By Dick Jordan
The USAC Western Midget Series returns to the Ventura (Calif.) Raceway Saturday night for a racing program augmented by the Western Ford Focus and Young Guns series. If past history is a guideline, forecasting a winner could be tough.
Nine different drivers have triumphed at the fifth-mile dirt track in the past three years. USAC National Champion Brad Kuhn won last year’s finale, while Matt Mitchell, Cory Kruseman and 2009 Western Champion Garrett Hansen also won 2009 races at Ventura. Josh Ford, Robby Josett and Nic Faas were 2008 Ventura Midget feature winners, while Troy Rutherford, Hansen and Chris Rahe all won in 2007.
Ventura has hosted a remarkable 328 USAC events in the past quarter-century and Hansen’s recent victories (8) put him third on the all-time Midget winners list behind Sleepy Tripp (18) and Billy Boat (13) in terms of track wins.
The series standings will certainly be revised after Saturday’s event, with USAC National drivers occupying the top-10 positions at present following three February National/Western combo races.
USAC WESTERN MIDGET SERIES POINT STANDINGS
1-Brad Sweet-207; 2-Bobby East-169; 3-Brad Loyet-155; 4-Darren Hagen-155; 5-Tracy Hines-155; 6-Bryan Clauson-149; 7-Dave Darland-148; 8-Chad Boat-139; 9-Jerry Coons Jr.-136; 10-Mike Hess-117.