Elk River, Minn. June 16, 2016 – If there’s a sure thing in racing it’s the simple premise anything can happen. For Pro-Light rising star Andrew Carlson, that “sure thing” has hampered the second year racer during the early rounds of The Off-Road Championship (TORC) short-track truck racing series. With a promising start to the season cut-short in Texas due to a mechanical failure, the tough luck continued in Chicago where Carlson was once again charging for a podium finish only to have his efforts upended due to circumstances beyond his control.
With the Carlson Moto team armed with the speed to compete at the front of the Pro-Light class, they looked to the Chicagoland Slam at Route 66 Raceway near Chicago as their chance for redemption after a disappointing start to the season. Those plans looked to be on track early Friday evening as Carlson motored to fourth and was looking for more when a simple ignition switch failed. The abrupt ending to the night however didn’t dim the team’s hopes for a strong finish in Round 4 the following night.
The fresh start on Saturday saw Carlson on the gas and back in the mix at the front of the pack. However this time a flat tire scuttled their efforts. Down but never out, the team returned with a fresh traction and yet another charge towards the front.
“Despite all the setbacks, Andrew continued to press, “said team owner and manager Chris Carlson. “Before we knew it he was running fifth and closing in on the next position when another driver took him out in the corner. The impact was so hard it sheared the yoke off his transmission!”
The incident and subsequent mechanical resulted in the third straight race Carlson found himself in the pits early.
“It’s not the start of the season we had hoped for, said Andrew as the team immediately began preparations for the next two rounds of racing. “We’re not going to let some bad luck keep us down…we know we have what it takes, and we will be on the box.”
The team will now shift their focus towards Crandon, Wisconsin for the Big House Brawl (June 25-26) where high speed and passing savvy takes precedence over the bumping and banging of the bullring type tracks found in Texas and Chicago.
Both days of racing in Crandon will be available in streaming High Definition, with 2.5 hours of live racing found on their website www.torcseries.com. Full coverage begins both Friday and Saturday at 7:15pm CST. You can also catch tape-delayed, 90-minute condensed programming of every round of racing Thursday nights during primetime on Fox Sports 2 starting June 9.
Follow the Carlson Moto Team throughout the season on their website www.carlsonmoto.com or on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @CarlsonMoto and #CarlsonMoto.