Ramsey 10th in Hornets, second in Cruisers

Fallbrook’s Jim Ramsey earned his first-ever top ten finish in the Perris Auto Speedway’s Hornet division April 2 and also co-drove his Cruiser division car to a second-place finish that night.

“It was a pretty exciting night,” Ramsey said. “There was a lot of stuff going on there.”

Ramsey’s 1987 Mitsubishi Tredia was one of 17 cars in the Hornet race. The heat race, which was used to determine positions for the main event, produced a 15th-place start in the main for Ramsey. “We qualified pretty lousy,” Ramsey remarked.

Ramsey was able to finish tenth in the main event. “I stayed out of trouble,” he explained.

“A lot of people were banging, and I kind of stayed up a little high,” Ramsey noted. “A lot of people ended up in the pits before the race was over.”

Ramsey had driven in a handful of Hornet races in 2004 and 2005 but had never previously finished in the top ten. “I was pretty pleased with that considering I have a much smaller engine than a lot of people out there,” he said of his April 2 finish.

The Tredia has a 1.5-liter engine. Many of the Hornet cars are Hondas and have 2.0-liter fuel-injected engines. “A lot of difference in power,” Ramsey noted.

The Cruiser class involves two drivers, one who handles the steering wheel and brake pedal and the other who controls the gas pedal. Dennis Allen, who is Ramsey’s regular co-driver, was unavailable for the April 2 race. Kevin Martin and Scott Urquhart, who co-drove in Allen’s absence last year, now also have Brooktown Racing cars along with a need for co-drivers. Ramsey turned to Andy Delarrio, a Nuevo driver whose car won the 2004 championship, for the April 2 race.

Delarrio’s car was too damaged to run the April 2 race, so he was available. On the other hand, he steered his Cruiser during the 2004 season while Ramsey handles the steering wheel for Brooktown Racing’s 1977 Thunderbird. Delarrio agreed to take the gas pedal for Ramsey, although the adjustment wasn’t immediate.

“We went out for hot laps and we crashed. We broadsided the 70 car,” Ramsey said. “We repaired it, went back out for heat races.”

Ramsey and Delarrio settled for a mediocre heat race finish. “We got into some heavy traffic,” Ramsey explained.

Ramsey and Delarrio started the main event on the outside of the third row. Urquhart and Max Vezza began on the inside of the second row, while Martin and Dave Hill began on the inside of the fifth row.

Two Lincolns with a tendency to end up sideways held the front row starting positions. “We went out there and we were a little concerned because the 8 car and the 16 car were the two front cars,” Ramsey remarked.

The car immediately in front of Ramsey and Delarrio was the #2 car of Ray Bundy and Dean Holdridge. “I told him let’s just stay on their bumper,” Ramsey said. “We were actually on their bumper all the way around the first turn.”

Then an opening in the high groove materialized. Bundy and Holdridge went through, as did Ramsey and Delarrio. “We were flying down the straightaway. We couldn’t catch the 2 car, but we had them in our sight the whole time,” Ramsey noted.

Although Ramsey and Allen finished a quarter of a lap behind Bundy and Holdridge, they finished half a lap in front of the third-place car. “I was pretty pleased with that,” Ramsey said. “Andy did a great job on the gas.”

Martin and Hill finished sixth while Urquhart and Vezza, who was making his Cruiser debut, finished eighth.