CHEAP-GAS SPOTTER POSTS PRICES ONLINE FOR BENEFIT OF OTHERS.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LITTLEROCK - As Joe Morris drives to and from substitute teaching jobs in Pearblossom, Littlerock or Lake Los Angeles, he keeps a pen and paper handy.

After all, Morris is a man with a mission: spying out gasoline prices.

``This is almost my business,'' Morris said one day last week, standing in the shade of a local gasoline station and reeling off an synopsis of pricing differences between Arco, Chevron, Ultramar and independent stations.

Morris is one of the chief correspondents for www.LosAngelesGasPrices.com, an Internet site in which motorists post the addresses and prices of cheap - and expensive - gas stations.

Known on the Web site simply as Joe - and entitled, because he has been so prolific, to a logo of a tiny green car next to his moniker - Morris has posted close to 500 prices since March, nearly all in Palmdale and the eastern Antelope Valley.

Morris' moniker is usually at the top of the price list because two stations on 90th Street East have the lowest - or among the lowest - prices in Los Angeles County.

There is no pay for posting prices, but spotters - as the Web site's operators call them - qualify for raffle prizes (an electric scooter is one). The top contributors also get their monikers posted on the Web site.

Morris is now No. 3, behind another Los Angeles County motorist and a motorist from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. In the No. 4 spot is a man from Saskatchewan.

``It's a lot like a little game now, who can accrue the most points,'' Morris said.

The Los Angeles online site is part of a system covering much of the United States and Canada, created last year by a pair of Minneapolis-St. Paul Web site developers. Jason Toews and Dustin Coupal launched their first Web site in June 2000, and now have pages for some 120 cities and counties.

``This is kind of a second job for us,'' Toews said last week. ``It's supposed to be a part-time job but we seem to be putting a lot of time into it.''

Toews said he and Coupal created the Web pages and a nonprofit organization called GasBuddy Organization because gasoline prices can vary by 20 cents at stations a few blocks apart, and there's no easy way for motorists to find that out. The Web pages are supported by sponsors' advertising.

LosAngelesGasPrices.com gets 4,000 to 5,000 visits per day, Toews estimated. It was so busy, they first split off Orange County and Riverside County and last week created a separate page for San Bernardino County.

``People really think it's an excellent idea,'' Toews said. ``We're kind of surprised the gas station owners seem to be pretty interested in it, especially the gas stations with low prices.''

At Super Store 6 on 90th Street East, where last week cars moved in and out from the pump lines for unleaded at 6 cents less than at the cheapest Palmdale stations, owner Sam Hannoun wasn't aware his business is a regular Web site star.

Hannoun says he sells gasoline at his cost and has been doing so since prices skyrocketed last spring, as a way to draw more customers to his convenience store.

``More customers come in the store, some of them buy candy, stuff like that,'' Hannoun said.

Morris came across www.LosAngelesGasPrices.com in March, while looking around the Internet for road construction information.

Ever since he was a teen-ager, he said, he has tried to keep an eye out for which stations sell the cheapest gas.

Now, as he drives back and forth in his four-door Hyundai Sonata to jobs at nine schools in the Keppel and Wilsona school districts, he keeps track of the prices at the stations he passes.

Morris estimates that 90 percent of the prices he has posted come from Palmdale and the eastern Antelope Valley, but he will also post prices he sees on other travels, like a recent trip to Oxnard.

``I just have a piece of paper that I jot down the notes,'' he said.

At night, when the Web site is less busy, he posts the prices he has found.

``I'm on it about every single day,'' Morris said.

While some motorists will drive miles to get a gas bargain, Morris won't drive out of his way.

``If somebody finds a cheap price, and I'm going in that direction, I'll use it,'' Morris said.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color in AV edition) Gas price spotter Joe Morris estimates that 90 percent of the prices he has posted are in Palmdale and the eastern Antelope Valley.

(2 -- ran in SAC edition only) Joe Morris is a correspondent for an Web site listing competitively priced gas stations - www.losangelesgasprices.com.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer