Curtis Takes Mini Stock Main Event at Ventura

After an official ruling took away a figure 8 main-event victory from Gary Curtis, the Camarillo driver came back to win the 40-lap Mini Stock main event at Ventura Raceway on Saturday night.

Curtis, who had also been stripped of an oval-track main event win Friday night, held off Ventura’s Chris Raschke and Moorpark’s Rock Ake Jr. to register his 11th oval track main event victory of the season.

Mike Lorenzo of Tulare won the 30 lap Mini Sprint main event. Lawrence Coelho of Tulare and Monty Contente of Stratford finished second and third.

Rick Carstens of Fresno ran away from the pack to easily win the 25-lap Modified Midget main event. Jordan Hermansader of Palos Verdes was a distant second, with Shawn Kautz of Lancaster third.

Addison Woods of Oxnard claimed his first figure 8 main event victory of the season, thanks to a rough-driving penalty assessed to Curtis.

Ake, the figure 8 points leader, had led the entire six-lap race until Curtis clipped Ake’s bumper on the final turn while not backing off the throttle to force Ake to spin out and finish third.

Forrest Nickerson of Santa Paula took second with Curtis being dropped to fourth place by the officials.

Mini Sprint eight-lap heat race winners were Tommy Horton of Lancaster and Mark Pledger of Visalia. Kautz and Carstens were six-lap heat race winners in the Modified Midgets.

A pair of Ventura drivers, Marty Desbrow and Billy Floyd, won the Mini Stock eight lap heat races.

Trophy Dash winners were Monty Faccinto of Hanford in the Mini Sprints and Curtis in the Mini Stocks.