Eaton's Racing Career Back On Track

MONROE - Ron Eaton is back.

Back from comparative obscurity as a stock-car driver on the NASCAR Northwest Tour; back from a business setback that threatened his financial future and his reputation.

There is a correlation.

"I wasn't over the hill," Eaton said yesterday before qualifying his 1995 Chevrolet Monte Carlo for today's Coors Light Western Nationals 250 at Evergreen Speedway. "I had some business problems I had to handle."

The problems included charges that Eaton's body shop had defrauded automobile insurance companies.

"It took a long time to convince everybody that I fix the cars the way I want to fix them and not the way an insurance company tells me I'm supposed to fix them," Eaton said. "And they finally figured it out."

While he was doing his convincing, his driving career ebbed.

After averaging four Northwest Tour victories per year during the Tour's first seven seasons, the two-time series champion (1986 and 1988) went winless in 1992 and 1993. He had two wins last year and a runner-up finish in the first Evergreen 250 but was 17th in the final point standings.

Now, at 51, Eaton is in the midst of what could be his best NW Tour season ever. He is leading the point standings after 13 of the 17 scheduled races; he has four victories and nine top-five finishes.

"Business came first and then I went back to racing," Eaton said.

He went back in a big way, with two new Port City chassis

featuring the Monte Carlo silhouette and his own engine program. In the past, he had outside help preparing engines.

"It just kind of all fell together," Eaton said of the new arrangement.

He has had few mechanical problems this season. Three flat tires cost him a chance at a high finish at Yakima Speedway; a broken bolt on the crankshaft while he was running fifth dropped him to a 17th-place finish in the Tour's road race at Portland International Raceway.

Eaton said he hopes the engine formula he has established for today's race will be enough to overcome Garrett Evans, the most successful NW Tour driver ever.

"He's the guy to beat," Eaton said. In the two races at Evergreen this year, Eaton finished ahead of Evans in both by winning the season-opener in April and placing second June 3.

"The second time Garrett had the field covered, but he had a flat tire," Eaton said.

Evans, from Ardenvoir, Chelan County, won Tour titles in 1985 and 1989. He has the best winning percentage on this year's Tour - three victories in six starts. But his appearances have been limited in part because of his pursuit of the NASCAR Winston West championship.

Eaton, meanwhile, is proving that his age is no barrier to success on the Tour. He recalled the post-race condition of his top rivals in last year's 250 - winner Pete Harding, 44, and third-place Tobey Butler, 35.

"Both of them looked like warmed-over death and I didn't even work up a sweat," he said. "That's when I knew I was in good shape."

Based on this season, no one is questioning Eaton's shape.

Note

-- Chad Little of Spokane came back from an early-race accident to score his sixth NASCAR Busch Grand National Series win of the year in yesterday's Ford Credit 300 at South Boston (Va.) Speedway, moving into the series point lead.

NASCAR NW TOUR ----------------------------------- Points leaders (After 13 of 17 races)

1. Ron Eaton, Tacoma 2,044.

2. Gary Smith, Victoria 1,916.

3. Roger Habich, Snohomish 1,899.

4. Chris Cunningham, Bellevue 1,898.

5. Bill Lawrence, Kelowna 1,759.

6. Monte English, Port Angeles 1,740.

7. Lee Daily, Redmond 1,733.

8. Martin Rosler, Burien 1,721.

9. Rick Schultz, Spokane 1,707. 10. Jeff Krogh, Walla Walla 1,381.