Not wanting to toss in the towel on the race, I started to
formulate alternatives. I had brought along my
Polaris RZR XP 900 for pre-running and use it quite a
bit in the dunes.We already had Pro Armor doors and
harnesses, Beard seats and several Race Pace products from
DragonFire Racing (front/rear bumpers, back bones, tire
carrier, replacement a-arms, V brace and radius arms) that
made the jump to ISA rules a possibility. I took a drive
down to Hammertown and talked to Mike Lasher who was
handling tech for the race. He said I was pretty close, but
would need window nets, and amber light and an aluminum
roof. In addition to being a board member of the ISA, Mike
also owns
SXSPerformance.com and was selling UTV parts and
accessories in Hammertown. It was great to have support from
the UTV industry at the event for many of the last minute
details and repairs. One of the cool products to come out in
the last year is made by
PRP Seats
and geared towards RZR owners that have
Pro Armor
doors and want to race. PRP’s window nets mount right up to
a stock cage with Pro Armor doors. The velcro in place and
can be easily installed and removed so the weekend warrior
can race one day and play the next. Thankfully Mike had a
set in stock and made the path to race day much easier.
Tuesday morning came Dave, Rich, my co-dog Wally and I set
about getting the car prepped. We added an aluminum piece
under our plastic roof. We moved the GPS over from another
car and swapped the billet centers on our
OMF
beadlocks so we could run the tall 27.5″
Pit Bull
Rockers. Installed an amber light and mounted the IRC
tracker. I already had PURE Polaris rock sliders and
trailing arm guards helped protect the underside, but I did
not have anything but the stock skid plate. If I had planned
to race my XP, I would have had some 1/2″ UHMW skids under
there from
Factory
UTV.
After getting everything installed, Wally and I headed
out to see how it felt. I had a set of
Stage III upgraded shocks from Fox Racing Shox and met
up with Jerry Penhall (Penhall Racing) so he could help us
tune the shocks. The front end looked great, and we added a
few clicks of low-speed compression and slowed down the
rebound quite a bit in the rear. We also added a little bit
more pre-load to help us get through the rocks without
dragging the skid plate everywhere.
The night before the race, we had a driver’s meeting down
in Hammertown where they drew starting positions. I had been
setup in the Unlimited 4 class with my Teryx, but now could
fall into Production 1000 as well. Since our goal for the
race had changed a bit and we were just looking to finish
and have fun, I decided to move back to Production 1000.
This would prove to be a key decision in our race. I knew
that Unlimited 4′s were to start first, but it turned out
that 18 UTVs had signed up for that class. Ugh! After
drawing positions, we would start the race 25th off the
line. The start was to be two at a time, every 30 seconds so
we were going to be 12 minutes behind the first cars and
well engulfed in the huge dust clouds created in Johnson
Valley. Oh well, let’s just relax and have fun.
The morning of the race was very chilly and with the
adrenaline pumping in full force, I was pretty jittery. I
told Wally to remind me to just relax and have fun. Just
have to finish. Unfortunately, Wally had been sick for the
last few days and had almost lost his voice so I couldn’t
really hear much of him through our
Rugged Radios. There went that plan…
The jump off the start line looked like a kicker, and the
dust was really thick. I really did not want to make any
stupid mistakes early on, so I drove cautiously for the
first 5 miles or so. Within the first few miles though, we
started to pass other cars and felt pretty good. At first I
counted them, but then got myself confused and gave up. But
it felt good to have passed half a dozen by the time we hit
the first lake bed. The car felt real solid and we had
settled into a comfortable pace. We continued to pass a car
here and there and saw Martel coming up. This was the first
rock section, but was easy compared to what we had coming.
At the first part of Martel, we came upon a RZR 4 that was
setup for desert racing. They were stuck , and with the long
wheelbase I knew we needed to get in front of them ASAP.
Their co-dog was out of the car, and I yelled that we could
give them a push. I got the thumbs up and put my
DragonFire “Bash” bumper to the test. It took just a
nudge and they were over the rock that had them high
centered. They thankfully let us by and we were on our way.
After Martel, we were back to more open desert and
clicked off more miles until the first pit. We passed a few
more cars then made the u-turn at the pit area and headed to
Elvis. We had not setup anything for the first pit, and
thankfully we did not need it. I was feeling real good about
our race at the 30-mile mark, but was a little nervous about
Elvis in 15 more miles. I could see a few cars in front of
me, so we pushed a little harder than I had been to see if
we could get ahead of anyone. Although we gained some time,
we came into the canyon without passing any more cars. Once
we got into the last part of Elvis where the big rocks are,
we saw a big line of cars in front of us. Just what I had
feared.
