Kruseman Took Bruisin’, Keeps On Cruisin’ : Ventura Driver Didn’t Flip Out After His Car Turned Over 14 Times and Is Back Behind Wheel on His Hometown Track Tonight

Andy Bondio has a story that sums up Cory Kruseman’s dedication to auto racing.

Bondio, a veteran chassis builder, owns the Midget racer that flipped 14 times with Kruseman driving at the start of a race in Sacramento last October.

After Kruseman was cut out of the wreckage--his face bruised and swollen, blood trickling from his ear, his skull fractured, his right arm broken in three places--he apologized to Bondio for wrecking the car and asked if it could be rebuilt in time for the following week’s race.

Kruseman’s friends and family all have the same response to Bondio’s story: “That’s Cory!”

No one close to the Ventura racer doubted he would return to the track, even though his stepfather, Ron Kruseman, was killed while racing a Three-Quarter Midget in 1984.

“For his 25 years of life, the most unhappy I’ve ever seen him was when he was recuperating,” said Kruseman’s mother, Renee. “I think a lot of people think he [races] for his dad. He does it because he loves it.”

Kruseman returned to Ventura in a Midget race Wednesday and is scheduled to compete again tonight at his home track.

It took more than seven hours of surgery for doctors to install three plates and 24 screws in Kruseman’s arm, and he has minor peripheral vision loss in his right eye. But he has been racing since the first week in February, when he finished seventh in a Sprint Car race at Manzanita Speedway in Arizona.

“I couldn’t wait to get back in the car,” Kruseman said. “I was pretty excited, I wasn’t nervous. The first lap felt real good.”

Kruseman started rehabilitating his arm near the end of November. A month of physical therapy was followed by regular trips to the gym to lift weights. He also works out with a hand-made device that simulates the rigors of racing. It consists of a steering wheel and a shock absorber.

Kruseman said his fiancee, Carri Johnson, is “the backbone” of his rehabilitation, doing everything from waiting on him when he couldn’t get out of bed to keeping his auto-detailing business running until he was strong enough to return to work late in January.

The couple plan to marry May 5, one day after Kruseman is scheduled to make his first Sprint Car appearance of the season at Ventura Raceway.

Kruseman said the support he received from racing fans and other drivers helped keep his spirits up.

Johnson said Kruseman received 125 get-well cards. Harlan Willis, who owns the Sprint Car that Kruseman has raced since 1994, said Kruseman received so many flowers when he was hospitalized in Sacramento that the hospital distributed them among other patients.

“Cory Kruseman Night” at Ventura Raceway raised more than $6,000 to help defray the driver’s medical bills.

Kruseman does not remember details of the crash, but at the time he was fourth in the Sprint Car Racing Assn. points standings--in only his second season.

Kruseman started his career as a driver racing go-karts. He also raced Three-Quarter Midgets for five seasons, winning 11 United States Auto Club Western States competitions.

In his first season driving Sprint Cars, Kruseman won two feature races. Bondio contacted Kruseman in the summer of 1995 about driving in the U.S. Midget Nationals in Belleville, Kan. Kruseman accepted, and started on the road to his date with fate in Sacramento.

The plan was to run two tuneup races in July before heading for Kansas during the first week of August, and Kruseman immediately took to the car, winning a race in Arizona his first time out.

Back at Ventura for his second race in the car, Kruseman almost prevented Billy Boat from breaking a USAC record for consecutive victories that was held by A.J. Foyt and Bill Vukovich III.

Kruseman led most of the race, but a late caution flag allowed Boat to get close enough to pass him for a seventh consecutive victory.

Boat, whose streak finally snapped after 11 USAC victories, also won the Belleville race. Kruseman was in third place until a flat tire took him out of contention and he finished fifth.

Rich Hart, a Glendale-based car owner, has hired Kruseman to drive a Midget in three races this month at Ventura Raceway, even though the driver admits his arm strength is not up to par.

The first of those races was Wednesday night, and Kruseman will bypass a SCRA event tonight in Perris to race at Ventura.

“He’s good, he’s from Ventura, he knows the track, and he’s a great young man,” Hart said. “We want to run up front, and Cory is a driver who does that.”

Hart said the driver’s seat in his No. 24 Midget can be reserved for Kruseman--if he wants it. But Bondio is building a new Midget, and wants Kruseman behind the wheel when it is completed.

On Wednesday, in his first Midget outing since the crash, Kruseman qualified 13th, then earned a second-place finish in an eight-lap heat race.

The 30-lap main event was a different story. Kruseman stalled twice in the corners, on the second and 12th laps. USAC rules state that any car stalling for the second time is out of the race. Kruseman officially finished 18th.

Willis, who has been associated with Kruseman since his go-kart days, wants to have Kruseman in a USAC Silver Crown car for the final two races of this season.

All three car owners say Kruseman has what it takes to reach the top of his profession, but that he needs national exposure and experience racing on asphalt.

Kruseman says that his accident in Sacramento has not affected his driving style.

“It makes you think about what you’re doing,” Kruseman said. “As long as it doesn’t hinder it, we’re OK.”