From Dick Jordan
Saturday’s “ARP Fall Classic” USAC races at Ventura, Calif., which have fallen victim to weather, may be rescheduled for Friday night, November 26 at the 1/5-mile dirt oval. If rescheduling is achieved, the event will include the USAC Mopar Western Midgets, Western Ford Focus and Western Focus Young Guns but will NOT include National points.
Discussions between USAC, Ventura Raceway and the event sponsors are continuing in an attempt to reschedule the event.
Due to travel plans already solifified by teams competing in the USAC National series, it was considered not in the best interest of those teams to extend the season beyond Thursday night’s scheduled “Turkey Night Grand Prix” at Irwindale, Calif.
In order to conduct the event, the pit area and raceway facility will have to be made accessible to teams and fans. The major problem facing Ventura Raceway is the fact that the entire outer pit area has been under construction for over a month by the City of Ventura and may not be able to be prepared if too much rain occurs this weekend. All efforts will be made to make the necessary preparations to hold the event. An announcement as to the rescheduling of this event will be made by 2:00 PM PST on Tuesday November 23.
If the race can be held it will retain its $10,000-to-win first place prize, but the remainder of the purse will be adjusted to reflect the fact that the race will no longer be a USAC National Midget event.
“We at USAC, in concert with race organizer Jim Naylor, have explored numerous options for rescheduling and we feel this would be the best scenario for all concerned,” said USAC Vice President/Operations Director Jason Smith. “We salute Jim and his staff for their diligent work to try to make this reschedule a reality.
It is the desire of all parties concerned in the running of this event that we are able to hold the event on Friday the 26th. Please watch for an announcement on venturaraceway.com, SCRA Fan.com and USACracing.com Tuesday for the final decision on the status of the event.