VENTURA, Calif. – C.J. Leary charged to a $1,500 dash win and the pole for the USAC West Coast Sprint Car Series ARP Battle at the Beach during preliminary action Wednesday night at Ventura Raceway.

Leary used a perfectly-executed turn-one slide job with five to go in the 15-lap event to wrest the lead away from high-point man Chase Johnson, who had held the top spot up to that point. He never looked back after that en route to victory in his family-owned No. 30 Leary Construction entry.

“Man, this is the first time out to Ventura for me, and this place is really, really cool,” noted Leary in victory lane. “It’s a lot different from when we ran Perris (Auto Speedway) a couple weekends ago, so to go from that big race track to this little race track and still have good speed is awesome.

“We’ll work on the midget a little more with Alex Bowman and hopefully win this sprint car race tomorrow,” Leary continued. “If we can do that, it’ll be a good trip back home with some cool hardware.”

Wednesday night’s Dash for Cash set the first five rows of the starting grid for Thursday’s 30-lap finale.

Johnson trailed Leary across the line by 1.074 seconds and will start on the outside of the front row for the Thanksgiving Day special. Carson Macedo finished third ahead of Brady Bacon, with that duo set to share the second row of the starting grid.

Geoff Ensign, Austin Liggett, Steve Sussex, Troy Rutherford, Tyler Courtney and Tristan Guardino completed the 10-car dash and fill out the top-10 starting spots for Thursday’s feature, which will be co-sanctioned by the USAC West Coast Sprint Car Series and the Ventura Racing Ass’n.

The night was slowed by six red-flag periods during the five 10-lap heat races, each due to various flips or tumbles that forced a stoppage of on-track action. No drivers were injured in any of the incidents.

RESULTS: USAC West Coast Sprint Car Series; Ventura Raceway; Nov. 21, 2018

Heat #1 (10 laps): 1. CJ Leary, 2. Cody Majors, 3. Tyler Courtney, 4. Colby Copeland, 5. Brody Roa, 6. Albert Pombo, 7. Tanner Carrick, 8. Ryan Bernal, 9. Matt Stewart.

Heat #2 (10 laps): 1. Geoff Ensign, 2. Carson Macedo, 3. Koen Shaw, 4. Charlie Butcher, 5. Nate Schank. 6. Shawn Arriaga, 7. Shannon McQueen, 8. Kyle Edwards, 9. Tye Mihocko.

Heat #3 (10 laps): 1. Max Adams, 2. Chase Johnson, 3. Michael Pickens, 4. JJ Ringo, 5. Tyler Edwards, 6. Cooper Desbiens, 7. Hannah Mayhew, 8. Guy Woodward.

Heat #4 (10 laps): 1. Colton Hardy, 2. Austin Liggett, 3. Tristan Guardino, 4. Slater Helt, 5. Ryan Timmons, 6. Logan Seavey, 7. Kaleb Montgomery, 8. Rick Hendrix.

Heat #5 (10 laps): 1. Jake Swanson, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Troy Rutherford, 4. Steve Sussex, 5. Steve Hix, 6. Joey Bishop, 7. Chris Tramel, 8. Rob Lindsey.

Qualifier #1 (12 laps): 1. Tyler Courtney, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Colby Copeland, 4. Carson Macedo, 5. Michael Pickens, 6. Koen Shaw, 7. Albert Pombo, 8. Kyle Edwards, 9. Charlie Butcher, 10. Brody Roa.

Qualifier #2 (12 laps): 1. Troy Rutherford, 2. Tristan Guardino, 3. Geoff Ensign, 4. Brody Roa, 5. Slater Helt, 6. Tye Mihocko, 7. Max Adams, 8. Shawn Arriaga, 9. Cooper Desbiens.

Qualifier #3 (12 laps): 1. CJ Leary, 2. Ryan Timmons, 3. JJ Ringo, 4. Colton Hardy, 5. Rob Lindsey, 6. Nate Schank, 7. Joey Bishop, 8. Jake Swanson.

Qualifier #4 (12 laps): 1. Chase Johnson, 2. Stevie Sussex, 3. Austin Liggett, 4. Logan Seavey, 5. Tanner Carrick, 6. Ryan Bernal, 7. Cody Majors, 8. Steve Hix, 9. Hannah Mayhew, 10. Matt Stewart.

Dash for Cash (15 laps): 1. C.J. Leary, 2. Chase Johnson, 3. Carson Macedo, 4. Brady Bacon, 5. Geoff Ensign, 6. Austin Liggett, 7. Stevie Sussex, 8. Troy Rutherford, 9. Tyler Courtney, 10. Tristan Guardino.