3 MOPAR .25 MIDGET EVENTS AT SANTA MARIA WILL COUPLE WITH FORD FOCUS EVENTS

USAC Point .25 midgets

By Dick Jordan

Santa Maria (Calif.) Speedway will welcome the USAC Mopar .25 Midgets to its one-tenth-mile banked clay oval on three occasions in 2011, opening the door to continued development of the region for USAC’s developmental racing series.

April 9 will find the Mopar .25 Midgets in their debut on the track built in 2009, with the USAC West Coast 360 Sprint Cars, Ford Focuses and Focus Young Guns competing on the 1/3-mile dirt oval. A similar program is planned for July 30.

On October 15 the Mopar .25 Midgets will share the spotlight with the Ford Focuses and Focus Young Guns, the Mopar .25 Midgets again competing on the 1/10-mile oval and the two Focus series on the 1/3-mile.

Participants from existing USAC Mopar .25 Midget operations as well as others will be welcomed at Santa Maria, the first Western dirt oval to host USAC-sanctioned Mopar .25 Midget events.

“Chris Kearns and his Santa Maria facility have been great partners with USAC and we look forward to this new opportunity for USAC’s participants,” says USAC Developmental Director James Spink.

“It’s a natural extension of our Western operations,” adds USAC Western Developmental Coordinator Mike McCluney. “We are pleased to have expanded our series to include the Pacific Northwest in 2011 and this new dirt-track opportunity is also a welcomed addition to our overall racing demographic.”