Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series, Round 7

Jun. 28, 2010 By Stephen Clark

Fans poured into the stands all day on Saturday and there was hardly a spare seat when the Pro 4 race began in the afternoon.

The Lucas Oil Off Road Series traveled North to Utah to a new venue for round 7 and 8 of the championship. Thousands of tons of dirt were moved around inside the Miller Motorsports Park road course to build a technical mile-long off-road short course.

Prior to the race, the vibe around the paddock was that the teams were over the moon with the quality of the facilities at Miller. Where the teams are used to setting up in a dirt field and building their own paddock, the Miller track is equipped with huge asphalt paddock area and lots of buildings for administration, etc.

The teams loved the asphalt pit area and facilities at Miller. Some drivers favored the technical track layout more than others, but that is what makes racing exciting. Grandstand seating and good views of the track, the fans enthralled with the intense action of short-course off-road racing. Everyone hopes this venue will become a regular in the LOORS schedule in the future.

Off-Road.com was at Miller the whole weekend documenting all the action, here is how the weekend went down.

Friday
Jeremy “Twitch” Steinberg took the win in Friday night's SuperLite race.

The weekend kicked off with practice on Friday afternoon. Almost immediately a PRO 2 driver had issues in one of rhythm sections bringing the practice to a halt. The dirt crew ended up smoothing out the section, which made it a little faster. Each of the classes got two practice sessions before a SuperLite exhibition race late in the evening. The Grill N Thrill SuperLite Challenge was set on as part of The Larry Miller group company party, as over 2,000 employees of the LHM Group attended the track for a BBQ and to watch the race. Colton Greaves in the Rockwell Bully Dog truck battled for the lead with Metal Mulisha Rockstar driver Jeremy “Twitch” Steinberg. Colton had the lead when the mid-race yellow flag came out. Shortly after the restart, Steinberg took the lead and ended up winning the race by a couple of seconds over second-place finisher Chad George. Greaves finished in third.

Saturday

Pro 4

Coyne fell back to third coming into the mandatory caution halfway through the race. The field bunched up under the caution, and when the green flags came out Huseman quickly moved up from third to first.

Carl Renezeder also moved up the field and was putting pressure on Huseman’s very battered looking Monster Traxxas Toyota in the closing stages of the race. “That was a hard race, the track was awesome, it was very technical, and I love technical tracks,” Huseman said. “To win that one today was awesome.”

Renezeder’s race ended on the last lap as he pulled off the track with smoke billowing from his car. This left Huseman with the win followed by MacCachren and Coyne.

1 Rick Huseman
2 Rob Maccachren + 11.285
3 Travis Coyne + 25.964

Pro Buggy

Steele passed Ronco and led the race until the mandatory caution.

Steele lost the lead as soon the green flag dropped after the caution when Jerry Whelchel passed going into turn one. Steele just couldn’t hang with Whelchel and ended up finishing five seconds behind him in second place. Larry Job rounded out the podium in third.

1 Jerry Whelchel
2 Cameron Steele + 4.995
3 Larry Job + 5.682

Pro Lite

Stephan Papadakis led the Pro Lite race down the front straight but quickly got passed by Chris Brandt in turn one. Brandt held the lead throughout the race.

Pro Lite championship contender Brian Deegan had a tough race. He started from last and was making progress moving through the pack. An incident in turn one during the mandatory caution caused Deegan to lose even more time, but he was able to get the truck running again and rejoin the race but finished in eighth.

Marty Hart put pressure on Brandt towards the end but couldn’t make a pass. Hart got the checkered flag less than a second behind Brandt. Jimmy Stephensen came home in third.

1 Chris Brandt
2 Marty Hart + 0.665
3 Jimmy Stephensen +10.583

SuperLite

The first few laps of the SuperLite race looked to be a repeat of Friday nights race with Jeremy “Twitch” Steinberg taking out a commanding lead on the field. Chuck Greaves was running in second but was going about a second a lap slower than Twitch. However, Greaves was able to take the lead when Twitch retired with a broken axle two laps from the end.

Dawson Kirchner finished in second with Jacob Person in third.

Professional surfer Sunny Garcia tried his hand at off-road racing by racing a SuperLite as part of the “arrive and drive” SuperLite program.

1 Colton Greaves
2 Dawson Kirchner + 2.624
3 Jacob Person + 3.195

Pro 2

They said good things come to those who wait, and that certainly held true for the fans that stayed to watch Pro 2 the last race of the day.

After the mandatory caution Leduc came under pressure from Ricky Johnson and a good battle ensued. At one point Johnson led the race, but his race came to an end soon after when he pulled off with some form of mechanical issue.

At the point it looked as if Leduc had the win in the bag. But in the closing stages Ampudia made a pass and took the lead. Ampudia won the race marking his first ever win in Pro 2. Rob Naughton finished in third.

Just coming back from a leg injury Ampudia and his team were overjoyed following the race. “Oh my gosh I’m so happy to be here … it’s the greatest feeling in the world right now” a jubilant Ampudia said following the win.

1 Rodrigo Ampudia
2 Todd Leduc
3 Rob Naughton

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Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series, Round 7

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