Ryan Lutz gets sik

Battle of the Sikest at Thunder Alley

 

This past weekend I took a 7+ hour car ride south to one of my favorite places to race, Thunder Alley. The track was spectacular as always with a fresh Sik track design from Levi Jackson. Lap times averaged just north of 30 seconds and some 14 of those were spent in the air! I think some people were a bit surprised to see me make the trek to this race but the timing was good and I was ready for some competition. The likes of Drake and King were on hand as well as many other SoCal local fast guys so I had my work cut out for me.

 

I stuck with the Nitro Classes this week and got them dialed in during the Friday afternoon practice session. Qualifying was unique as we did 4 rounds, each of which was a different length. We did a 5, 7, 10, and 15min qualifier. In truggy I would end up qualified 2nd behind Drake who was near perfect with his truggy this weekend. In buggy it all came Down to the final qualifier for overall TQ. I needed to win the round to get it but I missed out by less than a second behind King after the 15min rd. this gave Drake the overall by virtue of his TQ in Q1 & 2. I would qualify second by winning the tiebreaker over King.

In truggy in A1 I made one mistake and really Drake just owned me from the start. In A2 I got tagged on the start and had to battle back to second. Over the course of the next 10 minutes I reeled in Drake and got within 2 seconds by the end of the race but I was punching so hard and just those small bobbles kept me from putting on that final needed pressure. I would again take 2nd. In A3 only 3 people stuck around to run. I was asked by a guy doing some video to do some whips. I did him and the crowd one better and did a 15 min display of full punched driving and having fun. Pulled of a couple whips and front flips. Also plenty of clutch killing full backed in drifts around many corners. It was a blast and it was highlighted by some pit lane jumps into the hand of ace pit man catcher Colin Herzig. It was a great time!

 

As you can see the main format was also different. We did triple 15 min mains for Nitro which capped of the unique event. In Buggy starting 2nd on the grid in A1 at the tone Drake tubes the pipe and I get by and he takes out the field behind me. I gap out to a nice lead and just put it in cruise control to take a solid A1 victory. In A2 Drake again crashed first corner. This time I get collected and upside down with the Marshall having to wait. I went to dead last and had to play catch up and could only make it back to 3rd. In A3 it was a three way tie between Drake, King, and I for the overall win. This we all had a good start. For the first 8 minutes of the race we were all 3 within 2 seconds of each other swapping places and making passes and bobbles. It was an awesome experience. Then after pit stops Drake was out front with King and I in tow. There was a crashed car up top over the step up and King got collected and crashed. It was unfortunate for him but I chugged on sights set in Drake. Now heading into the main I thought as long as I finished within 6 seconds of Drake I would take the overall victory. (My margin of victory in A1) but with 2 minutes to go I realized, wait, I had one less lap in A1 as the track was slower. I need to win this race to win the overall. So I set my focus a bit higher and reeled Drake in. On the final lap I put the pressure on and he blew the corner at the end of the straight. Something very uncharacteristic of him. I thanked my lucky stars and took the inside pass and finished the last lap clean to take the win and the overall victory!

 

It was a great weekend for me and I had a lot of fun. I look forward to my next event at Thunder Alley!