway history--during practice Tuesday and has won the pole for the year’s only two Indy car races, at Long Beach and Phoenix.

Racing fans have become accustomed to unusual car sponsors, such as a cooking oil, Crisco; a laundry detergent, Tide; a coffee, Folger’s, and toys, Mattel, but eyebrows were raised last Sunday at Talladega when racing’s newest logo appeared on the side of Sterling Marlin’s car.

It was Underalls, a brand of panty hose.

Molly Hughes, sales manager for Hanes Hosiery, explained the company’s reasoning: “The demographics of stock car racing indicate that more than 40% of NASCAR fans are women. Those numbers, totaling in the millions, are impressive and important to our marketing strategy.”

But what about poor Sterling?

STOCK CARS--The NASCAR Southwest tour will be at San Bernardino Saturday when the Budweiser President’s Cup 100 is held at the Orange Show Speedway. An all-star entry of 40 cars will include defending series champion Ron Esau, Sears Point winner Roman Calczynski, standings leader Mike Chase, Jim Thirkettle, Duke Hoenshell and Dan Press. Time trials will start at 3:30 p.m. with the 100-lap main event at 5 p.m. On Sunday at the Orange Show Speedway, sportsman drivers from Saugus, Ascot and Cajon will compete in a double-points 50-lap main event, along with a Figure 8 race. . . . Dave Phipps, former Saugus Speedway sportsman champion, will be going for his fourth win in five races Saturday night at Saugus. Mini-stocks, street stocks and Figure 8s will share the billing. . . . A chain race will spice Sunday night’s pro stock program at Ascot.

OFF-ROAD--An outlaw mud bog event is scheduled for Saturday night at Ascot Park, along with a motorcycle jump by Danny Wade, who leaps 15 cars but bails out before the bike crashes into a parked car.

MOTORCYCLES--The fifth round of the AMA national championship hare & hound series will be run Sunday at Red Mountain with the Lost Angels Motorcycle Club of Chatsworth the host club. . . . Mike Faria and Bobby Schwartz will continue their speedway rivalry on local tracks this week with one exception. San Bernardino’s Inland Speedway will be closed Wednesday night because of the National Orange Show, but racing will resume there May 20 with the Bruce Penhall Classic. . . . CMC motocross will return to Ascot Park Friday night.

DRAG RACING--Bracket racing and team competition will be featured Sunday at Riverside International Raceway.