BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Camarillo’s Ricky Lewis slid past Templeton’s Kaleb Montgomery for one of the largest traditional sprint car prizes in California for 2025, claiming the $5,000 prize in Saturday’s Salute to Bob Vermeer & Narcie Ferreira at Bakersfield Speedway at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway.
The Ultimate Sprint Car Series event attracted 33 entries for the combined 360 and 410 cubic inch series at the one-third mile dirt track.
“Holy moly that was one of the most fun races I’ve ever had in my career. Hats off to Kaleb, he goes and kicks everyone’s butt in the winged cars and obviously he’s really good in the non-wing too,” Lewis said. “That’s about as tricky as a race track as you can get. You got to be careful and not get in too hard and smoke the fence. I knew on that green-white-checkered I was going to send it. It’s really cool when you race guys like that. Hats off to the track crew and Malyssa at USCS for putting on these races.”
Montgomery and Lewis traded sliders on a restart just past the halfway point of the feature. The leaders then approached lapped traffic. Lewis slid Montgomery for the lead out of turn four but the caution flew for a lapped car spinning into turn one in front of the leaders to nullify the move. The battling continued and was halted crash for Connor Speir in turn two, setting up a green-white-checkered finish.
Coming to the white flag, Lewis threw a bomb inside of Montgomery but Montgomery crossed it over to lead lap 29. Ricky Lewis made the move again in turn one and it stuck down the backstretch, holding off Kaleb Montgomery for the $5,000 prize. Montgomery finished second followed by Swanson, Chiaramonte, and former USAC-CRA Champion Brody Roa.
Kyle Rasmussen scored his third IMCA California Racesaver Sprints feature in a thrilling 25-lap contest.
Jeff Dyer won his first California Lightning Sprints 20-lap feature of the 2025 season.
