VENTURA TURKEY NIGHT MIDGET GP – Part I
By noderel:
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LOS ANGELES – The 82nd running of the USAC Turkey Night Midget GP at the fifth-mile clay Ventura Raceway across a frontage road from the Pacific Ocean was Saturday, November 25 on a sunny day with temperature in the mid-60s. Practice night was Friday for both midgets and 360 sprint cars. Sprints ran heats and qualifying races for position and passing points to set the first five rows of Saturday's combined USAC/VRA 360 sprint cars 30-lap main. Midgets were divided into six groups of eight cars for hot laps and had four 10-lap sessions Friday until shortly after 9:00 pm. Grandstand attendance Friday was about 50% and a chilly wind followed sunset. The two series had 53 pre-entered midgets and 53 sprint cars. Some entrants in each division were not present, so actual car counts were 48 midgets and 48 sprints in the crowded pit area that utilized space between barns at the Ventura County Fairgrounds site.
One of the late midget entrants was Kyle Larson, 31, a racing superstar in numerous types of racing, who entered his own No. 1K Eagle (decade old) without a backup car. It was the only Eagle midget present. He won both USAC National Midget features November 17 (30-laps) and 19 (100-laps) at Placerville, where at age 13 he began his meteoric rise in racing. Kyle did not race in the two races at Merced November 21-22 so he could enjoy Thanksgiving with his family in Arizona. His parents were in the Ventura pits. His mom told me Kyle and his wife welcomed their third child, son Cooper, on December 31, 2022. He joins siblings Owen and Audrey.
Midgets practiced Saturday and qualified 48 cars from 4:09 to 4:42 pm. All grandstand seats sold out before race day and only SRO or pit passes were available Saturday. Larson tied for second fastest of 46 cars during Friday practice. He was the 27th driver to qualify Saturday and his time (12.313) held up for tenth quickest. It locked him into outside row five for the 98-lap feature. He did not have to finish in the top four in one of three 12-lap qualifying heats, or 15-lap semi-main. This year a 26-car field raced in the feature with no provisional starters. Oklahoma driver Ryan Timms, 17, was 12th to qualify and he set fast time of 12.059. The USAC Midgets track record of 11.675 by Johnny Cofer in 1995 still stands. Bespectacled Timms also was high-point driver in the sprints and led all 30-laps from the pole and received a beautiful Jim Naylor hand-made trophy.
Following the 30-lap sprint car race, Naylor met with drivers at the fourth turn and the decision was to reprep the entire track surface to cut down on dust. Promoter/track preparer Naylor mounted his grader and dug up the track all around and groomed it for the midget feature. The track prep work, included wheel packing, lasted about 45-minutes and paid off with an almost new track for the midget feature. There was exciting, close racing and passing throughout the 98-lap race.
The 98-lap TNGP feature had three leaders. Logan Seavey started second and led 25 laps. Timms, from the pole, pressed Seavey and led lap 26. Larson charged from tenth to seventh by lap 17. He was fifth on lap 19, fourth at lap 23, third a lap later, and first on lap 27 after his turn three inside-pass of Seavey. Larson could not run away from his pursuers and the race by lap 40 had four drivers (Larson, Seavey, Dyson Racing teammates Spencer Bayston and Carson Macedo) in close formation. P.5 was many lengths behind them. The race, which started at 9:04 concluded at 9:56, had nine yellow flags
TNGP rookie/rising sprint car star Corey Day, 17, started 12th and was second by lap 30. He turned 18 on November 28. Day, from Clovis, pressed Larson all the way to the lap 98 checkers and trailed by two lengths at the finish. Day earned the Don Basile Rookie of the race $500 cash award. His second place finish matched 2019 Basile rookie award winner Cannon McIntosh's second place. P. 5 this year will find Jacob Denney also listed on the TNGP program page listing the top five finishers for every race since the inaugural event in 1934. National Sprint Call Hall of Fame inductee Don Basile was inducted into his fifth motor-sports hall of fame in June 2023.
Sixteen of 26 starters finished and all were on the lead lap. Following the checkered flag, P. 3 Macedo took a hot lap into the north turn, jumped the cushion, hit the crash-wall, and flipped without injury. He walked to the infield ceremonies and congratulated Larson. Day parked his No. 4 Willie Kahne midget near Larson's No. 1K. Seavey parked the Abacus Racing No. 57 nearby prior to receiving the 2023 USAC National Midget championship award after Larson and Day received their recognition. Seavey sprayed champagne on the assembled crowd.
Larson posed for photos for the 30 to 40 photographers on the hastily-assembled stage that contained the perpetual Aggie Trophy topped by a bronzed Aggie-worn Stetson. The Aggie trophy has plaques listing all prior TNGP winners and thanks to Doug Stokes, Jim Naylor, and 2021 winning car owner Tom Malloy the names of all winning car owners back to 1934 are included on each plaque. The 2023 midget winner trophy this year was a beautiful hand-made quarter-scale replica of the No. 98 Agajanian roadster in which Parnelli Jones won the 1963 Indianapolis 500. It took Ventura promoter Jim Naylor months to construct the coveted trophy that Larson clearly prized. In fact, Larson said Naylor's beautiful hand-made TNGP trophies are a key reason he keeps returning to race in the Ventura TNGP. He said his TNGP winner trophies have prominent places in his trophy room.
With Larson entered in the 2024 Indy 500 by the McLaren team and having already passed his Indy rookie driving test, the Indianapolis winning car trophy might be prophetic for winning a “baby” Borg-Warner Trophy in the future. Even if he wins an Indy 500 in the future, an Indy Car career and Formula I racing are not in his plans according to his team. His racing passion is dirt track racing in sprint cars, midgets, and dirt late models. His growing two-year old High Level winged 410 ci sprint car series in partnership with his brother-in-law Brad Sweet and FloRacing.com, plus promoting the Chico (CA) quarter mile track will keep Kyle occupied if he ever retires from driving. Larson keeps his three midgets in Sacramento. His three-man crew, including Paul Silva, drove it to Ventura. Kyle flew from Arizona to Ventura.
As with a TNGP tradition dating back ten years (at the suggestion of photographer Albert Wong at Perris), Larson kissed the brim of the bronzed Stetson for photographers. J. C. Agajanian, Jr, who represented the Agajanian family on stage and at the 2:30 drivers meeting in the pit grandstand, reminded Kyle to kiss the Stetson which he did after his three prior TNGP triumphs. Larson also posed with the large symbolic check showing his name and the $10,000 amount he won. After final photos, Larson was walking to his ride back to the pits. I told Kyle his four TNGP victories rank second only to Ron Shuman, the eight-time winner from 1979-1993. I asked Kyle if he plans to surpass Shuman's eight TNGP triumphs. He replied with a sly smile, “I don't know. We'll see.”