Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

When a driver takes the podium, you’ll often hear them thank the hard work of their team, saying something along the lines of without them they wouldn’t be where they are. You may miss these team members, as they are often scattered throughout the race course, but make no mistake. They are working full steam, behind the scenes, as spectators have their eyes on the drivers these teams have their eyes on everything else. On the top of this mountainside, some distance from the start/finish, I found Levi’s sister & mom (mom’s just off camera, to the left). They were watching Levi race over the King Shock Zone (that’s Levi in the distance, centered), a rutted section that only the most tuned suspensions could speed thru. They weren’t just watching though, they were timing.

As I would find out only slightly before taking this photo, due to Italian rules and regulations, races such as these have a “minimum” lap time. I know, sounds a bit odd, but I can only guess the logic here is to control the types of vehicles on roads that are used both privately and publicly. I could be a bit off in those finer details, but as it stood the minimum lap time for any single lap at King of the Mountains was 38 minutes, any faster and you would receive a penalty. Drivers hadn’t gotten very close to that 38 minute mark, that is until Levi was coming in hot from his 3rd run (pictured here). Watching the times, and communicated with the team, Levi ended his 3rd run with the fastest time in the entire event. Get this, a 38:02 .

Yup, team work is important.