Tucker Hibbert’s run of perfection is over, and the person who broke the string is somebody that hardly anybody would have picked a couple weeks ago.
First-year pro Tim Tremblay, running a Warnert Racing, NSK-sponsored Ski-Doo, led pretty much from green to checkered Saturday night in Sandy, Utah, running away with the Pro Open final.
The victory followed Tremblay’s second-place finish in Pro Stock moments ago, proving that his victory was no fluke. Some doubters may note that Hibbert crashed with eight laps left in the race, but Hibbert was not a factor in this final – he was running third at the time, roughly five seconds behind Tremblay, and three seconds behind Ross Martin, who held second place until the end.
A sizable crowd was on hand in the Salt Lake City suburb, making host organization ISOC very happy they took the risk to venture west.
After the race, the Quebecois winner searched for words to describe how good it all felt.
“I’m living a dream right now, I can’t believe it — To get first place in the pros, I can’t believe it,” Tremblay said. “I felt like Ross Martin was behind me, but I just didn’t look back and I had great lines, and I tried to put everything (together) to go fast, and it just worked good.”
Martin finished a solid second and solidified himself in the points, while fellow Polaris racer Robbie Malinoski recovered from some qualifying-race crashes that left him banged up and starting in the back row to finish third.
“It was one of those deal where I found a little hole off the starting line and was able to get through it,” Malinoski said. “Then I just put my head down and continued to work hard. I’m super pumped. We were kind of down in the dumps earlier today after we had a couple of crashes in the qualifiers, this is exactly what we needed.”
Cory Davis finished fourth, followed by fellow Cat racers Garth Kaufman, Dan Ebert and Hibbert, who remounted and climbed his way back up to seventh.
Make sure to check out our story on the Pro Stock final elsewhere on this web site.
Very nice story. Thank you!