Motor Racing / Shav Glick : A Bit of Everything Is Finally Paying Off for Veteran Driver Wolin

Dave Wolin has been in the mainstream of racing for more than 20 years, from driving a go-kart he built from his father’s lawnmower, through MG sports cars, the U.S. Road Racing Assn., Can-Am, Formula 5000, and even a couple of shots at the Indianapolis 500, although he failed to make the race. He has had the racing bug since he was 10 years old and hung around Jim Hurtubise’s family garage in North Tonawanda, N.Y., just outside Buffalo.

“I tried a little bit of everything,” Wolin, 41, said. “Then, one day came the realization that I was never going to be another Mario Andretti. I finally acknowledged that the guys out there were better than I am. Sad, but true.”

So what did he do? Quit? Perish the thought.

The 6-foot, 5-inch Wolin, who lives on a houseboat in Wilmington, Calif., went back to racing’s grass roots: stock cars, the kind you drive on city streets, not the kind you race on super speedways. He took his engineering degree from the University of Buffalo, opened a developmental race car shop in Carson and began marketing and managing racing programs--usually with himself as one of the drivers.

“When IMSA (International Motor Sports Assn.) came along and put on races at a professional level, it opened up marketing possibilities for manufacturers, and with my experience in different levels of racing, it opened up opportunities for me. I had raced professionally with drivers like Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren, Carroll Shelby, Parnelli Jones, and although I was always in the middle of the pack and never a serious contender, I think I learned more from racing with them than if I had been a winner in amateur racing.”

Wolin started out managing a Ford Pinto team, then switched to the Mazda RX-3 team that won the Champion Spark Plug series in 1983. Last year he launched a program for Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America and put together a team that won the Sports Car Club of America’s Class A showroom stock championship at the 24 Hours of Nelson Ledges. Buoyed with that win, the team entered three other endurance races and won them all.

Two major showroom stock series emerged this year--the SCCA’s Playboy and the IMSA Firestone Firehawk. Wolin prepared a Starion for six Playboy races and has a Mirage Turbo for the Firehawk series, which comes to Riverside International Raceway for a six-hour race Sunday, Aug. 11. A Playboy race earlier this season at Riverside turned into a scoring fiasco in which the race winners were not known for several days while SCCA officials poured over scoring sheets.

“You think Riverside was bad,” Wolin said. “We ran in a Playboy race July 7 in St. Louis and we haven’t heard the results yet. I’m certain we finished third, but I don’t know who was first or second. That was SCCA, though. IMSA has done a professional job scoring in the Firehawk races, and I’m sure we’ll all know where we finish at Riverside.”

Wolin will be one of three drivers in his No. 88 Mirage at Riverside, along with Ron Cortez of Sherman Oaks and Mike Rutherford of Torrance.

“The good thing about showroom stock is that it helps to equalize the drivers and the car preparation,” Wolin said. “The only modifications allowed are for safety, so you don’t find the vast differences in power and handling that you do with GT or Indy cars.”

The promotional value of having a winning car, however, has not been lost on the manufacturers, who have escalated the costs of running a team to where it is now prohibitive for an independent to be competitive. In 1983, when the first showroom class series was held, it cost about $5,000, plus a car, to go racing. This year, to be a front-runner in either Playboy or Firehawk races, it will take a $500,000 to $1 million budget.

“The end result makes it worthwhile,” Wolin said. “We have two goals, and I’m sure they are the same for the other manufacturers. First, an endurance race can be an engineering exercise in which you can test all your components under optimum conditions. There is not a much better way to test a car for performance. I think Porsche has proven that over the years. And secondly, it gives exposure to our name, especially for long-term visibility. In other words, it’s good advertising.”

Apparently Mitsubishi isn’t the only one thinking that way. In a Firehawk race two weeks ago at Sears Point, the cars included Porsche 944, Toyota MR-2, Nissan 300ZX, Ford Mustang, Pontiac Fiero, Chevy Camaro, BMW 325E, Honda CRX, Mercury Capri, Colt Turbo, Dodge GLG Turbo, Shelby Charger and Saab Turbo.

After Riverside, Wolin will race the Starion in La Carrera Costa de Costa, a 145-mile run in Baja California from San Felipe to Ensenada on Oct. 5. Martha Bohner of Palos Verdes will be his navigator on the point-to-point showroom stock race.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Former world long track champion Shawn Moran of Huntington Beach and Bobby Schwartz of Balboa Island finished 1-2 last Sunday in West Germany in qualifying for this year’s world long track finals Sept. 15 at Korskro, Denmark. Moran and Schwartz, along with Lance King of Fountain Valley, John Cook of Roseville and Sam Ermolenko of Cypress have been named to the U.S. team for the World Team Cup championships Aug. 10 at Long Beach Veterans Stadium. U.S. champion Kelly Moran was left off because of a broken left ankle. Schwartz is the team captain. . . . King, Ermolenko, Cook and Shawn Moran will ride Saturday night in the Intercontinental Final in Vetlanda, Sweden. It is the final qualifying round for the world individual championship Aug. 31 in Bradford, Eng. First, however, Schwartz and Ermolenko will ride in tonight’s weekly program at Ascot Park’s South Bay Stadium. . . . Alan Christian of Huntington Beach is the points leader after a season of racing at five tracks to select 22 riders to ride in the U.S. Nationals qualifying rounds starting Aug. 17 at Auburn. The U.S. finals are Oct. 12 at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa.

SPRINT CARS--Dean Thompson continues to close in on 100 wins in California Racing Assn. competition. The three-time Kraco-CRA champion won No. 96 last week at Santa Maria. He will be at Ascot Park Saturday night for a 30-lap main event.

OFF ROAD RACING--Toyota pickup driver Steve Millen has been fined $1,000 by Mickey Thompson’s review board for “failing to give way to an overtaking vehicle” in the Coliseum truck race. Millen, who was a lap behind, blocked Roger Mears’ Nissan truck on the final lap to allow Toyota teammate Ivan Stewart to pass the front running Mears and win by the length of a fender. Mears was fined $250 for “over aggressiveness” by the Mears Gang in the pit area as a result of the incident. . . . Next for the off roaders is the Turbo Wash SCORE Off Road World Championships Aug. 17-18 at Riverside International Raceway. Sal Fish, SCORE president, has stretched the course to 1.5 miles, giving it more of a desert race look than a short-course stadium event.

STOCK CARS--Veteran Jim Thirkettle and Mesa Marin Raceway points leader Rick Carelli of Denver are entered in Saturday night’s open competition main event at the Bakersfield oval. . . . Modifieds, sportsman and street stocks go Saturday night at Saugus Speedway. . . . Don Wright Jr., who recently switched from Figure 8s to pro stocks, goes for his third pro stock win in a row Sunday night in the Curb-Winston series at Ascot Park. Wright, in a Pontiac Firebird, moved past defending series champion Ray Burns with last week’s win. . . . Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale will have pro modifieds and street stocks Saturday night.