How do you race in (2) different states at the same time? That was the John Holtger Racing dilemma at the end of July! The decision was made to have John race the LOORRS National Race in Reno, NV and have backup drivers fill the void in the Lucas Oil MW Short Course event. So, the John Holtger Racing Team traveled to Reno, NV for the LOORRS Silver State Showdown double header National event!
Practice went well on Thursday, and allowed John to get a feel for the changes made to this truck. As Friday was underway, the weather didn’t hold out, and caused a rain delay in the afternoon once qualifying was supposed to start. This forced LOORRS to cancel qualifying, and just have each class line up according to their points position. This put John starting 3rd out of 16 karts. The track was challenging for the Mod Kars as it was very narrow, and had several tight turns. After numerous cautions and roll overs, John held his spot in 2nd, and raced to the finish line…ending up with a 2nd place podium finish!
Saturday started off with a tough round of qualifying. Due to the amount of cautions, John wasn’t able to get a solid lap in. This left him lined up 8th out of 16 karts. On turn 2 of the 1st lap there were 2 roll overs and another truck hit John, taking his back left body off! LOORRS lined them back up for a restart. John raced hard and made his way up to 4th 2 laps in. Then on turn 4, John got tangled with some other trucks and stalled out. Unfortunately this put him back to 10th. He battled to make his way back up towards the front and ended with a strong 5th place finish!
While John was in Reno for the weekend, his Midwest crew was busy back in Lena, WI for the inaugural Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course Duel at Dirt City race at the new Dirt City Motorplex track. John put his MW points championship in the hands of his backup drivers, and they did not let him down!
Saturday started off with the Mod Kart class. There were 7 drivers registered to compete. With Sam Marquardt behind the wheel, John’s #244 kart started 2nd, and quickly make its way into 1st leading the entire race! Later in the afternoon, John’s #44 UTV was ready to battle in the Sportsman Stock SXS class! With 28 drivers registered, Tyson Marquardt piloted John’s #44 UTV and finished the race in a strong 4th place!
Returning Sunday, both of John’s backup drivers were ready to race hard again! the #244 kart dominated in the Mod Kart class sweeping the weekend with another 1st place finish. The #44 UTV had another fierce day in the Sportsman Stock SXS class, and finished with a 3rd place podium!
Overall, this was a phenomenal weekend for John Holtger Racing! Although we were barely over the halfway point through the season our 14-year-old driver finds himself on top of the points in both the Lucas Oil MW Short Course League Sportsman Stock SXS division and the SXS Sports, LLC 2019 Chasing the Triple Series Sportsman division!
Stay tuned as the team hits up Bark River Harris, MI for the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League Rumble in the U.P.!
