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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| SPRINT
CAR EXTRAVAGANZA AT VENTURA by Norm Bogan |
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This has been a season of shorter fields in sprint car racing, while support classes are mostly some form of stock cars. Well on a beautiful spring afternoon at the “Best Little Racetrack in America”, the agenda called for two classes of sprint cars and the fans were thrilled. Arriving at the track in the early afternoon,
everywhere you went in the pits it was sprint cars.
Each team has their favorite pit spot and reasons for picking
that area. It may be
the size of their hauler making it advantageous to queue up in the
overflow parking area. Some
prepare to stage back in the stable area, where the myth is that
additional horsepower may be acquired through osmosis.
Others prefer to be right behind the grandstands for two
reasons. First, their pit area is visible for fans and family who line
the fence separating the pit area from the grandstands and second,
this location is closest to race staging, so the crew doesn’t have
to push the car as far. On hand for the event were twenty-seven
USAC/CRA 410 sprint cars along with twenty-five VRA Senior Class 360
sprinters. The 410 cars
would run against the clock to establish their qualifying position
for the evening, while the 360 cars trust their fate to a pill draw
and then take their finish in the heat races and invert the top six. Gary W. Howard took the #84 Jack Keene Special
to a quick time of 12.070 seconds on this tight quarter-mile (maybe,
fifth-mile) oval. The
four heat race winners were J. Hicks, Mike Kirby, Troy Rutherford
and Damion Gardner. Now to explain the VRA Senior Class, all
drivers must be forty-five or over to compete.
Many have run in other open-wheel competitions in the past,
but now find it tougher to vie with the young gun teenagers in the
VRA Pro Class. As
seniors, they get the discount; only having to run twenty lap
features instead of the usual thirty-lap shows for the youngsters. Veteran sprint car driver, Rip Williams, now in his
twenty-seventh year of racing sprints, was running before some of
his competitors were born. At
forty-eight, he could now join the VRA Seniors and his biggest fan,
Ronnie Case, offered his regular VRA car to Rip for the evening.
Williams struggled early to get the car fired and keep it
running, eventually having to restart at the back after pushing off
for “A” Main and stalling.
He came from twenty-third position into the top ten, and then
spun on the last lap to finish sixteenth. After a track massage, the 410 cars lined up on
the racing surface for their thirty- lap feature.
Jordan Hermansader moved from the outside pole into the early
lead until lapped traffic let Williams slip by and take the point.
From there on out it was Rip in front, with Ostling advancing
to second, Sheridan climbed from eleventh to collect third, Gardner
sprinted from sixteenth to fourth and Hermansader settling for
fifth. One of the amazing occurrences for this tight
little track is running green, white, checkers, in other words,
thirty laps without a caution.
There was much side-by-side racing and jockeying for
position, but also good clean racing.
This evening’s show was a real treat for the hard-core
aficionados. Ventura continues to generate great action, because of the close racing and good track preparation. How many other tracks offer the opportunity to walk along the sandy beach on a pleasant spring afternoon and then cross the street to witness over fifty sprint cars provide the best racing on the West Coast? |
