Canoga Park’s Hendrix Goes Wire to Wire for Win at Ventura Raceway

Canoga Park’s Rick Hendrix led wire to wire to win the U.S. Auto Club’s Western States Series 20-lap Three-Quarter Midget main event at Ventura Raceway on Saturday night.

Hendrix took advantage of his speed and the pole position to open a sizable lead en route to his first main-event win of the season before a crowd of 2,784.

By Lap 13, Hendrix was driving in lapped traffic and into some deep ruts in the corners that started to bounce his car around.

But Hendrix kept control of his car through the turns and the traffic while maintaining enough speed to claim the victory in 4 minutes 43 seconds.

Ventura’s Cory Kruseman had been gaining ground on Hendrix when a deep rut on Lap 18 threw him off course momentarily. He hung on to finish second, followed by Gary Schroeder of Burbank in third and Frank Deiny Jr. of Sylmar in fourth.

In the 30-lap Midget main event, Sleepy Tripp of Costa Mesa recorded his 135th USAC victory and second consecutive main-event win of the season at Ventura. Only seven of the 18 cars that started the race reached the finish.

Bob Davison of Running Springs took second, Ricky Gray of Sepulveda was third and Johnny Kaiser of Arcadia was fourth.

Hank Butcher of San Leandro and Wally Pankratz of Orange exchanged the lead four times before Butcher took the lead for good on the eight lap to win a 10-lap Midget heat race. Jordan Hermansader of Rancho Palos Verdes won the other Midget heat.

Ron Wade of Wilmington and Jason Jonkman of Fountain Valley each drove to wire-to-wire victories in Three-Quarter Midget eight-lap heat races. Jim Voitel of San Gabriel and Wiley Miller of Fullerton also were Three-Quarter Midget heat winners.

Deiny got the jump on Walt Johnson of Garden Grove in the first turn of the Three-Quarter Midget 10-lap semi-main event to win that race.

Robert Dolacki of La Puente held off Dennis Hart of Ventura to win the Midget 12-lap semi-main and qualify for the main event in that division.