Race Tracks

The battle for control of Hollywood Park was active on two fronts Wednesday: --The track's realty board rejected a proposal by the operating company to put the track up for sale. --Earlier in the day, the operating company filed a lawsuit against three of the track's largest shareholders, accusing them of conspiring to take over control.

Driving a race car is a dangerous business. No one will argue with that. It can also be a crippling business. Drag racer Shirley Muldowney's top-fuel dragster went out of control at 250 m.p.h., injuring her legs so severely that she was hospitalized for three months, had five major operations and underwent outpatient therapy for more than 18 months. Indy driver Roberto Guerrero crashed into a wall while testing tires, and the impact put him in a coma for two weeks in an Indianapolis hospital.

It has been said that the best way to make an enemy out of a friend is to become partners with him in an important race horse. When John Gaines, the dog-food heir and Kentucky breeder, began developing ideas in 1981 for what has evolved into the $10-million Breeders' Cup, his raison d'etre was to pump fresh blood into an anemic game. Gaines' brainchild has been surprisingly fruitful.

Rumors of Saugus Speedway's closure swirled around the racing community for years. But when Wednesday's decision to finally close the 56-year-old racing facility was announced, drivers and fans were stunned. Because an engineer's report stated the grandstands were not structurally stable, the Bonelli family, which owns the track, canceled the racing season. Sources at Saugus have said the Bonelli family wants to increase the popular Saugus Swap Meet from once a week to two or three days a week.

After years of dispute over development of Los Alamitos Race Track, city officials say they are poised to endorse an ambitious plan by Lloyd Arnold--head of a group that recently bought the property for $71 million--to build a new or remodeled racing facility, a refurbished golf course, office buildings and a hotel on the 128-acre site. Cypress Councilman John Kanel reacted with enthusiasm Friday. "This new plan is definitely a big plus for the citizens of Cypress," Kanel said.

They're off and running. And this time, say the people who have opened up their wallets, they'll be running in the black. "The previous owners were so burdened," said Bill Bork, vice president of Ladbroke Racing Corp. and acting general manager of Ladbroke at Canterbury Downs. "They were paying $5 million to $6 million every year in interest alone. No track can handle that." The original owners, which included the Santa Anita Realty Corp.

Tucked away on the bottom of a page in the sports section of The Times on April 8, 1910, was this item: "Indianapolis is to have automobile races May 27-28 and 30 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Fast cars and leading drivers are to appear." Auto racing was nothing new to Angelenos, though. Los Angeles, in fact, was the center of automobile racing when Indianapolis was just getting into the game.

From the day it opened--Thanksgiving, 1924--until the day it burned down in 1936, torched by a former employee who said he didn't want to see any more of his friends killed, the Legion Ascot Speedway was profitable and deadly.

Behind the grandstands and opulent turf clubs, workers who take care of horses at California's racetracks inhabit a dusty, isolated world where normal labor and living standards don't apply. They often work every day of the week without overtime. Most live in small equipment rooms in the stables, with plywood walls, bare concrete floors and no running water. In Pomona, they sleep and cook on county property under Fire Department signs warning: "Use as Living Quarters and Cooking Prohibited."

Frank De Francis, who was credited with reviving racing in Maryland after he bought the Pimlico and Laurel race tracks, died in Miami at age 62. He had been hospitalized since suffering a heart attack in late June.