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For Immediate Release
From: Ventura Raceway
(Oxnard, CA. 5/14/07) Ventura Raceway continues its 2007 season at its Ventura County Fairgrounds Facility this Saturday night May 19 with a full program of exciting open wheel racing. Along with our very popular VRA Sprints Cars, spectators will be treated to USAC Midgets, USAC/VRA Ford Focus Midgets, VRA Junior Focus Midgets and VRA Sport Compacts. These exciting classes will stage a night of open wheel racing that will keep you on the edge of your seats from the opening heats to the final feature events.
VRA Sprints return to action Saturday night after another great main event last week that saw Greg Taylor take the win over Rick Hendrix and Kevin Kierce. These three drivers battled all through the thirty lap feature with Hendrix leading until lap 27 when Taylor got around Hendrix on the high side taking the lead and securing his third win of 2007. Kierce finished third after Hendrix to maintain his season point’s lead over Taylor by a narrow 45 point margin. Other strong finishes were recorded by Clark Templeman III in fourth, Jimmy Crawford in fifth, Luis Espinoza in sixth and Dennis Rodriguez in seventh. All these drivers will be back to continue the exciting racing that has been the norm for the 2007 season.
USAC Midgets are the cars that made Ventura Raceway nationally famous in the early 1990’s when they ran the ESPN Thunder Series here. Jeff Gordon, Sleepy Tripp, Wally Pankratz, Jason Leffler, Billy Boat, Tony Stewart, Mike Bliss and a host of other drivers raced midgets here. Now a younger generation of up and coming stars are here tonight to race for the glory. Leading the USAC midgets into tonight’s action is point leader Scott Pierovich. He holds an 8 point advantage over second place runner, 2005 and 2006 series champion, Jerome Rodela. Other drivers in the top five in points include Matt Mitchell, Johnny Rodriguez and Chris Rahe. Other drivers scheduled to appear include long time front runner Robby Flock, last week’s winner at Hanford, Matt Streeter and a host of other outstanding midget competitors.
Robby Josette, who won his first ever USAC Ford Focus feature event last weekend at Hanford will lead the USAC/VRA Ford Focus Drivers into Saturday’s competition. He was the VRA Junior Focus champion in 2006 and has now turned 16 and has moved up to the adult Focus division. Nic Faas holds the point lead over Walt Johnson and Nick Carlson. Carlson took the win at Ventura on March 17, while Faas took the win there on April 7.
Our last adult class for this week will be the VRA Sport Compacts. So far in 2007 Joel Chavez has run hard and strong in his front wheel drive number 20 Acura, taking three feature wins. He leads the other drivers in this class into Saturday night, atop the point’s ladder. Other drivers who will be trying to catch him include 2006 champion Jack Hoyt, David Peterson, Mike Frazier and Randal Dougan.
Also appearing on the racing card this weekend is our VRA Junior Focus Midget Class Point leader Austin Smith took the win in this class last week with Justin Kierce taking second and opening night winner Alex Bowman in third. Rounding out the top five were Dakota Kershaw and Austin Mero. All these drivers will be back Saturday to continue their season long battle to see who will come out on top when the season ends in November.
Pit gates open at 12 noon with front gates opening at 3:30PM. Racing gets under way with warm-ups at 4:00 and racing at 5:30. Admission to this event is $14.00 for adults, $11.00 for seniors/military/juniors, $5.00 for kids 7-12 and kids 6 and under free. For more information call Ventura Raceway at (805) 985-5433.
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