The weekend started out great at Crandon International Off Road Raceway. At Friday’s practice, Leland was the 11th fastest out of 30 Pro Mod Turbo UTV’s. Then broke a rear shock during qualifying and he wound up with a starting spot of 18th for Saturday’s race.
Saturday rolled around and he had nothing but rain for most of the day, which made not only driving but seeing very difficult! Battled out the whole race with passing near to impossible, and finished in 19th.
Starting spot Sunday was then 19. Leland made a few changes overnight and he felt great about the machine. Coming up to race time, the track got watered before his race, and then also from nowhere came the rain again that wasn’t supposed to come.
At race start, shooting out of the ”land rush” start from 19th spot to finding a hole that took him up 9 spots to 10th, utv felt great! Unfortunately, there was a rollover during the land rush, so caution came out which meant Leland was restarting the race again, no land rush, regular start, which put him back into 19th in a 2 by 2 start. Battled hard out there, ran out of tear offs and mud was flying, but got himself into 9th position with just a few laps to go. Then coming around the barn turn, got taken out by a racer that was trying to work his way back up to the lead lap. After Leland hit the wall, bounced back onto the track and got hit a second time by a racer who couldn’t get around him in time. Definitely not the way he expected the race to go, especially since his dad and crew Erik Thyes and Jesse Bergner had the UTV set up perfect! Can’t thank them enough for all of their hard work and dedication… especially his dad, Leland Thyes- who was searching for parts as soon as he got home last night!