VENTURA RACEWAY : Weston Grinds It Out in the End, Takes Third Street Stock Main

In Friday night’s 20-lap Street Stock main event at Ventura Raceway, James Weston, Adail Gayhart, Randy McGraw, Paul Moore and Bill Bartels spent the entire race grouped together, handily pulling away from the rest of the field.

Although there were only three lead changes during the race, the top five cars put on quite a show while battling for position.

Weston, of Santa Barbara, passed hometown favorite McGraw on the 16th lap--after several laps of fender-banging--then charged through slower traffic to capture his third victory of the season.

Points leader Moore, of Oak View, passed McGraw with two laps remaining to take second.

Weston, nickname “Bam Bam” because of his hard-charging style, denied that the bumping and grinding with McGraw was intentional.

“I wasn’t trying to bang on him,” Weston said. “But my car was really sliding in the corners, to the point where it started pushing towards the wall.”

In the 15-lap Mini Stock Main, Gary Hubert of Somis took the lead on the fourth lap and coasted to an easy victory.

Ventura’s Bruce Dunson was second, followed by Camarillo’s Richard Webster and Tim Gill, also of Somis.

It was a similar scenario to the Street Stock race, in that the three cars behind Hubert spent the entire race jockeying for position after running away from the rest of the field.

Port Hueneme’s Don DeAzevedo led all but the first lap in grabbing his first 15-lap Pony Stock feature victory.

DeAzevedo had to hold off several challenges from points leader Scott Boucher of Oak View.

Boucher inherited second place from Michael VanDeventer on the ninth lap after VanDeventer was forced from the race when Ventura’s Tina Verdun rammed him coming off Turn 4.

Verdun had been driving erratically for three laps before her collision with VanDeventer, but stayed in the race, only to almost knock DeAzevedo out of contention on the final lap.

Santa Maria’s David Franey won the 20-lap IMCA Modified feature, and Ventura’s Paul Hewlett captured the 20-lap IMCA Sprint main event.