Barstow's Milender tops Super Street Division at opener

VICTORVILLE - There might have been NASCAR Cup racing under the lights in Phoenix Saturday night, but to Victor Valley racing fans it was all about opening night at the newly resurfaced and renamed Victorville Auto Raceway at the Fairgrounds.

The final feature of the night showcased a battle between Barstow's Mike Milender and Oak Hills' Ralph Adams. Milender drove a sound race and kept Adams at bay by closing off the bottom of the track. Milender held Adams off at the finish, which was punctuated by a little nudge by Adams as the two crossed the finish line. Just behind Adams was Ralph Cook from with Apple Valley's Jay McClay.

It didn't take long before the freshly painted back straight wall was covered in mud as the powerful non-winged sprints took to the track in preparation for the first races of a scheduled eight race series that will be sprinkled throughout the 2007 schedule.

Plans are also in place for the popular IMCA Modifieds to be on the schedule 10 times this season, as will the CDCRA Dwarfs, who will hold their Nationals here the weekend of June 21st through June 23rd.

Also returning on a regular basis this year will be the Figure 8 races. These races will be featured, along with the Sprints, at the meet set for the San Bernardino County Fair on May 19th.

The race crowd of over 500 fans got fired up early and often by returning track announcer Dave Gross, back in his familiar spot in the announcer's booth. Track official Dena Gibson expressed her enthusiasm over the early season crowd.

"I hope that tonight signals a trend and that we'll be seeing 1,000 fans in the stands for every meet before long," Gibson said in an interview at race time.

Many of the drivers took advantage of the early practice session held on April 1 and all were excited to see the new track. Comments ranged from "It's a great surface to race on" to "I felt I could really get hooked up, and we should really be competitive here."

All the heat races went off without a hitch, with most all of the drivers becoming familiar early with the track conditions.

"We were out here until well after midnight last night putting the finishing touches on things, and so far it looks like our efforts are bearing fruit so far," Track Manager Mike Gibson said.

After a short intermission, main event racing got underway with the Hornet Juniors, now known as Sport Compacts, in a race filled with "excuse me's" and which saw Hesperia's Stacy Elderbaum take the win over Steven Parra and Hesperia's Jessica Sooter.

In the Mini Stock feature it was all Vince Porter as the Apple Valley driver swept both his heat race and won the main event driving away. Johnson Valley's Mark Nustad put in a valiant effort, but there just wasn't enough race left to catch the hard charging Porter. Chino's Roger Harder finished third, followed by Brian Fabbri and Apple Valley's Chris Peterson.

Next up were the featured cars of the evening, the 360/410 Sprints in one of their patented free-for-all races that saw Kevin Kierce out of Beverly Hills take the win followed by Long Beach's Brandon Thompson with Torrance's Eric Severson finishing third. These cars are for the most part just a blur on the track but had the crowd on their feet for most of the race.

Senior Hornets, or should they be called Senior Sport Compacts, were on the track next and not long after the start of the race the track began to look like a "Sig Alert" on the 405 Freeway with 5 cars ending up nose-totail in Turn 1. Surprisingly, the rest of the contest was relatively uneventful as Hesperia's Austin Fritsch came out the winner in this one, followed by Placentia's Randy Davis. Alta Loma's Bryan Black finished in third place.

A total of 22 cars were entered in the Street Stock feature, a race that appeared by all aspects to be a demolition derby. Early on, a four-car pileup coming out of Turn four ended up with Fontana's Mike Stone firmly attached to Oak Hills' David Northey's rear bumper. A little pushing and shoving got the two untangled, but by halfway through the race Norco's Chris Tooley was leading the pack around the track.

Hot on his heels was Apple Valley's Jason Andrews, who found his way through slower traffic to make a valiant effort to contend for the lead. Along with Andrews was Placentia's Randy Davis, who was doing double duty tonight also, piloting his own car in the previous Hornet Senior race, along with the IFS Street Stock machine owned by Barstow's Wayne Francis.

The finish saw Tooley take the checkered flag followed by Andrews and Davis. Not a bad night for Davis who just last week took his first win at Perris Raceway.

Racing will return to the Fairgrounds next Saturday night with the season's first appearance of the IMCA Modifieds and the CDCRA Dwarfs. Also featured will be the Street Stocks, Mini Stocks, All Americans and Mini Dwarfs for the youngsters.