Taking the Wheel : Kruseman Picks Up Where Late Stepdad Left Off

Cory Kruseman’s drive for five, unsettling at times for his mother, doesn’t seem to bother him.

Perhaps it should. The number 5 encircles Kruseman like a dirt oval racetrack, sometimes with eerie coincidence.

Kruseman, a 22-year-old Ventura resident, is in his fifth season as a driver on the USAC three-quarter Midget series. He is fifth in the series’ points standings after finishing fifth last season.

Kruseman’s season high for victories was five in 1991, most of any driver that season on the TQ tour.

The walls of Kruseman’s home are covered with photographs of Ron Kruseman, who became Cory’s stepfather when he was 5. The year was 1975.

Ron also raced TQs, also for five years, and with a No. 5 decal on his car.

Far more than five pictures of Ron Kruseman are on display. But the largest hangs on the wall at the end of the hall--a 20-by-16-inch framed color shot of Ron preparing to hot-lap his car at Imperial Raceway in El Centro on a sunny afternoon in March, 1984.

“That picture was taken,” Kruseman says, pausing to estimate, “probably five minutes before he was killed.”

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Renee Kruseman took the loss of her husband hard. She turned to professional counseling to help ease her grief. Today, she acknowledges the thought of losing her only child under similar circumstances is unbearable.

But Renee didn’t try to stop Cory from racing, although friends and family tried endlessly to persuade her to do exactly that.

The loss of Ron, who meant so much to his stepson that Cory assumed his surname, was deeply painful for mother and son.

But giving up racing would have made matters worse.

“I have so many people come up and ask me, ‘How can you let Cory go out and do something that took his dad away?’ ” Renee said. “And my answer is: ‘I don’t let Cory do anything. He goes out and does what he wants.’ Racing is his whole life. Because the Lord took his dad away is no reason to stop that.”

And so, Renee didn’t throw up any roadblocks. There was only one condition: Avoid 5 at every turn.

“She puts stuff together and figures that 5 is a bad-luck number,” Kruseman said. “She doesn’t want me to have No. 5. She doesn’t like to finish fifth in a race. And she doesn’t want me to finish fifth in points.”

Kruseman will try to improve matters tonight when the TQs make their first appearance of the season at Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. The race is the 12th of 23 scheduled events this season.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to pick up where Ron left off,” Kruseman said. “It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do but have never really been able to afford. I’ve lost a lot of sponsors because of the economy crunch. It takes everything I have.”

In nine starts this season, Kruseman has won only one main event, a victory at Ventura Raceway in April. He has not finished fifth in a race this season, although he has finished fourth twice among five-- gulp --top-five-- gulp --finishes. With 225 points, Kruseman is 75 behind leader Scott Hansen of Simi Valley.

“To be honest, I think (racing) is a great deal of luck,” he said. “Last year, we had three flat tires, we broke a crankshaft, we tipped over twice.”

Kruseman’s long-range goal is to move to stock-car racing on paved tracks--after winning a TQ championship to honor Ron. He came close in 1990, finishing second in points to close friend Jay Drake of Val Verde.

Drake, a two-time TQ champion and now a top rookie competitor with the USAC full Midget series, was with Kruseman that day in El Centro nine years ago. Kruseman, a mischievous teen, and Drake, whose father, Mike, raced against Ron Kruseman, wandered from the grandstand to roam the accompanying fair while their fathers prepared to race.

Kruseman remembers hearing the siren of an ambulance. “I didn’t pay any attention to it,” he said. “But then (Drake’s) sister came and said, ‘Cory, you’re wanted at the front gate.’

“I said, ‘Ron crashed, right?’ I made some kind of smart-assed comment like, ‘Not again!’ ”

It was the last time. Six hours later Ron, 40, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital because of a head injury. He is believed to have been the first driver to die while driving a TQ.

Understandably, the tragedy made Kruseman, already involved in racing motorcycles and go-karts, take a hard look down the road ahead.

“I never thought it would come to that,” he said. “One, you never think it is going to happen to you and, two, nobody had ever been killed in a TQ before. I lost a little bit of interest, but I picked it up about three years later when I turned 16.”

Renee’s initial misgivings admittedly were borne out of fear of reliving the tragedy again. But she realized a racer is a racer is a racer.

“Cory was all that I had left and I was wanting more and more of him than a mother is supposed to want from their child,” she said. “(But) a psychologist said, ‘Hey, you have to let this boy grow up and be his own person.’ I tried to get away from it, but then I knew I had to get this kid to a racetrack.”

Kruseman spent two years racing stock cars at Ventura before joining the USAC series for the last half of 1989. Ever since, he has raced with Ron’s name on his car.

And Renee’s.

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Before each race, Renee Kruseman reaches into her son’s car and gives him a soft touch on the shoulder.

“It’s kind of a bonding thing that only he and I know about,” she said. “He knows why I’m doing it.”

It is something she never did with Ron but wishes she had. Renee watched from the grandstand at El Centro the day her husband was killed.

“My mom took it all very hard,” Kruseman said. “Very hard. But she’s been around racing as long as I have and there is really no stopping it. To be honest, she’s probably more addicted to it than I am.”

Kruseman is collected and thoughtful when talking about his stepfather. He considers himself fortunate to have missed witnessing the tragedy. It has, perhaps, made matters easier.

“I miss him,” Kruseman said. “I look back at Ron as a father figure, but I look back more like he was an idol. He raced all of his life, flat track, motorcycles. . . . He went out doing what he loved to do. He was going fast and he died happy. And I think that’s great.”