Motor Sports : Season Openers at Area Tracks : Midget Division Schedule Puts Season Back on Track : Ventura Raceway: Tripp aims to become the winningest driver in USAC history in the first main event.

Ventura Raceway will showcase its quarter-mile, dirt-oval oceanside track to the nation tonight at 6 on the ESPN television network when the 1991 Coors Light Racing Series opens.

It will feature more than 50 racing events through November.

The United States Auto Club’s Western States Series Midget and three-quarter Midget racers will headline action tonight and the following three Saturday nights in April with the ESPN series “Saturday Night Thunder.”

With a win in the main event, defending Western States Midget champion Sleepy Tripp of Costa Mesa would become the winningest driver in USAC history, passing the late Rich Vogler. Tripp tied Vogler’s 131 career victories last week with a win at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale.

Western States three-quarter Midget champion Jay Drake of Valencia will defend his title against last year’s runner-up, Cory Kruseman of Ventura, who won the first main event of the season at Oildale last week.

“I’m real happy with my first year of racing in the (three-quarter Midget) last year, but Ventura is my home track and I want to get off to a good start,” Kruseman said. “We’re going for the championship this year.”

Overall, there will be 11 USAC events throughout the season.

As it has for the past five years, the stock-car series will provide the bulk of the racing, beginning April 19 and continuing almost every Friday night throughout the season of 25 racing dates.

The series features racing in Street Stock, Mini Stock, and Modified Mini Stock classes, the latter a new category that will allow each division to have a week off every third week of the season.

The 1990 Street Stock oval track champion, Jim Powell, Jr., an 18-year old high school senior from Cypress who won the championship on his first try, is the only driver who may not be back to defend his title. He plans to move up to a NASCAR Pro Stock series.

Jim Firsich of Port Hueneme decided that he would put off his summer fishing once again and defend his Street Stock figure-eight title while also attempting to gain the oval-track championship.

Mini Stock oval-track champion Marty Desbrow of Ventura dominated that class last season.

“Nobody has won a championship two years in a row and I would really like to be the first one to do it this year,” Desbrow said.

Camarillo’s Richard Webster won the Mini Stock figure-eight championship in an unconventional way last year: in borrowed cars.

This year Webster will be back for the oval and figure-eight events. He has rebuilt his own car this time, a Pinto he drove to the 1988 oval track championship. However, it could be difficult for Webster to win a season points championship with his other racing interests. Webster won the Baja off-road championship last year in a Toyota.

“I’m going to pick some of what I feel are the five or six best races at Ventura and just go for the win and not the points this year,” Webster said. “The rest of the time I’m not driving, Randy Bingham (of Camarillo) will drive the car.”

The remainder of the 50-event schedule will run on various Saturdays and there will be a repeat of the Motocross/Class 10 Desert Buggies series in which more than 500 riders participated last season.

Track improvements this year include higher banking and widening of the turns, an expanded pit area and additional track lighting.