The Speed Technologies team ends their 2009 race season on a number of highs.

Coming into 2009 the Speed Technologies team, owned by John Harrah, had ambitious goals. After coming off a class win at the Baja 1000 last November, the team decided to turn it up for this year; campaigning a program in the desert running both SCORE and BITD races in Class1 and Class 10. They also launched a huge short course program fielding a total of 7 trucks at each Lucas Oil Off Road Race Series event.

Last week their race season started to wrap up with the LOORRS race in Primm, Nevada. Coming into the race, team owner John Harrah was just barely leading the SuperLite Championship points, while their Unlimited 2 driver, Jeff Ward sat just 5 points out of first place for that class championship.

In Saturday’s race, John Harrah all but clinched the championship with a strong 2nd place finish putting him 23 points ahead; to win the championship all he had to do was start the race on Sunday. In the Unlimited 2 class, Jeff drove a great race on Saturday but the truck started to loose traction towards the end of the race. At the conclusion, the championship was still up for grabs; all would be decided on Sunday.

The Unlimited 2 race was an all out battle. Jeff ran at the front the entire race, fighting hard for a top spot with 2 other drivers. While the battle up front went on, Carl Renezeder, the driver who was leading the championship, was fighting back in the pack for a top 5 finish. At the end of his rookie season Jeff finished the championship in 2nd place, just 1 point out of first place. While some would see this as a disappointment, it is very exciting for the team who just 11 months prior were just building their team. The SuperLite championship was another story all together; all John had to do was start the race in order to win the championship. While the race was a bit of a disappointment as John was side lined with a mechanical problem, the team had a lot to celebrate, a class championship in SuperLite, and John was also awarded with the Rookie of the Year award for the SuperLite class. The team also celebrated a close second place finish in the Unlimited 2 class, and Jeff Ward also took the honor of Rookie of the Year in the class.

A number of race wins, a couple of dozen top 5 finishes, a championship and 2 rookie of the year awards, not bad for a teams first year short course racing.

With the short course season wrapped up the team headed south to Mexico for the Baja 1000 where they would be defending their Class 1 victory in 2008. After weeks of pre-running and preparation the team was poised for a great race. Starting the race with the team for the 1000, John Marketing made a great start, by race mile 101 he had passed a number of competitors and was running in the top 5 on time. He maintained that pace until heading to San Felipe and then the engine started to loose power. The problem turned out to be a cracked header, fixing the header took almost an hour putting the team back in the standings. Chuck Dempsey then got in the car and put his foot to the floor and was making up for the time lost while repairing the car. By race mile 535 he was sitting 4th in class, for the last 140 miles Chuck ran very hard but could not catch the leaders, finishing 4th. Not the result that the team was hoping for, but a result to still be proud of.

Up next the big money race to finish the short course season, see you all at the track in a couple of weeks.

Bully Dog Technologies, LLC is a team built on integrity that is dedicated to leading the vehicle performance with an uncompromising code of ethics demonstrated in the soundness of its employees, excellent customer service and superior products.