A large contingent of the world’s best drivers headed to Hutto, Texas, suburb of Austin for the 2026 Lone Star Challenge which doubled as the IFMAR Worlds Warm-Up. A lot was to play for as racers battled to come to grips with the surface as well as gaining confidence for the World Championships in September.
The event started with a day of open practice Thursday, which is naturally chaotic as racers can get as much time on the track as they can stand. To break up the chaos every two hours there was a World’s class practice. Moving into Friday there was a round of Seeding and a round of qualifying. Saturday would hold 2 rounds of qualifying, and Sunday was main event day.
Seeding for all classes was best 2 consecutive laps except for the World’s Nitro Buggy Class which was best 3 consecutive laps. The team got off to a hot start:
World’s Nitro Buggy: 1st Phi-Long Nguyen, 2nd Mason Fuller
Pro Ebuggy: 2nd Phi-Long Nguyen
Intermediate Buggy: 2nd Joel Rodriguez
Intermediate Ebuggy: 1st Donato Tradardi
40+ Buggy: 1st Adam Drake, 3rd Paul Ciccarello
40+ Etruggy: 3rd Smiley Henn
50+ Buggy: 2nd Mark Morrow
Qualifying would be qual-points best 2/3 rounds counting. Each class would be 5 minute qualifiers, with the World’s Nitro Buggy class being 3-10 minute qualifiers to better simulate the world championships. The JC team kept the pressure on with the following results:
World’s Nitro Buggy: 2nd Mason Fuller
Pro Ebuggy: 1st Phi-Long Nguyen
Intermediate Buggy: 1st Robbie Darby, 2nd Alex Gwin, 3rd Cody Granger
Intermediate Truggy: 1st Donato Tradardi
Intermediate Ebuggy: 1st Donato Tradardi, 3rd Reggie Tongue
40+ Buggy: 1st Adam Drake, 2nd Reggie Tongue, 3rd Paul Ciccarello
40+ Ebuggy: 2nd Reggie Tongue, 3rd Smiley Henn
40+ Etruggy: 1st Smiley Henn
50+ Buggy: 2nd Gilbert Jimenez
Moving into the main events racers would battle it out for Lone Star Shootout titles with the marquee event being the hour long World’s Nitro Buggy final.
World’s Nitro Buggy: Davide Ongaro would be the man start to finish in the main event pulling away from the field and having quite the gap at the end of the main. Mattia Polito Dal Bello and Ryan Maifield would have a fairly quiet battle for a lot of the race with different pit strategies keeping them offset for most of the main. Polito would break away late to finish 2nd with Maifield holding onto 3rd. After falling back as far as 5th at the start, Mason Fuller would climb back to 4th with a safe cushion over Spencer Rivkin in 5th.
1st Davide Ongaro, 2nd Mattia Polito Dal Bello, 3rd Ryan Maifield (JC), 4th Mason Fuller (JC), 5th Spencer Rivkin (JC)
Pro Ebuggy: Phi-Long Nguyen and Davide Ongaro put on an absolute battle for 2/3rds of the final with some mistakes at the end allowing Ongaro to escape for the win. Spencer Rivkin, Mason Fuller, and Nguyen would have a last lap battle for 2nd-4th finishing in the order they were listed. Jonah Wilson would finish up 5th.
1st Davide Ongaro, 2nd Spencer Rivkin (JC), 3rd Mason Fuller (JC), 4th Phi-Long Nguyen (JC), 5th Jonah Wilson (JC)
Intermediate Buggy: 1st Alex Gwin (JC), 2nd Robbie Darby (JC), 3rd Joel Rodriguez (JC), 4th Cody Granger (JC), 5th Tito Cesena
Intermediate Ebuggy: 1st Donato Tradardi (JC), 2nd Renato Tradardi Jr. (JC), 3rd Chris Allison, 4th Reggie Tongue (JC), 5th Joel Rodriguez (JC)
Intermediate Truggy: 1st Donato Tradardi (JC), 2nd Wade Moore, 3rd Reiley Maiers, 4th Tyler Duff, 5th Alex Ortega
40+ Buggy: 1st Adam Drake (JC), 2nd Robbie Darby (JC), 3rd Reggie Tongue (JC), 4th Paul Ciccarello (JC), 5th Richard Saxton
40+ Ebuggy: 1st Chris Allison, 2nd Mike Battaile, 3rd Smiley Henn (JC), 4th Reggie Tongue (JC), 5th Santos Rodriguez
40+ Etruggy: 1st Smiley Henn (JC), 2nd Ricardo Fautsch, 3rd Albert Castillo, 4th Dan Henn (JC), 5th Paul Schulz
50+ Buggy: 1st Brian Givens, 2nd Gilbert Jimenez (JC), 3rd Matt Sistrunk, 4th Nick Lefebvre, 5th Will Allen