JoeyD23
#utvunderground
Cody Rahders Racing and crew traveled to Ensenada for the 2015 Baja 1000 with our Polaris RZR XP Turbo with one goal, finish the race. Unfortunately the car only made it 30 mile before the call came in on the Satellite phone. “It’s misfiring”
Chase 1, on its way to San Felipe, caught 1961 responded to confirm the misfire but called for help as they felt the problem was deeper than spark plugs. Chase 2 turned around outside of Santo Tomas and headed back to the first road crossing at Valle De Trinidad to assist. Over the next few hours the top end was checked, spark plugs, coil, wires, injectors, mag pick up were all changed, the wiring harness and battery were inspected, it was then determined the most likely problem was the engine ECU had failed and with no spare the race was over.
The ECU failure was confirmed by swapping ECUs between our car and a brand new XP Turbo Sunday afternoon back in Alpine. Leading up to the race we shook the car down at Camp RZR, the only change made was to increase the rear spring rate, the car worked and felt great.
Being new to Baja, while we were behind the curve I felt we still had a good pit strategy, an incredible chase crew, and good communications system in place. From wheels and tires to brakes, steering, suspension, clutches and belts, transmission, front differential, axles, etc, etc, etc, we had all the spare hard parts and majority soft parts in the world.
Baja Pits was employed as a resource for welding and fabrication supplies as well as fuel stops in two remote areas of the course and one as a backup where I felt the car may get ahead of the chase crew.
We were prepared to deal with and crash damage, mechanical failures, and driver fatigue. Cody has 7 championships and turned 1000’s of laps racing short course. We’ve worn out and broken many parts, and seen unique failures as well.
The ECU in my opinion is one of the most reliable and incredibly engineered parts in modern vehicles and equipment today. I cannot tell you the last time in the past 20 years I’ve seen one fail, but it is a part and parts break, I should have had a spare. It’s times like this that let you know you are sponsored by the best. Polaris contacted us first thing Monday morning and is sending us a solution. Knowing that Polaris cares means everything to our race team.
One weekend in Baja has taught us a lot and we will be back to take on the challenge! And speaking of challenges I hear there’s a BITD race on December 5th in Henderson Nevada…
Huge thanks you to Polaris, Cognito Motorsports, Black Rhino Performance, Fox, Method Race Wheels, Tensor Tires, K&N Filters, Superchips, Sparks Racing, Pac Racing Springs for their continued support of Cody and his racing effort
