Entering his third year of Red Bull Global Rallycross competition in 2014, Bucky Lasek knew that it was time for him to elevate his game. His first two seasons with Subaru Rally Team USA had yielded consistent improvement, including the series’ Sportsmanship Award as voted on by his peers, but up through this year’s season opener at Top Gear Festival Barbados had not yet led to a race result greater than sixth.
Consider whatever monkey was on his back to have climbed off: Lasek earned the first podium of his Red Bull GRC career at X Games Austin on Saturday. It gave him his 20th career X Games medal; the other 19, earned in skateboarding, make him only the second athlete in the event’s 20-year history to win medals in both motorized and non-motorized events.
“It brings me to tears, I’m just holding it back,” a humble Lasek said after the race. “My team gets more credit at this than I do, they work hard. I’m fighting inside the car—it does come down on me when the car doesn’t perform right. It makes me look like I’m not a good driver.
“But my team works so freaking hard to do the best they can, and we finally are there. We finally have great equipment.”
Lasek’s first well-known foray into motorsports came in 2006, when he won the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach after leading every single lap. Competing in a Scion tC in time attack racing in 2011, Lasek took on a full-time program in Red Bull GRC starting in 2012 while still in the prime of his skateboarding career.
To gain experience, Lasek has been one of the busiest drivers in the sport over the past few years, a fact he detailed in a blog post on RedBullGlobalRallycross.com last October. Not only has he added open-wheel racing experience, where he won the 2013 FormulaSPEED 2.0 series championship, to his resume, he’s also gone well out of his way to secure extra track time on mixed surfaces by frequenting rally schools like DirtFish and O’Neil Rally School.
“It’s hard developing,” Lasek added, referring not only to his driving skills but also the year-to-year development of the Subaru WRX STI, now a four-time podium finisher since 2012. “It’s really hard and it takes time. (Success) doesn’t happen race to race, but that’s what we’re trying to do, make it happen race to race. The pace is there, we just needed some luck.”
During a stellar 2013 that saw Lasek earn vert skateboarding gold medals at all four X Games stops across the globe, he improved to 11th in Red Bull GRC standings with a total of 49 points. Though admittedly under a different point system, he’s already earned that many points through only two races in 2014, putting him only three points out of a top-five spot.
When Lasek shows up at Volkswagen Rallycross DC in two weeks, he’ll be sporting a fresh new look: the shaggy long hair that has characterized his first few years in Red Bull GRC is gone. He promised to get his hair cut after earning his first podium finish, and he let the team do the honors—though he was particularly wary of teammate Sverre Isachsen.
“I’m only giving certain people scissors,” Lasek joked. “I’m definitely not giving Sverre scissors, because I know how aggressive he is!”
Photo credit: Larry Chen