The Stopwatch: Big Buck GNCC

Josh Strang took the Big Buck win and in the process set the race's fastest lap time.

Coming into the Big Buck GNCC, Josh Strang had two streaks going: the first is the obvious one, he had won the first three rounds of the series. If you read the Stopwatch every week (like you should!) the second streak will be obvious to you as well, in his three wins Strang hadn’t set the fastest lap in any of the races. In GNCC racing it’s not necessarily about who is the fastest, but who can keep up the fastest pace for the grueling three hours. On Sunday afternoon in the process of extending his win streak, Strang broke his not-having-the-fastest-lap streak when he put down a blazing fast 29:18 lap on the 5th of 6 laps or racing. This was the lap he made his pass on Thad DuVall, and Strang wasted no time doing his best to run away and hide. DuVall inched closer on that final lap of racing, but was forced to slow down after a rock knocked out his goggle lens.

The big question coming out of Big Buck, is who is going to stop the FMF/Makita Suzuki of Strang? He’s won in the sand, won in the clay, won in the mud, and won in a come-from-behind fashion in the dust in South Carolina after running down one of the fastest riders in the series. Strang won at Loretta’s and Somerset last year, got his first-ever GNCC win at Yadkinville in 2008 (and a 2nd in 2009), and has finished on the podium at the John Penton the last two years. His confidence must be at an all-time high while the rest of his competitors are left scratching their heads.

Kailub Russell couldn't duplicate his 3rd-overall from 2009, but he did win his class and set the fastest lap time in the XC2 Pro Lites class.

At last year’s Big Buck GNCC, Kailub Russell finished an impressive 3rd overall from the second row, making many wonder if he’d be the first rider to win a race overall that wasn’t in the XC1 Pro class. The 2010 Big Buck track certainly made that a possibility, as an extremely tight section in the first miles of the track slowed the pace of the XC1 riders tremendously and allowed the XC2 class to catch them early on. Halfway through the first lap, Kailub Russell and Jason Thomas were both physically inside the top-10 overall with Jordan Ashburn leading the overall and Thomas and Russell rounding out the top-3. Thing would eventually become more spread out over the course of the race, but Russell kept his charge on until the last lap, recording a 29:43, good enough for him to secure the race win, 5th-place overall, and the 5th fastest lap time of the day. Many have questioned Russell’s endurance and training regimen, but to be able to lay down your fastest lap in on the last lap, and not to mention only the 5th rider to dip below 30-minutes for a lap is pretty good sign that whatever it is he’s doing works!

Tags: big buck gncc