This past weekend we attended the 2015 Sikcross race put on by Levi Jackson of Sik Track Designs held at the Pro-Line Test Track in Banning, California.
This was a very unique race format and not one that we had ever experienced before. The track layout was very technical, medium grip but was super fun to drive. On Saturday morning we started at 7am with 1 practice session per class and then we moved into another practice session that was used for seeding, I seeded first in buggy and second in truck. Qualifying starts were gate starts motocross style , if you finished in the top 5 of your class in the first qualifier you went directly to the Main and did not run the second qualifier, in Truck I TQ’d the first qualifier and went right into the Main but in Buggy I missed it qualifying 6th in the first qualifier so I had to run the second qualifier. I had the fastest time in that qualifier and the fastest time overall but because of the format this would only qualify me 6th for the Main. Your qualifying position gave you your gate pick for the Main.
Ty ran Pro-Line X3 Hole Shots to Victory
Truck Main was up first, on the tone I had a fairly good start, but got tangled with drivers and ended up getting stuck on someones truck just before the first turn and unfortunately that trucks tire was on my pipe which flamed my engine. My dad ran to pit lane and by the time he got my truck started and out of pit lane the field had almost done a full lap so I started 32-seconds behind the leader. My truck felt so good I knew that I could make my way to catch up to the pack and I did the best I could, since I had 45-minutes I just put my head down and drove as fast as I could. To my surprise I was catching the field quicker than I thought and I managed to make my way to near the front where I thought I possibly would have a chance to win the race. I pushed hard and unfortunately this caused me to make a few mistakes but I was able to come away with a second place finish only 6 seconds back from first, which considering my start I am very happy with.
In the Buggy Main, we had made some changes to my car because the track was getting rougher and was staying damp unfortunately the changes that we made were not good so even though my car was easy to drive I just didn’t have the acceleration that I needed for the demanding jumps. I got a good gate start, because I had the 6th pick I started far outside with the plan to drive around the other cars if there were pile ups at the start which there were, I was in 5th after the first right hand corner, after the first few laps I was up to second place but Cavelieri seemed to have a little more speed than I had, all I could do was drive clean and hope that my car would get better as the track dried out which it did. I focused on making clean laps and slowly caught up to first place and was able to make the pass and I was able to keep a gap pretty consistently, then when 2nd place Cav ran out of gas right in front of pit lane I knew I could hold onto first quite easily so I just made smooth, clean laps until the end of the race and finished on the top step of the podium.
This racing format has a lot of different challenges from the normal format but I thought it was really cool and exciting to do something different, Levi’s track was one of the best he has ever made, somehow his layouts just keep getting better and better. I realize that for some new racers these layouts might seem a little bit difficult but as my Dad always says when we build our track at home, you don’t get better by running on an easy track, if you aren’t challenged your skill level does not increase.
Thanks to all my sponsors for their support, without all of you this wouldn’t be possible.
I also want to congratulate my HB/A Main/Pro-Line teammate CJ Jelin on a great weekend of racing taking the win in Intermediate Buggy and TQ and second place in Intermediate Truck.
Thanks
Ty
