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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
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THE
LAST RESORT by Norm Bogan |
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Many fans spend Saturday with family activities
and then migrate toward Seaside Park in the late afternoon for an
evening of racing. Well,
this is what normal people do, but I could be assumed to be somewhat
abnormal. Often, I am
on the road as the Saturday morning sun is rising, arriving at the
selected venue around mid-day.
Why so early you ask? The
answer is that old habits are hard to break.
For a number of years I have felt it necessary to see the
teams unload the haulers, not that I am much help.
I am good at prognosticating, that’s a fancy word for bench
racing! Actually, the
hours between a team’s arrival at the speedway and the cars going
onto the track can be the best time to talk with the crews and
drivers. A relaxed
atmosphere exists with lots of friendly banter between the teams. The racers are more open, tending to be more restrained in a
press conference. When personal commitments dictates a delayed
start for the Saturday outing, the venue closer to home gains more
consideration. When
that venue happens to be your favorite racetrack, then the decision
is “a piece of cake”, to “Go Racing”. All this leads me once again to “the best
little dirt track in America”. Ventura Raceway.
Early conversation recapped the VRA Pro and Senior Sprint
features from the previous week.
Both features went flag to flag without a caution, nearly
unheard of on this competitive little bullring.
Racer’s bull sessions gave praise to seventy-one years old,
Ron Butler, who collected his first VRA Senior feature.
Descriptions tell of Butler making his last lap charge around
four or five racecars to grab the lead and the victory.
Ron has had a very colorful career, running his first race in
1949, before many of his “Senior” competitors were born. The evening’s agenda included the VRA Pro
Sprints, USAC Western States Midgets and VRA Dwarf cars, both Pro
and Senior classes. Thirty-three
sprinters headlined the program, joined by sixteen midgets, eleven
Pro Dwarfs and twelve Senior Dwarf cars to make up the cast for
tonight’s drama. Ed Niedzwiecki and Mike Sweeney captured the Senior Dwarf heats, while John Lynch and Thomas Velasquez collecting the Pro heats. The two USAC Midget heats were gathered in by Steve Paden and Robbie Flock, while the four VRA Pro Sprint heats saw Luis Espinoza, Blake Miller, Oren Prosser Jr. and rookie Derek Buckley as the victors. The VRA Sprint Semi saw veteran racer, Richard McCormick aboard the Hammer #55 car claim the spoils as Steve Chuhaloff, Mark Weitzman and Kevin Kierce secured transfers to the “A” Main. After some manicuring of the track surface, the
VRA Senior Dwarfs attacked the clay oval and Chris Millar took
advantage of early leader Ed Niedzwiecki’s bobble to gather in the
victory, with Niedzwiecki as runner up and Mike Sweeney in the show
position. Chris Taylor parlayed a second row start to
grab the brass ring in the VRA Pro Dwarf feature, closely pursued by
the Lippert brothers, who had a family feud with slide jobs on each
other. Chuck ended up second and Marc third, followed by point
leader Brian Saxton and John Lynch completing the top five. Now, it was time for thirty laps of USAC
Midgets. Garrett Hansen
and Dallen McKenney started on the front of the field, but starting
third was Ryan Kaplan, who jumped past the front row duo and quickly
assumed the lead, not to be relinquished.
Following Ryan to the checkers were Jerome Rodela, Hansen,
Wally Pankratz and Steve Paden. Thirty laps of VRA Pro Sprints made up the
evening’s finale. On
the front row were multi-time winners, Luis Espinoza and Chris
Wakim, but victory circle experience didn’t pay off this evening
as both Luis and Chris ended up watching from the infield.
It was a good night for the back markers, as Greg Taylor came
from 13th and Steve Conrad came from 12th,
with third place Kevin Kierce starting twentieth and last.
Tom Hendricks put on an impressive drive all-night and
finished fourth followed by new point leader, Blake Miller. Sometimes we travel to faraway tracks, but
often it is just around the corner.
The interesting item is that we meet new people, both racers
and fans. Each venue has unique qualities that attract us and of
course, there is a variety of racing classes for us to experience. |
