Thomas “Wheels” Busch raced NCOM 208 as his first ultra race. He’d never done anything over a century, and after Dex’s successful RAAM, Wheels was curious about ultracycling. Dex encouraged him to give it a try in NCOM, so Wheels enlisted KD to be his crew. Needless to say, they had no clue about what they were getting into when they sat in their first pre-race meeting. After an overreliance on too-sweet sports drinks, an inability to outrun a giant dust devil, and flat after flat, things weren’t looking good for Wheels at the 170-mile mark. As the sun set, all he and KD could think was: When the hell are we going to get to Marfa?

Once they pulled into the gas station in Marfa, KD rushed in and convinced them to stop closing out the cash register so they could sell one more sandwich. KD set the sandwich down in the car so she could get Wheels’s water bottles filled up. By the time she finished, she caught him as he was stuffing the last bit of a foot-long sandwich into his mouth . . . the sandwich they were supposed to share. He then told her he’d just go ahead and ride to the finish even though there was no way he’d make it in time. But not far outside of Marfa, when KD could see the Marfa
Lights in her rearview mirror, Wheels got a second wind, passed another racer, and rode as fast as he’d done at the start of the race. To their surprise, he made it to the finish line in Alpine as the last racer to finish within the cutoff.
At that moment, Wheels was hooked on ultracycling. He’d pushed himself to his limits, and when he could smell the hay in the barn, he’d found enough gas in the tank to finish strong, something that he always seemed to do in later races.

 

Not only is the Lantern Busch award to honor how the NCOM 208 sparked Wheels’s fire about ultracycling, but it’s also given to do the same for someone else who’s “the last racer in.”

 

Only NCOM 208 racers are eligible for this award. The Lantern Busch award will go the last racer who finishes the NCOM 208 course within the time cutoff.