CHRIS TUTEN MAKES THE MOST OF ALTERNATE OPPORTUNITY
Chris Tuten’ s weekend at the Pro 10.5 Challenge nearly ended after qualifying when he sat outside the 16-car field after four qualifying sessions. But due to unfortunate breakage by two other competitors, Tuten moved into the field as an alternate. He made the most of that opportunity by racing to the $ 25,000 final round, where he took runner-up honors to young gun Ethan Steding.
Nearly all of the 25 Pro 10.5 competitors struggled to get down the track in the opening session on Thursday. Tuten managed a 4.459 at 171.53, which put him in the No. 7 spot. The second session saw major improvements across the board, including Tuten’ s 4.13 at 186.82, which put him No. 13. He stayed there through Q3, but after several drivers stepped up in the final session, he’ d slipped to No. 18. But Tommy Youmans wounded his turbocharged GTO and Marty Merillat sustained damage in a top-end crash and fire in the final session. By bowing out of the race, Youmans and Merillat gave No. 17 qualifier Dmitry Lisin and Tuten a shot on race day.
“ I hate it for the two guys that didn’ t get to make the show that put us in, but it’ s pretty awesome to come in as an alternate and make it all
the way to the final round,” Tuten says.
Tuten moved past Pro 10.5 newcomer Tim Dutton in the first round, running a 4.147 at 175.94 while Dutton slowed to a 5.456. He laid down his best performance of the weekend, a 3.995 at 195.17, in an upset second-round win over No. 3 qualifier Joel Wensley Jr. and his 4.017. In an all-turbo semifinal matchup with No. 9 qualifier Kallee Mills, Tuten posted a 4.143 at 194.52 to get around Mills, who pedaled to a 4.852.
In the final round, Tuten recorded his second-best performance of the event, a 4.104 at 192.06, but it wasn’ t enough to hold off Steding’ s 3.934. Due to a situation at the scales following the semifinals, Tuten was pressed for time between rounds and didn’ t get a chance to prepare for the final as well as he would’ ve liked. Still, the
Pelion, South Carolina-based racer was thrilled with what he made of the opportunity to even compete on race day.
“ We were held up [ at the scales ] and we didn’ t have as much time to cool our car down,” says Tuten, who thanked the Muffler Shop of Columbia and Cameron’ s Torque Converter Services.“ In the final, we just had some things where the car was still too hot and it slowed the performance down a lot, but we were just happy to start the season out with a final-round appearance.”
Tuten followed up his Pro 10.5 Challenge runner-up finish with another final-round appearance at the PDRA’ s season-opening East Coast Nationals at GALOT Motorsports Park a month later. He qualified sixth in the 23-car Pro Street order and raced past Bill Devine, Wensley Jr., and two-time world champ Tim Essick before a fiery mechanical issue stopped him in the final round against Blake Denton. Tuten says his passes at the Pro 10.5 Challenge – good and bad – played into his strong PDRA opener.
“ We went back to that pass [ against Wensley Jr.] and was like,‘ OK, everything that we’ re trying, it worked this pass, so there’ s something there, we just have to start picking at it and explore it,” Tuten says.“ There’ s good stuff in failed passes, too, when you’ re testing and trying stuff, so you try not to get discouraged or disappointed because you’ re like,‘ OK, that’ s fine, it didn’ t work. That just means you’ re not touching the right part of the car yet or the right part of the tune-up,’ You just gotta keep trying. It’ s there. If you believe it, you just gotta keep trying.”— NATE VAN WAGNEN DI DI DI
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