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KRUSEMAN SUPER AS SUB by Robert Mayson |
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September 9, 2007...Subbing for an injured Tony Jones, defending series
champion Cory Kruseman, Ventura, Calif. jumped into the Alexander Trucking / La
Villa Restaurant #No. 4 DRC and won the 30-lap Lucas Oil USAC/CRA main event
Saturday at Ventura Raceway.
Kruseman, who had been driving for his own team this season, elected to park his car in order to help the Alexander Team after Jones suffered a broken collarbone last week at the Perris Auto Speedway. Even before the announcement was officially made on Wednesday, Kruseman's familiarity with the team, as well as the Ventura Raceway, made him the obvious replacement for the series point-leader. "I feel bad for Tony Jones and I know what he's going through right now," said Kruseman after gathering his fourth CRA win of the season. "The Alexander's are a great group of people and when they called me last Tuesday I wanted to help them any way I could. We've had a lot of fun together in the past and it was just great that everything went our way tonight." Last week's feature winner David Cardey of Riverside, Calif., shared the front row with Rodney Argo for the start of the race with Kruseman lined-up in the seventh spot. Cardey's Glen Crossno owned / ITI Performance No. 83 Bullet went on to lead Argo by less than a car-length at the end of the opening lap. Mike Spencer entered the evening trailing Jones by 157 championship points and was looking to take a significant bite out of his point lead. Spencer's hopes quickly changed after contact between Cardey and Scotty Weir left Weir were parked in turn-two directly in front of him on the second lap. Also left with nowhere to go was fast time qualifier Garrett Hansen, who slammed into Spencer and Weir. The mishap eliminated all three cars and relegated Spencer to a 19th-place finish. Cardey and Argo continued to fight for lead after the restart, while Kruseman patiently worked his way to the forward. After passing Rickie Gaunt for third on the sixth lap, Kruseman almost instantly closed-in on the leaders to make it a three-way battle for the lead. Even though he appeared to be faster than the two cars in front, Kruseman conservatively waited until the 18th circuit for his opportunity to move into the lead. "I just really wanted to make sure that we finished because the whole purpose for me driving the car was to get points for the team," Kruseman later admitted. "I really only had one close call the whole night and that was when I went three-wide down the back-straight with Greg Taylor and Rickie Gaunt. Even though I felt I had the line, I elected to slow down and let them go before we got to the corner just to protect everything. As it turned out, I ended up getting run into from behind." Once in the lead, nothing seemed to slow "The Kruser", except for a number of late caution flags. Most notably, one for fourth-place Gaunt, who flipped three laps from the finish after contact with the turn-one wall. Gaunt was not hurt. Putting together a spectacular drive from the 19th starting spot, Danny Sheridan, Santa Maria, Calif. had moved his Kittle Plumbing / Pace Electronics No.18 Stinger into the second spot prior to Gaunt's flip. Kuseman pulled away from Sheridan after the restart and looked to be on his way to a comfortable win until fourth-place Argo Spun during the white-flag lap. Sheridan took advantage of a slight miscue by Kruseman exiting turn-four on the restart as the green and white flags waved. As a result, Sheridan was able to carry more speed along the back-straight than Kruseman. Working hard to beat Kruseman to the turn-three cushion, Sheridan simply ran out of racetrack entering turn-four and was fortunate to be able to keep Cardey in the third position. Sheridan did, however, received Hard-Charger honors for the race. "I knew we were both running on the top, and I was afraid of the slide-job on the restart so I was trying to get a nice run off the bottom (coming down for the green flag). Unfortunately, I actually got down too low and hit some mud with my left front tire," Kruseman explained. "Nobody should have been too surprise with what I was doing because we had the same restart twice before and everyone knew that I was going to run the bottom in turns one and two, and move right to the top in turn-three. If anyone wanted to pass me they were going to have to figure out a way other than driving around the outside of me." Cardey's teammate, Tyler Brown of Norco, CA, started 18th and finished an impressive fourth. In addition to winning the race, Kruseman also owned the Agromin Soil No. 21 Bullet that Michael Trimble of San Jose, Calif., drove to a fifth-place finish. |
