Wild Wind, Wild Race.

   NASCAR competitors once experienced the wicked Santa Ana Winds, like those that recently swept disastrous fires across Southern California, and threaten to again.
   The date was Nov. 15, 1980, and the Winston Cup Series teams were at Ontario Motor Speedway for the L.A. Times 500.
   Excitement was high, because Dale Earnhardt, in only his second season at stock car racing's top level, was leading Cale Yarborough by just 29 points toward the circuit's coveted championship entering the last of the year's 31 races.  Yarborough and his team owned and fielded by legendary Junior Johnson were going for a fourth title in five years after winning three straight from 1976-78.

   I headed to the track early from my motel about 10 miles away.  I marveled at the beauty of a mountain, Old Baldy, which towered, snow-capped, to the north.  The day seemed calm as could be.
   Then, driving through a  neighborhood along the road, I noticed a small "dust devil" swirl from the dirt  driveway of a home.
   "Odd," I thought to myself.
   I didn't know what odd was!
   Within a minute or so I was in a blinding, wind-driven dust storm.  I barely could see a big motorhome that was just in front of me.  My rental car was rocking back and forth.
   I never had experienced anything like it, and I almost panicked.  "What on earth is happening?" I wondered.
   Eventually, the dust let up a bit and I made it to the press parking lot.
   The wind, though, continued with just as much high velocity as before.  I had to lean forward, hunched over, to walk against it up the ramp leading to the main entrance, and eventually the press box.
   Entering the latter I was stunned to look out and see that no part of massive Mount Baldy was visible, nor hardly even the 2.5-mile speedway's backstretch.
    A friend, the recently deceased Shav Glick, the L.A. Times' great motorsports writer, saw my confusion.
    "It's what's called a Santa Ana Wind," he explained.  "Weather conditions create the wind in the mountains, and it comes swirling down through the canyons, growing in intensity along the way."
   "Much as I hate to, I've got to go back out in it again," I told Shav.  "I have to go to the garage area and talk to Dale and Cale."
   Shav laughed.
   "The wind will blow rocks in your jacket pockets," he said.
   Now, I laughed.
   "Sure it will," I scoffed.
   I made my way through a tunnel under the track, found Earnhardt and Yarborough and got a few quotes.  Yarborough revealed that he was hobbling on an injured leg, hurt while he was "mid-wifing" a cow on his farm back in South Carolina.
   The California writers found this highly amusing when I later passed the word along, and the incident made it into a lot of stories the next day.
   While I was in the garage talking to Dale and Cale, a NASCAR Southwest Tour race was underway many drivers were making unscheduled pit stops.
   They were coming in to get their windshields cleaned--from THE INSIDE!
   Dust blown into the cars from nearby vineyards coated the interior of the cars.  I remember distinctly that upon finishing Joe Ruttman's car had tiny pieces of stone all over the top of the dashboard.
   I felt in my jacket pockets.  Both held a handful of stones of about the same size. 
   Finally, the Winston Cup race began, with visibility a bit improved.
   Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip battled for the lead, with Neil Bonnett and Dave Marcis also taking the front spot at times.  Earnhardt stayed steady in the top 10.
   But on the 71st of the 200 laps, disaster appeared to have struck for Earnhardt and his team owned by Rod Osterlund, which was being led by 18-year-old Doug Richert after the departure of crew chief Jake "Suitcase" Elder.    Dale  pitted too early during a caution period and went a lap down.
   "Well, I guess that's it for our 'Dale and Cale Show,'" said Glenn Davis, an L.A. Times public relations executive who was the All-American running back "Mr. Outside" for Army's football team at West Point in the 1940s. "We were hoping for a tight finish to excite the fans."
  However, it wasn't quite over yet.
   On Lap 146 another caution flag enabled Earnhardt to get back on the lead lap, beating Yarborough to the line by inches.  Johnson protested NASCAR's call, but to no avail.
   Still another close call awaited Earnhardt and Californians Osterlund and Richert.
   On Lap 183 Earnhardt stopped for what he thought was to be fuel only.  However, the crew started changing tires, and Dale's Chevy almost fell off the jack.  He sped from the pit with only two lug nuts holding on the right rear tire.
   NASCAR gave him the black flag.
   Again, it seemed over, but Earnhardt managed to stay on the lead lap after returning to the pits.
   Meanwhile, both Benny Parsons and Neil Bonnett had swept past leader Yarborough, denying him valuable points.  And Earnhardt, charging wildly, was passing lots of cars and making up ground.
   Parsons took the checkered flag in his last ride with a team owned by M.C. Anderson, who had told Benny some weeks earlier his contract wouldn't be renewed.  Bonnett finished second, Bobby  Allison fourth and Earnhardt fifth.
   The title was a relieved Earnhardt's by a margin of 19 points.
   "Upstaged again," Parsons said wryly during the winner's interview in the press box.
   He'd also won the L.A. Times 500 the year before, but became something of a "forgotten man" because of the close championship chase between Richard Petty and Waltrip.  Petty trailed by only two points going in, but won his seventh and final title by 11 points when Waltrip encountered trouble and spun on he 38th lap.
    It was also Waltrip's last race with the DiGard team, and, in a stunner, Yarborough's finale with Junior Johnson.  Yarborough jumped to the Anderson team, replacing Parsons to run a limited schedule.  After buying out his DiGard contract for $300,000 in a move unprecedented in NASCAR , Waltrip switched to the Johnson operation, for which he eventually won three championships.
   Not long after the Times 500 it was announced that Ontario Motor Speedway, a showplace in its time, was "moving" as well.  It was sold to Chevron Oil Company.  The track, which had financial trouble through its history, now was going to be razed and replaced by an industrial park.
   Gone with the Santa Ana Wind, you might say.