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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| RUTHERFORD VISITS VENTURA
FOR IMCA SPRINT WIN by Gary Jacob |
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IMCA Sprint Cars, Street Stocks and Pony Stocks |
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Ventura, CA -July 24, 1999-- With SCRA enjoying an
off weekend, Troy Rutherford put a 360 motor into the Gardner
Motorsports entry that normally races with the 410 sprint cars and
drove it to a victory in the 30 lap IMCA Sprint Car main at Ventura
Raceway Saturday night. Rutherford has enjoyed a lot of success at
this track over the years and came from 11th starting to make his late
race pass around Jimmy Crawford for the win with Steve Conrad third.
Harvey Jones won the street stock main and Rick Engel the pony stock
main.
The 21 car IMCA sprint car field was split into three heat races and the wins went to Bill Welch, Rutherford and Crawford. Jeff Heaton won the B Main that set the final six spots in the 18 car main event. Ideal track conditions found the sprint cars running three distinct grooves on the small 1/4 mile clay oval. Dale Harwood and Michael Smith shared the front row for the main event and Harwood ran strong in the middle groove to set the early pace in his best 1999 effort. C and C Motorsports teammates Ronnie Case and Crawford charged into the 2-3 spots. Rutherford came from 11th starting to fifth in ten laps. Crawford used a turn 1 slide job to take the lead from Harwood and Case was able to follow him into second. Harwood quickly fell from contention. Gary Howard was now third ahead of Rutherford. Crawford had built a ten car length lead when Kenny White stalled in turn 1 after bicycling on lap 20. Rutherford quickly charged into the bottom groove on the restart and passed both Howard and Case to take over second. Fourth place Case tangled with Welch in turn 1 and the incident also collected Harwood and Heaton. Back under green, Crawford choose the outside groove and Rutherford went back to the bottom. Just as Rutherford switched to an outside run, Crawford bobbled in turn 2 and lost his momentum. Rutherford raced past for the win despite a final caution on lap 26 when Dana Crocker crashed in turn 3. Crawford ran second ahead of Steve Conrad, Howard, point leader Kevin Kierce, Smith, Chris Wakim and Greg Taylor. Summary IMCA Sprint Car Heat 1-Bill Welch. Heat 2-Troy Rutherford. Heat 3-Jimmy Crawford. B Main-Jeff Heaton. Main-Rutherford, Crawford, Steve Conrad, Gary Howard, Kevin Kierce, Michael Smith, Chris Wakim, Greg Taylor, Kenny White, Heaton, John Wright, Nathan Ellerton, Bob Moody, Rob Kershaw, Dana Crocker, Ronnie Case, Welch, Dale Harwood. |
