Lucas Oil Off Road: What happens in Vegas…

Kyle LeDuc's streak ends, Bryce Menzies gets his first Pro 4 win and Carl Renezeder gives General Tire a birthday present.

The racers of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series ought to be thankful that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

The advertising slogan for the town also known as Sin City hints that it's OK to be a bit naughty in the Nevada metropolis, because no one back home will ever know. Unfortunately for the participants of Rounds 14 and 15 of the series, the 100 Years of General Tire Fight Under the Lights at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, had a big crowd of witnesses, not to mention a bunch of MAVTV cameras watching their every move, and Round 14 on Friday night was full of weirdness.

That includes such oddities as Kyle LeDuc not winning Pro 4. Yes, the streak finally ended at 12. It also included Rob MacCachren criticizing Carl Renezeder's driving on the podium. Well, technically he was decrying the lack of a black flag for the incident that sent MacCachren's Pro 4 spinning and Renezeder into the lead, but the result was the same. And then, to cap it all off, MacCachren engaged in a bit of rough driving himself, going door to door with Bryce Menzies for the Pro 2 victory (ABOVE). Fortunately things settled down on Saturday – at least for all but the Pro Buggy drivers, who uncharacteristically had five cautions during their Saturday night race, where often they are the only group to run yellow-free.

The Pro 4 race on Friday night set the tone for the rest of the evening. MacCachren and Menzies started on the front row, with expected winner – given his streak this season – Kyle LeDuc, in fifth, having qualified second with a six-truck inversion. LeDuc would struggle, even putting the wrong side of the truck in the dirt at one point, but would charge from the back to third to essentially seal his third LOORRS Pro 4 championship

Before that, it was an all-out battle, with pretty much every truck hitting ever other truck at some point during the evening. First Menzies led before dropping out and handing the lead to MacCachren. MacCachren was in control for a bit until Renezeder came up to challenge. Renezeder dogged MacCachren for several laps until the two made contact entering Turn 2, sending MacCachren spinning. That was the move that MacCachren felt warranted a black flag.

"I was leading and Carl got into the back of me and I over-rotated a little bit, and he went on by and went on for the win," said MacCachren. "That frustrated me a little bit. I have questions, as a lot of us here in the pits do, to Lucas Oil about their calls, and why calls are made."

Renezeder (RIGHT), naturally, saw it differently.

"If you watch lap after lap, we were coming into Turn 2 together and exiting together. On that lap we had contact. I was closer than the previous laps and he over-rotated or went a little too far outside and tried to come in, and I had nowhere to go. I asked him after, and he wasn't mad, he just thought there ought to be a black flag. If you look at the video, I braked, I had nowhere to go. I would have let him keep going except for the fact that he spun around, and I would have had to stop. It was just a racing incident," Renezeder said.
As it was, Kyle LeDuc's streak was over, and Carl Renezeder, running a special red paint job on his General Tire/Lucas Oil Ford to celebrate General Tire's 100th anniversary, presented his sponsor a special gift.

"It's interesting, because I had my first win in Vegas," Renezeder noted. "I had my 100th win in Vegas, and now the 100-year GT Anniversary win."

That was tempered by the mood on the podium, and booing from the partisan crowd disappointed that hometown favorite Rob MacCachren didn't win.

MacCachren got some redemption in Pro 2 later in the night; he wasn't going to pull any punches on the track. For the first dozen laps or so, it looked like Bryce Menzies was in control and cruising to the win, pulling out a gap with every restart. But in the closing stages, he started backing up to MacCachren in second. On the final lap, MacCachren went inside Menzies in Turn 4, went side by side through the Esses and was on the inside of the final turn. The two banged door to door as both mashed the throttle for the drag race to the finish. But that put Menzies into a half spin as he turned into MacCachren at full throttle, and Menzies was left to talk about rough driving on the podium as MacCachren won in his Rockstar Energy/Makita Ford. It was not only significant for the victory, but the couple of points MacCachren gained over Menzies, who wound up third behind Renezeder.

"That kind of racing is not what I want to see," says MacCachren, who describes the side-by-side, no-touch "ballet" as the thing he loves about short course off road racing. "But the referees of what we're doing are not calling that stuff. If that's what you've got to do to win the race, or it's presented to you to possibly win the race, then that's what you've got to do. I'm trying to play by the rules, but the rules that I'm playing by are maybe not the rules that I would set."

On Saturday night it was Menzies' turn for redemption, and he got it in spades as everyone seemed to settle down and get down to the business of racing, although some of the weirdness continued.

In Pro 4, Menzies (ABOVE) qualified first before a six-truck inversion, rocketed toward the front and was in second behind MacCachren by the time the first yellow came out. On the restart lap, Menzies slid inside MacCachren at Turn 4 – where MacCachren's seemed to be struggling a bit anyway – taking the corner away and then the lead while MacCachren fell to fourth. Kyle LeDuc and Doug Fortin battled hard for second, putting on quite a show. LeDuc finally got the position, then promptly spun it away in Turn 4. Meanwhile, Menzies was running away in the Red Bull/Pennzoil Ford for his first Pro 4 win, and became the only person other than LeDuc and Renezeder to win in Pro 4 in 2015 with one race left. Fortin and Renezeder filled out the podium. While LeDuc had a night to forget, MacCachren was only three spots ahead, which should give LeDuc the necessary cushion – 52 points or more - to claim the championship before the finale.

Menzies wasn't done after Pro 4, though. Starting fourth behind Deegan, MacCachren and TORC regular Keegan Kincaid, who brought both his Pro 2 and Pro 4 to play in Vegas, Menzies made quick work of Kincaid and MacCachren and started hounding Deegan. Once by Deegan, he just ran away for the win in the Red Bull/Pennzoil Ford. Deegan, MacCachren and Patrick Clark proceeded to entertain the crowd after an interruption for Jeremy McGrath's flaming truck, battling hard. MacCachren finally claimed the position, while Kincaid took advantage of the Deegan-Clark battle to claim his first LOORRS podium finish.

With MacCachren and Menzies both finishing on the podium in both rounds and Menzies' fast laps, the championship points were essentially a wash. MacCachren will carry around a 20 point advantage into the finale at Lake Elsinore.

"Hometown race, and pulling off that first ever Pro 4 win here was unbelievable," Menzies said. "We started on the third row and just picked 'em off one by one. The Pro 2 has been on fire all year long. We just had a couple of mistakes that put us back in points. We're in second, fighting with Rob MacCachren and we've won eight of them now. But it seems every time we've won, he's been second, so the points gap stays pretty close to the same. We need him to mess up a little bit to make up that gap. All we can do is keep winning races."

Pro Lite and Pro Buggy never fully embraced the Vegas weirdness, but there were oddities – such as Ronnie Faisst rolling his Pro Lite on the pace lap on Saturday night, or the often-fully-green Pro Buggies repeatedly tangling with each other on Saturday night for five cautions. Other than that, it was pretty normal. The George cousins split victories in Pro Buggy, with Chad (Mickey Thompson/Fortin Racing, Inc. Funco) taking the win on Friday night and Garrett (Redline Performance/ASL Builders Inc. Funco) on Saturday. Garrett was third behind Chad, and Chad was second on Saturday, with Dave Mason and Mike Valentine filling in the non-George slots on Friday and Saturday, respectively. With Valentine having a rough night on Friday, it gave Garrett George a bit more cushion to his championship lead.

Pro Lite, aside from the usual bashing and tangling back in the field, were essentially runaways. Brandon Arthur started out front in his Competitive Metals/Toyo Tires Chevrolet on Friday and cruised to the win, followed by RJ Anderson and Jerett Brooks. Brooks (General Tire/Synergy Electric Racing Nissan, ABOVE LEFT) did roughly the same thing on Saturday night, taking the lead on the second lap and seeming to have no trouble dispatching any competition for the duration of the race, although Arthur was pushing him hard at the end.

Saturday night could have been a big one for Brooks in the points had Anderson not put in the drive of the night. In last place after getting bounced around at the start, he drove through the field – helped by the usual dose of attrition – to finish fourth. So Brooks only put the smallest of dents into the 17-point lead with which Anderson came into Las Vegas.

Pro Lite also featured some new faces as racers prepare for next season. Anderson's little brother Ronnie joined the fray, and Casey Currie's brother Cody had an impressive run to fifth and sixth. They join Travis PeCoy, the likely Mod Kart champion, who stepped into a Pro Lite at Reno.

The series had already announced that there would be no makeup for the weather-canceled event at Glen Helen, so there is only one more points race for Pro 2, Pro Lite, Pro Buggy and kart racers to make things happen in the championship. That will be at Lake Elsinore on Oct. 23, which will be followed the next night by the Lucas Oil Challenge Cup races.

Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sept. 18-19

Pro 4, Carl Renezeder
Pro 2, Rob MacCachren
Pro Lite, Brandon Arthur
Pro Buggy, Chad George
Mod Kart, Trey D. Gibbs
Saturday Results
Pro 4, Bryce Menzies
Pro 2, Bryce Menzies
Pro Lite, Jerett Brooks
Pro Buggy, Garrett George
Mod Kart, Christopher Polvoorde