Scott, 40, Is Hoping to Be More Than an Old Ironman of the Sea : Triathlon: Former record-holder, mounting a comeback, will compete in Performing Arts event in Mission Viejo.

Forty-year-old Dave Scott, a six-time Hawaii Ironman Triathlon champion, is making a comeback. Just don’t mention his name in the same breath with those out-of-breath over-40 athletes.

“George Foreman is an out-of-shape publicity hound,” Scott said of the former heavyweight boxing champ. “Mark Spitz was premature to think he could make the ’92 U.S. Olympic swim team. The times he was posting in his comeback, there were some 12-year-olds who could beat him.

“Personally, I think those guys were an embarrassment.”

So how was Scott’s first race on the comeback trail?

“It was painful and embarrassing,” he chuckled.

Scott, who lives and trains in Boulder, Colo., is preparing for the Ironman in October, his first since 1989. Part of his tune-up will be Sunday’s Orange County Performing Arts Center Triathlon at Lake Mission Viejo, and he hopes it won’t be a repeat of his comeback debut.

The Gulf Coast Triathlon on May 8 was the first race for Scott since June of 1991, when he raced in Nice, France. The comeback race in Panama City, Fla., turned out to be a big pain in the . . .

After finishing the swimming portion of the race in good shape, Scott got on his new bike and stayed among the leaders until he suffered severe cramps . . . in his gluteus maximus.

“I broke the cardinal rule and changed equipment too soon before the race,” Scott said. “I was fine out of the water, but on the new bike, I started cramping around the 35th mile to the point that I had to stop sometimes.”

Scott finished the race, and although it was disappointing, there were some positives.

“I was fairly pleased with the swim and I was still in the hunt at the 12- to 13-mile mark on the bike,” Scott said. Still, the road back will not be easy.

A nagging knee injury and lack of motivation pushed him away from the sport as he eased into semi-retirement, spending more time with his wife, Anna, and his sons, Ryan, 4 1/2, and Drew, 3 1/2.

But retirement was the furthest thing from Scott’s mind when he finished the 1989 Ironman, a race that includes a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, followed by a marathon run.

In the ’89 race, Scott shattered his Ironman record by 18 1/2 minutes, but he finished second behind Mark Allen. Allen finished the race in 8 hours 9 minutes 14 seconds, breaking away from Scott in the 24th mile of the run. Scott finished 58 seconds behind Allen.

“When I finished second in the Ironman, I thought I would be back in ‘90,” Scott said. “But my knee wasn’t strong enough. Soon, a one-month layoff became two months, then it was six months and that turned into a year . . .

“I used to tell one of my friends that I didn’t want to be racing when I turned 40,” Scott joked. “ ‘Those old guys are slow.’ ”

Now, Scott is intrigued at how far he can push himself. With his rehabilitated knee and new dedication to training, Scott wants to find out how close he can get to his prime form. But he’s not making any predictions about the triathlon at Lake Mission Viejo.

“To expect to win in Orange County would be the furthest thing from my mind,” Scott said. “It will be interesting to see where I stand with some of the gorillas of the short-course races.”

Included in the men’s field are Spencer Smith, who won the 1993 World Championship, Brad Kearns, who won the Orange County Performing Arts Center Triathlon in 1990 and ‘91, and the 1993 Orange County runner-up Andy Carlson.

The winner of this year’s race--which features a 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bike race, and 10-kilometer run--will win a Mazda Miata. The top three finishers will qualify for the U.S. team at the Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg, Russia.

But Scott’s ultimate challenge will be the Ironman in Hawaii.

“Conditions are always horrendous in Hawaii, so you have to focus mentally to do well,” Scott said. “I think I still have that mental ability.”

Scott grew up in Davis and attended UC Davis where he played water polo. The hot, sometimes windy, agricultural plains with the nearby mountains and Lake Berryessa proved to be ideal training grounds for Scott.

“In Hawaii, you have hours of relentless conditions that wear on you mentally,” Scott said. “I spent hundreds of days that replicated that at Davis. I never found the Ironman as mind-numbing of an experience as some other people have described it.

“I think the excitement of doing it again will be an awakening for me.”

That awakening takes its next step Sunday, and you can sense Scott hopes for even more when October arrives.

“I don’t think the other competitors will fear me much because, hey, I am 40,” Scott said. “But that’s my excuse, too.

“If I go to Hawaii and break nine hours, people will say ‘Well, you got the masters record.’ If I have an 8:40, people will still think that’s great, but say, ‘Well, you are still slower than your old record pace.’

“Sure George Foreman had some success, but he still wasn’t the best in his comeback. If I can finish the Ironman around my own record of 8:10, that will really open some eyes.”