Magnum Offroad / Vigor Motorsports WORCS Round 1 Race Report

Posted on January 29, 2013

Vista, CA. 1/28/13 – Just back from the Round 1 season opener of the 2013 WORCS series held at Canyon MX Park in Peoria AZ, and wow what a race! Conditions on Friday during practice excited all of us as the track was groomed to perfection and it was still relatively dry out. We managed to qualify 3^rd in class during qualifying on Friday, and were hopeful that the weather would hold steady for Saturdays race. That would prove to be short lived as the afternoon skies changed and it began to steadily rain just before sunset Friday afternoon. The rain would continue throughout the night, and by Saturday morning the track conditions had deteriorated to the point of non repair. The track officials decided to eliminate the in-field portion of the track due to safety concerns, and instead utilize only a small section of it in combination with the outer desert portion of the course.

Side By Side Production class 850 vehicles began to stage on the starting line at approximately 1:40 pm, and we were positioned in the starting row second from the outside wall ready for the land rush start. As the green flag dropped our Alba racing tuned engine and Big Gun Exhaust helped put the power to the ground and allowed our GMZ Slammer tires to really dig in and keep us up with the rest of the pack off the line. After a little contact we managed to come out of turn one and enter the desert portion of the course in 4^th position. Our John Deere Gator RSX 850i kept steady pace with the lead 3 vehicles throughout the brutally rough desert section, and the ride was smooth and stable thanks to our FOX Podium Shocks and Magnum Offroad built suspension system paired with Summers Brothers Axles for reliability.

We were able to move into second place position half way through the first lap just before re-entering the infield portion of the course. There we held position, and gained a bit of a lead on the 3^rd place vehicle throughout laps 2 and 3. Late in lap 3 our vehicle went off course due to extremely poor visibility and pouring rain. This would prove to be fatal as while navigating back onto course we saw vehicles 3 and 4 pass by, putting us back into 4^th place where we would eventually finish out the day at the end of the 40 minute moto. The track was a solid bog of mud, water, and debris and the battle to just maintain a steady pace was exhausting. At no time did our Gator RSX 850i stutter or hesitate, and everything performed flawlessly.

This is the very first time to our knowledge that a John Deere Gator has ever been raced in a short course setting, and we were really pleased with its performance. We are looking forward to seeing what this vehicle is capable of, and putting it on the podium! We would like to extend a HUGE thanks to all of our great sponsors that have made this race team possible: