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FREESTYLE COMPETITION (continued)
PASTRANA 199
Next out would be Courtney Jolly in Pastrana 199. I didn't know what to
expect since I had never seen her perform but she caught me off-guard and
pulled off one of the best runs of the night, in my opinion. She got some
awesome vertical air off the crush cars more than once and got a little
sideways on one of the jumps and got up on two wheels a little bit. She
hit the van with more speed than anyone so far and got more air off of it
too. Great run.
SUPERMAN
Chad Fortune came out next in Superman and had to try to out-do the
previous runs. Chad came out and carried quite a bit of momentum but just didn't do as good of sky wheelies as the rest of the drivers. Maybe it was
truck setup or his driving style but his run lacked in the wheelie
department. It was a good run but it wasn't too spectacular.
HOT WHEELS
Hot Wheels would be the next truck out. Neil drives for Team Meents and
their chassis' aren't really known for their wheelies. They're setup more
for big air and fast donuts. This arena wasn't built for big air or donut-friendly
because so we just had to wait and see how Neil was going to
do. Neil began his run by backing the truck all the way up to the wall so
he could get a good run at the cars. He absolutely launched the truck off
the cars. He cleared the cars with the biggest air of the night.
Elliott then
circled around to the van and did the same thing...he backed Hot Wheels up to the
wall and got some more good air off the van. He hit the crush cars again
and then tried for a donut and finally got it to take a set and pulled off
a good set of donuts. It actually threw chunks of dirt into the
stands...I even got hit with a few of 'em!!
BATMAN
Charlie Pauken was out next and I knew this had the potential of being the
winning run before it ever started. Pauken came out and attacked the cars
and pulled off some of the best wheelies of the night. He got good air off
of the van and came back around to the cars and did a huge wheelie and
used his amazing throttle control to carry the wheelie on past the cars. Then he hit the cars again and got the biggest vertical air of the night
and did a short donut. It was a great run and very deserving of the
winning score.
BLUE THUNDER
Tony Farrell would be the last driver out. He wanted to double up and win
freestyle also but it was not to be tonight. It was, however, one of the
best freestyle runs I've seen him have. Tony carried a lot of momentum and
pulled off some good wheelies. He hit the cars a lot more than the other
trucks and to end the run, he parked the truck up on the van stack. The
run was only good for 2nd place though.
FINAL WORDS
To wrap things up, I must say that I had a really good time at this show.
It was an awesome show with close racing and great freestyles without all
of the rollovers and crashes that sometimes slow shows down. I would much
rather see some good wheelies and a couple saves than rollovers. One thing
I need to note is how impressed I was with the drivers and officials. The
arena was super small but the officials set the track up good and the
drivers did a heck of a job with what they had to work with.
Everyone I
met was very nice and it was well worth the drive for me. Sorry about the
lack of quality with my pictures...my camera fooled me and it looked as
if the pictures were well lit in the viewfinder. Apparently not, haha!! But
I did some editing on them and they turned out ok, I guess. Anyways,
thanks for looking, stop by the Fan Forum and let me know what you
thought!!
- TOMMY LEE BYRD
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