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Brooktown Racing LTD fifth in Cruiser debut

The latest Brooktown Racing car finished fifth in its first Perris Auto Speedway main event.

Jim Ramsey operated the steering wheel for the 1975 LTD which competed for the first time in the two-driver Cruiser class in which one driver controls the steering wheel and the other driver has the gas pedal, while Mike Lackey made his Cruiser driving debut in the May 5 race.

“Fifth place, I’m happy with that,” Ramsey said.

Ramsey normally drives with Dennis Allen, who was at the Route 66 rally May 5 and missed the Perris race. Ramsey and Allen began racing at Perris in 2003. The 1977 Thunderbird they drove when they began their racing career was used through the first three races of the 2007 season, although in one of those races ignition problems kept the car in the pits.

“Four years is a long time for a car,” Ramsey said.

In fact, the Thunderbird was the longest-running Cruiser at Perris Auto Speedway. In January Ramsey and Allen purchased a 1975 LTD from Fallbrook drivers Scott Denton and Keith Krueger, who had driven that car as a Factory Stock at Cajon Speedway and Barona Speedway. Denton and Krueger blew a motor in the LTD during the 2006 season which was not replaced, and the work on the car after the sale included placing the Thunderbird’s motor in the LTD as well as modifying the roll cage from the four-point Barona standard to the six-point Perris requirement, adding a second seat, and converting the gas pedal to the driver’s side.

“We’ve still got to modify the throttle linkage. I’m not happy with the throttle linkage the way it is,” Ramsey said.

The LTD inherited car number 77 from the Thunderbird. Cruiser points for the season standings are given to the car rather than to the driver, and since they are given to the car number a replacement car with the same number can add to the previous car’s points.

“We had no idea how it was going to run,” Ramsey said.

The car lasted half a lap during the practice session; a bolt came off the carburetor and the LTD lost an air cleaner.

“We had some problems early on,” Ramsey said.

“For the heat race we couldn’t get it to shift to drive,” Ramsey said. “We had to play with the linkage.”

Ramsey and Lackey finished seventh in the six-lap heat race. They began the 12-lap main event on the inside of the second row. “We got it running. It ran good,” Ramsey said.

Ramsey and Lackey had a first-lap lead before being hit from behind in turn three. “It didn’t do any damage to my car. They hit that channel in the trunk,” Ramsey said.

The contact interrupted the LTD’s forward motion and put it behind the other cars, but after two cars ahead of Ramsey and Lackey stalled on the track the LTD inherited sixth place in the tenth lap and fifth place in the eleventh lap.

The LTD continued running to cross the checkered flag behind four higher finishers. “We’re doing really good,” Ramsey said.

Lackey has been the crew chief for Ramsey and Allen since they began racing in 2003. “I’ve been trying to get him in there for a while,” Ramsey said of Lackey’s driving debut.

“It’s a kick,” Lackey said. “Jim’s a good driver.”

Ramsey placed Lackey on the gas pedal rather than waiting for Allen to return before debuting the new car. “We couldn’t wait for him,” Ramsey said of Allen.

Ramsey explained that the Thunderbird had been torn apart as part of the work to change cars. “It’s going to go to the scrapyard eventually,” Ramsey said of his original Cruiser.

 

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