Nail-biting is the perfect word to describe this weekends race. Gateway Motorsports Park just outside St. Louis is similar to the track at Charlotte Motor Speedway with the outside oval and the road course inside. It was an free admission event with ChampTruck and ChumpCar racing all day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night from 3pm-9pm ChumpCar had their 6 hour endurance race with almost all cars making it through by changing drivers every hour. ChampTruck had a few mishaps this weekend. Minimizer teams truck # 63, Tested, had some transmission issues on the first day of racing and had to sit out all weekend. Truck Race Team USA had crashed into a wall twice. The first one was on the first day with braking too late resulting in only cosmetic damage to the front bumper but the second hit resulted in the hood being ripped off. Krisztián Szabó was not hurt and Mike Ryan let Kriztian use truck # 11 for the rest of the day. Justin Ball made his debut this weekend driving truck # 31, Drago. As the weekend went on, he made vast improvements on his driving. Jupiter Motorsports team truck #3 driven by Allen “Turbo” Boles had blown a turbo during Heat Race # 2 on Saturday. Fortunately he was able to fix it in the 30 minutes between race # 2 and # 3.
Mike Ryan had given up his truck to Krisztián Szabó for the Podium Race after Krisztián had smashed his truck into a wall. This shown the amount of generosity and respect each of these drivers have for each other. This also made for a very exciting Podium race, making everyone sit on the edge of their seats. Justin Ball and Kriztián Szabó had fought clean, weaving in and out and blocking each other for almost the entire race. Besides the excitement of vehicles bumping into each other, this as fans is what we want in a race. The heart beating fast, the cheering, the clapping, the adrenaline the fans feel… this makes them come back to watch more. Allen “Turbo” Boles of Jupiter Motorsports won the Podium race with Krisztián being second, Mike Morgan truck #88 placing third, Justin Ball truck #31 placing fourth and Ricky Rude truck #14, placing fifth. Minimizer’s truck # 54, had dropped out the last half of the Podium Race cutting the race down from 6 trucks to 5.
This race definitely had a lot of ups and downs but it was one of the most exciting ones this season. With Justin Ball making his debut driving Drago, truck #31 and his huge improvement in driving from Saturday to Sunday has me wondering if he is going to complete the season with only 4 races left. I don’t think I am the only one that is voting for Justin to finish the season as well as staying with the series.
Here is the schedule for the rest of the season so you can join in on the fun and watch these trucks battle it out.
August 6-9, 2015: Virginia International Raceway in Alton, VA.
September 11-13, 2015: Motorsports Park Hastings in Hastings, NE.
October 2-4, 2015: Portland International Raceway in Portland, OR.
October 30-November 1, 2015: Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, NV.
The race in Fort Worth was cancelled.
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