Sleepy Tripp midget re-creation

at Turkey Night

Photo by the author

    

As part of the festivities at the 79^th annual ‘Turkey Night Grand Prix’ which honored Gary Zarounian and Ron “Sleepy” Tripp was this re-creation of the famous Zarounian Edmunds midget on display on the Ventura Raceway midway.

Photo by the author

This car is a recreation of the Zarounian/Tripp 140 cubic inch Autcocraft Volkswagen powered Edmunds coil midget, displayed as it would have appeared in the 1984 USAC (United States Auto Club) midget season carrying the number “1” to signify Tripp’s championship in the USAC Western States midget series in 1983. 
 

Photo by the author

Tripp also captured the 1985 USAC Western States Series championship in the same Edmunds car with Volkswagen power as well as a win at the Belleville Midget Nationals, and he won the Western States Series championship and the Belleville crown again in 1987 when the Edmunds built car was powered by a Cosworth engine.

Photo by the author

In his storied career, Tripp won eighteen midget feature races at Ventura Raceway, part of his total of 104 USAC Western States Series wins, 78 of which came behind the wheel of a Zarounian owned midget. When combined with his 59 USAC National Midget Series wins, Tripp is third on the USAC all-time wins list and is a member of the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame  

Photo courtesy of Ventura Raceway

With the original Edmunds car lost after it was sold in 1988, Jeff Terry sourced a similar chassis from Texas. Since Terry was a member of the crew for the original car, he was able to restore it over a three-month period and display the re-creation at the 2019 Turkey Night Grand Prix, which featured a scale model of the car built by Ventura promoter Jim Naylor as the trophy presented to race winner Kyle Larson.