After Flipping Out, He Tries to Get Rolling Again

Six months and 15 days after surviving a 14-flip tumble in a midget racing car in Sacramento, Cory Kruseman returned to the Sprint Car Racing Assn. winner’s circle Saturday night at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix.

Anyone who saw the young Ventura driver barrel-rolling and cartwheeling at 120 mph down the front straightaway of the mile track at Cal Expo never expected Kruseman in a race car again--much less to win in his fifth race back.

“Actually, I surprised myself how I got back so soon,” Kruseman said. “I can’t describe how good it feels to be in a car again. I think I’m probably about 90% of where I was [physically] before the accident.”

After Kruseman was cut out of the mangled midget, he was found to have a skull fracture, partial loss of vision, broken right arm in three places and nearly every bone broken in his right hand. It took doctors seven hours to patch him back together, putting plates and screws in his arm and virtually remaking his hand.

Midget car owner Rich Hart of Glendale, for whom Kruseman sometimes races, called the crash “the worst I’ve seen watching midgets, which dates back to 1948 at Gilmore Stadium.”

Saturday night, Kruseman, 25, will be in Harlan Willis’ sprint car racing at Perris Auto Speedway.

“My arm and hands hurt on a rough racetrack,” Kruseman said. “I drove at Perris on opening night [March 30] and it was pretty heavy and rough. I missed the second race there to drive a midget at Ventura, but I heard from some of the other drivers that it’s a heck of a lot nicer at Perris now that they’ve had a couple more races.”

Kruseman’s first race back was Feb. 3 at Manzanita in a sprint car. He finished sixth.

“It felt real good. I was excited to get back. Then to win there last Saturday, that was really great. I had hoped things would pick up where they left off. Now it looks like maybe they have.”

Before the accident, Kruseman was one of the hottest racing properties in the West. He had won six SCRA main events, an Arizona midget feature and had run a strong third at the Belleville (Kan.) Midget Nationals.

Neither Kruseman nor car owner Andy Bondio are sure just what happened at Sacramento, even after studying tapes of the accident.

“I was on the outside of the front row and we were coming off the corner, getting ready to take the green flag, going probably 120, when I felt the car doing some funny stuff,” Kruseman recalled. “I got out of the throttle when suddenly the car turned sideways and wham, I felt like I was inside a washing machine.”

Tapes showed that a wheel dug into the dirt, sending the car into its wild ride. No other cars were involved. It took a study of slow-motion film to count the 14 times the car flipped and gyrated.

“The hardest part of the rehabilitation was physical therapy on my hand,” he said. “It was pretty broken up and I sort of had to learn how to use my fingers again. I was fortunate in that my daily business is car detailing. That takes a lot of hand work, so working was like therapy at the same time.”

If such an accident wasn’t enough to dissuade him from racing again, there was the memory of his stepfather, Ron, who was killed in a three-quarter midget racing accident in 1984 at Imperial Raceway in El Centro.

It was Ron who got him started in racing when Cory was 12. Ron owned a Honda shop in Simi Valley and Cory rode in local motocross races.

“Racing wasn’t the same after Ron was killed, he was the one who helped Mom raise me, he was like my real dad. I was 13 at the time and I didn’t see the accident, which helped a lot, but racing wasn’t the same without him. I quit for about a year and a half, but when I was 15 I couldn’t stay away from Ventura Raceway. I started racing TQs and midgets and even stock cars. I couldn’t stay away.”

And what of his mother, Renee, who had seen her husband killed and her only son injured in a near-tragic accident?

“She puts up with it,” Cory said, then quickly added, “No, she’s very supportive. She comes to every race and between her and Carri [his fiancee], I have my own fan club.”

After Cory returned to racing midgets and sprint cars in February, his mother told The Times: “For his 25 years of life, the most unhappy I’ve ever seen him was when he was recuperating. I think a lot of people think he races for his dad. He does it because he loves it.”

Cory and Carri will be married next month, but like everything he does, the wedding and honeymoon will be packaged around racing. He will race a sprint car Saturday night, May 4 at Ventura, get married the next day, fly to Hawaii for five days before returning for another race the following Saturday night at Perris.

Motor Racing Notes

LAND SPEED--The Southern California Timing Assn. will hold a rare dry lakes meet Saturday and Sunday at Edwards Air Force Base, site of the old Muroc speed runs. Competition is not restricted to SCTA members, but all vehicles must meet their safety standards. This will be the first SCTA gathering on Muroc since 1941. Entrance is from Highway 38, east of Mojave and west of Kramer Junction.

MOTORCYCLES--Street legal Harley-Davidson riders will try their luck Friday night on the speedway track at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Also on the program will be speedway bikes and sidecars. . . . Superbike road racers of the American Motorcyclist Assn., after racing last weekend at the Pomona Fairplex, will be at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey this weekend. Miguel Duhamel will go for his third consecutive victory Sunday. . . . Jeremy McGrath, winner of all 12 Supercross events this season, will go for No. 13 Saturday night in St. Louis. Only three races remain, and no rider has swept a Supercross series.

STOCK CARS--After six weeks off, Winston West drivers will return to action Saturday night for the Spears Manufacturing 200 at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield. Track record-holder Gary Collins, son of the track promoter, will be favored in the 300-lap main event. . . . Kern County Raceway in Rosamond will open its season Saturday night with double points races for late models, street stocks, mini stocks and dwarf cars. . . . Perris Auto Speedway will host mini-stocks and limited street stocks Sunday night on the quarter-mile oval. . . . Action in the Coors Silver Bullet series for street stocks and IMCA modifieds will resume Saturday night at Ventura Raceway. . . . Cajon Speedway will have a destruction derby along with its Winston Racing Series program for sportsman and street stocks Saturday night.

MISCELLANY--The California Sports Car Club will hold its second event at its Buttonwillow Raceway Park on Saturday and Sunday. A full program for 40 regional classes is scheduled Sunday. . . . U.S. Auto Club midgets and TQs will race Saturday night in an ESPN Thunder program at Kings Speedway in Hanford. . . . Veteran off-road racer Ron Brant of Torrance won his first overall event in SCORE when he drove his Acleco-Porsche to victory last weekend in the Las Vegas Primm 300. Brant edged a Toyota-powered vehicle driven by Ray Croll of Corona by five seconds in the 261-mile race outside of Stateline, Nev.

DRIVER OF YEAR--Indy car driver Jimmy Vasser, who has won three of four CART races this season, was voted winner of first-quarter balloting for driver of the year honors. Vasser was named No. 1 on nine of 11 ballots and was followed by Jeff Gordon, winner of three NASCAR races; Dale Jarrett, Daytona 500 winner; and Dale Earnhardt, Winston Cup points leader. . . . Presentation of 1995 driver of the year will be made to Gordon this weekend at the International Hall of Fame inductions at Talladega, Ala.