Well it looks like I possibly have a bad ESC. I swapped out the LT ESC for a 20A Grayson Hobby ESC and a 25A Thunder Tiger ESC that I had for some other planes and the motor worked like a charm. Wow, that thing puts out a lot of power!
Dan replied to my email with my initial concern pretty quick, so I'll have to send him another email and see about retuning this ESC for a replacement.
Time to minwax and get this thing airborne!