Lutz capitaLized
on a Last-Lap crash
by drake and beat
him to the Line
by Less than five-hundredths of a
second for the finaL
podium spot
Running the Electric Buggy support class for the first time
at an event of this caliber, Kyosho star Jared Tebo used the
extra practice (and testing opportunity) to make changes to
his MP9 TKI3 ahead of the opening round of Expert Buggy
class qualifying and grabbed the first TQ by 1.7 seconds
over reigning champion Ryan Cavalieri in what proved to be
very accurate foreshadowing of Sunday’s final. Both drivers
struggled in round two and finished outside the top five,
with TLR’s Mike Truhe and Adam Drake sandwiching the
Durango buggy of Ryan Lutz to form the top three on Friday
evening, leaving the overnight points standings a complete
mess. In round three Lutz beat Truhe by four seconds, with
Tebo another three-tenths behind, and that’s how the top
three lined up on Sunday.
Lutz never led a lap of the Expert Buggy main event. A
mistake as the race began dropped him back to fourth and
put Tebo into the lead, though he also crashed on lap two
and dropped as far as eleventh before mounting another
charge through the field. Out front, Adam Drake and Ryan
Cavalieri swapped the lead a few times over the first 15
minutes until they were joined by Tebo, who took much less
time swathing his way through the top 10, and the three
former ROAR national champions battled for the top three
spots until Drake fell off the pace shortly after the halfway
mark. Cavalieri tried to stretch his final fuel stop, and the
lead, as Tebo ducked into pit lane for the last time by staying
out an extra two laps after what had been an even match
for mileage between the two Orion-powered drivers, but
he flamed out leaving pit lane and had to be refired before
setting off to chase down Tebo. Cavalieri came up less than
five seconds short of repeating as Pro Buggy champion, as
the top two were the only drivers to make it by for lap 75.
EXPERT BUGGY
Lutz capitalized on a last-lap crash by Drake and beat him
to the line by less than five-hundredths of a second for the
final podium spot.
“It was a crazy race,” said Tebo when I talked to him
after the trophy presentation. When describing how
he felt about yet another tough break early in the race,
he said he had a great start but “then I flipped over and
the marshals couldn’t get to me because everyone was
coming, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, the same thing that
happened in truck is going to happen again.’ I was super
bummed after that and just put my head down and had
some really good lines, caught back up, got to the battle
for the lead, and [Adam and I] duked it out pretty hard.
It was fun. It was fairly clean, you know, it wasn’t super
clean, but it was fun. We were slamming each other and
block passing and brake checking.” He talked about how
the track conditions made it tough to pull away and that
it was easier to follow someone else through the rougher
sections, and that when Cavalieri flamed out he felt like
he actually had time to breathe. “They got him started up
so fast, and it kind of got me out of my rhythm because I
was thinking, ‘Okay, I got it, there’s nine minutes to go – I
crashed on the back straightaway, I crashed on the big
double, I think I crashed somewhere else, I got tangled up
with a car in the front rhythm section, next thing I know
he was right on me again. I thought, ‘I had such a great
opportunity and completely blew it.’ The last four minutes
felt like it was an hour long. It was pretty intense.” The win
was one of redemption for Tebo, who TQ’d the class at
The Dirt Nitro Challenge just a couple of months prior but
crashed on the opening lap and never regained the lead.
He had no such problem at Silver State.
