July 11th, 2011 | Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series ~ Utah Race Report

Thursday

We arrive in Utah straight from Green Bay. The race truck has already arrived by the semi driver and we set up for an early practice. Our times are really good and we try some new products in the truck for 2nd practice that made some slightly better times.

Friday

We arrived to the track early Friday morning to set up for qualifying. We made some gear changes and everything else seemed good to go. We went out for qualifying and the track was slightly different making my ratio off. We qualified 11th so we made a gear change and felt the truck was fast and ready to race.

Saturday

The crowd was filing in at Miller and the truck was ready to go. Before I went out for my race, Curt Leduc pulled me aside and gave me some words making me look at things a little different. When I went to staging I felt ready to race. I told my Dad that I want to do whatever it takes to get up front.

When the green flag dropped I was moving forward. Passing trucks every chance I got. By the mid race caution, I was 3rd and felt I had more then the leaders. When the green flag dropped a crash happened in the whoops putting a gap in the field. I chased back up to Cameron and Deegan and as soon as I got close, Deegan hit Cameron, taking him out and giving me the perfect passing opportunity. For the last 2 laps I had the lead and drove it to the finish.

The truck was perfect coming off the track and the tires were hooked up the complete race. “it feels so good to be back up top, it’s our first Lucas win and it’s the first win for a V8!″

Sunday

Qualifying didn’t go as plan. We went out and on the first lap I threw it into a corner catching a rut giving me a flat, by the time we got it fixed I had 1 lap to go and on the last lap I hit traffic giving me a horrible qualifying time.

Starting in the back was what we did Saturday so we knew we could do it again. When the green flag dropped I started passing as fast as possible. I passed up to 4th by the 4th lap and there was a huge crash. They did a complete restart and when I took off I got tangled with another truck giving me a flat. By the time I got into the pits and the tie changed I went a lap down. At the midway caution I was in dead last and when the flag dropped, I told my dad this was perfect practice for setting up lines and passing. We went from last to 4th without touching a single truck and easily had more.

I am excited to be running the V8 truck and will run the truck the rest of the year. We are going home to do more suspension tuning and gear changes. I can’t wait for Glen Helen.