Ryan Beat will return to his native Southern California to compete in off-road trucks, but on pavement instead of what he’s used to. On Saturday, Beat confirmed his entry for the Stadium Super Trucks‘ season opener at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on 14–16 April.
Beat made his SST début in 2019 at Circuit of the Americas as the Continental Tire flagship truck’s inaugural driver, where he scored a podium in the first race followed by a sixth in the second. He did not race in the series again over the next three years as he focused on developing his short course off-road programme Ryan Beat Motorsports which has competed in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series and Championship Off-Road. In 2022, R/BM driver Gray Leadbetter won the COR Pro SPEC title to become the first female champion in series history. Beat helped design the Pro SPEC trucks for two-wheel-drive trucks with certain parts frozen from modification.
During a bye week for COR in August 2022, Beat returned to SST for the Music City Grand Prix at Nashville. After finishing fourth in the first race, he duelled with the leaders in Race #2 before being caught in a wreck that caused Cleetus McFarland to roll onto his side. A broken axle knocked him out of the race and he as classified eighth.
“It’s one of the most wild things i have ever done,” Beat described SST in an Instagram comment. “The trucks are crazy to drive.”
Besides running a team, Beat races for R/BM in the Pro 2 class and finished ninth in the 2022 COR standings. He won the 2018 and 2019 LOORRS Pro Lite championships before moving up to Pro 2. Fellow Pro 2 colleagues Jerett Brooks and Cory Winner also raced in SST in 2022, with Brooks winning at Long Beach the year before.
While a full entry list has not been released, other non-regular drivers who have declared they will race at Long Beach include newcomers Trey Hernquist and Joshua Thomas. Defending champion Gavin Harlien, Ben Maier, and Shaun Richardson also intend to take part depending on sponsorship.
