VINTAGE OVAL RACERS on the Rise; Despite the turmoil that has fractured Indy car racing in recent years, some good things have happened, and the preservation of "America's Racing Heritage'' is one.

Vintage sports car racing, as showcased at Monterey and other historic race weekends, has led not only to the restoration of many wonderful old race cars, but to increased interest in the eras those cars-and the people who raced them-represent. With their focus on road racing, though, such events have had little opportunity to showcase the oldest and most historic form of American motorsports: oval track open-wheel racing.

When Indy car racing returned to Southern California with the opening of California Speedway, racer-turned-chief steward Wally Dallenbach thought it would be a wonderful touch to include a parade of old Indy cars at the track. He contacted Victory Lane Motorsports Marketing, part of the Northern California company that publishes Victory Lane and Vintage Oval Racing magazines.

A call went out to the vintage racing community and owners of historic Indy cars took several of their cars to Fontana. Eight years later, the Historic Champ/Indy Car Association has a registry of some 220 cars, with at least 130 of them maintained in running order.

Under the banner of America's Racing Heritage, the historic cars have become part of the annual Indy car racing weekends at California, Michigan and Milwaukee, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway also includes vintage Brickyard racers each May as part of activities surrounding the 500.

This year the historic Indy cars made their debut as the headline act at a vintage racing weekend when Phoenix Interna-tional Raceway opened its 40th anniversary celebration with its first Phoenix Historic Grand Prix. HSR-West vintage sports car races on the PIR infield road course and a Kruse collector car auction in a huge tent pitched behind the grandstands outside Turn Two were part of the inaugural event. The track hopes to make this a major annual event on the vintage racing and collector car calendar.

The desert oval opened in early 1964 with a 100-mile USAC race. Parnelli Jones was on the pole with a lap at 114.822 mph in an Offy-powered roadster, but A.J. Foyt led the first and every lap of the race. The only rear-engine car in the race completed just four laps, but the season marked a turning point in Indy racing history: When the USAC cars and stars returned to Phoenix that fall, Lloyd Ruby won a 200-miler in a rear-engine racer.

Indy car racing has experienced many such turning points in its history. The early years of that history were represented at PIR by two cars dating to the 1920s.