Bandit Big Rig Series at Lebanon I-44 Speedway

Bandit racing returned to the I-44 Speedway in Lebanon, Missouri on Saturday, June 22nd. This is a 3/8s mile high-banked oval asphalt track. Morgan finished 2nd here in the Main Race in 2017.

Mackvader minus stacks

Morgan placed 8th of 16 trucks in qualifying time. Then the fans were given a treat during the Bandit Meet n Greet with both Dan Bruno (serving as crew chief for the day) and Mike Morgan signing autographs on a poster of Mackvader and The Rubber Duck. Both trucks are all black Macks. Dan rescued the Duck from oblivion and carefully restored it and the tanker trailer. Do you remember which movie the Rubber Duck starred in?

In Heat 1 #51 spun out in the first lap resulting in a restart. This heat race was won by Bob Mitchell in #13. Heat Race 2 saw Morgan's #88 start in 3rd and finish in 4th as the field nearly inverted from start to finish. Heat 3 got lively when #16 and #74 collided in the last lap. The win went to Jon Lisenbee in the #7 truck.

The #16 truck driven by Gustav Molinar won the Shootout.

Challenge Race 1 began with Morgan in 3rd and he finished 3rd. There was an early restart when #46 got sideways on the track after a collision with #69. Later #66 and #8 collided but recovered with no caution called. Challenge 2 had #13 spin in the first lap resulting in a restart. Several laps in #55 blew a turbo and left the track. Towards the end #7 and #16 collided. Darren Proffitt in the #27 took the checkered flag.

The parade laps of the A-Main Race were led by the Fan Truck Show winner Rick Smith. The fans on the hillside flashed their lights for the race trucks who went into a three-wide salute to the fans. This race had a lot of restarts, but once they finally began racing there were major battles for position throughout the field. Five of the trucks did not finish (DNF) the race and several that did were lapped, some several times.

double salutes

Race order for the A-Main Race was a random drawing by our younger fans. Morgan was lucky this time with a 3rd place start. In the first lap #55 spun off track for the first caution, while the #13 left the track with major damage. After the restart #74 drifted down on #88 as he was making a pass which resulted in contact between them. Meanwhile, back in the pack #41 lost a fender. This brought out the second caution for debris on the track. The next (third) caution again resulted from debris on the track (another fender?) and #51 being pushed to the infield. The fourth caution resulted from #5 going into the wall in front of #55, ending the race for #5. The #55 continued, but minus a hood. This restart appeared to be the charm; the race was ON! The #88 held 2nd behind the #74 for much of the race, but #41 was on fire taking the lead near the end of the race. The #16 tried to follow, but only made it to 3rd, pushing the #88 back to 4th for the race finish. The #27 did not finish because he ran out of gas!

job done