The Tucker Hibbert Show, er, I mean the ISOC Amsoil Championship Series of snowmobile snocross racing made it out to Deadwood, South Dakota, Friday night, with a pretty familiar result. The top three racers on the circuit again dominated the podium, with Tucker Hibbert again convincingly at the top.
One week after a dominant weekend at the ESPN X Games Aspen, Hibbert again won both of his heats and then claimed a messy final on a small, rugged, wet track in SoDak. It was Hibbert’s fifth consecutive win on the ISOC circuit, and sixth consecutive final overall, including the X Games.
On green in the Pro Open final, rookie Kody Kamm from Wisconsin got the surprising just on the 15-sled field on his Polaris, with the Arctic Cats of Logan Christian and Tucker Hibbert immediately behind. They were followed by Ross Martin, Robbie Malinoski, Petter Narsa, Colby Crapo, Kyle Pallin and Tim Tremblay.
Kamm was already into lapped traffic by lap 7, and held the top spot for the first eight laps. Then Hibbert got by and started pulling away. It wasn’t easy, however, as the rough and small track featured roost flying everywhere, sleds crashing into each other in bad spots and a stream of drivers on various laps, thanks to the quick lap times of the leaders. Frankly, it was a bit of a mess.
Martin finally got by Kamm on about lap 16, and immediately after that Kamm crashed trying to avoid the downed sled of Crapo, which was on its side on the backside of the tabletop jump in a precarious spot. Tremblay, meanwhile, was knifing through traffic and taking advantages of other drivers’ miscues.
In the end, it was Hibbert by about 7 seconds with yet another victory, which will extend his ISOC season points lead as well as his own legend. Martin was a solid second, again, on his Polaris, with Tremblay again third on a Ski-Doo. Tremblay’s teammate Robbie Malinoski survived for fourth, with fellow Ski-Doo riders Petter Narsa fifth. The next five were Kyle Pallin, Garth Kaifman, Emil Ohman, Logan Christian and Johan Lidman.
After the race, Hibbert said, “It was definitely a wild race; that was, like, the most gnarly race I have ever done in my entire life.” He said it took him awhile to get past Kamm, and afterwards he got caught in heavy lapped traffic, which was kicking up “a constant stream of roost.”
Racing continues tomorrow in this Black Hills iconic city.
