Dave and I headed up to Ventura for the VRA Sprints, VRA Midgets, IMCA Modifieds, Focus Midgets, Jr. Focus Midgets & Go Karts held at the Ventura Raceway this Saturday night. Its been ages since I was at a real honest to gawd dirt track for Sprint Cars and the like. What fun…aside from dodging flying dirtballs that is.
The races themselves are a bit more exciting that those done on a paved race track. Why? Many reasons actually, chief is that the dirt track even though prepared for racing by grading, wetting and such still has irregularities such as pot holes and bumps that change with each lap as the soil is compacted by the racers. Each lap isn’t the same as the one prior due to these ever changing track conditions.
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- 6 Car Pile up
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- Modified Stock Car Racing
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- Modified Stock Car Racing in Curve #2
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- warning
With these changing track conditions you are really putting a driver to the test. He can’t expect the same conditions each lap and as such the race really becomes about who is the better driver, not just who has the fastest car. (Fast cars still are factor so you can’t dismiss that from the equation). What does happen is some pretty colossal spin outs, roll overs and pile ups when the track changes faster than the drivers can adjust.
OF course LA traffic what it is we missed out on the VRA Sprint cars. Who’da thought that allowing 3 hours for 90 miles wouldn’t be enough! More pics in my “Ventura Raceway 9/17/11” set on flickr.
Fun! Yay Markus!