Desert Toyz Cory S
DeSeRt ToYz RhInO - UTVUnderground Approved
Wow what a grind!!! I too built my Maverick in 2 weeks with a lot of late nights and the last 2 days with no sleep at all! I was hoping the build would be the hardest part, not so. So we get to San Felipe just in time to be the very last vehicle thru contingency and tech. No problems at tech pass thru easy. After no sleep for 2 days ity was time for some rest. Went to bed at around 11pm and up at 7am. We worked quickly to finish getting our Maverick ready to tackle Baja. At the start line I realized that I had forgot to adjust the ride height, so I quickly went to work on it. Just finished that in the nick of time and jumped in the Maverick. No one from SCORE was staging the UTVs so the start order was all wrong. We were the last UTV to get in line and drove around the others trying to get to the front, our draw position. We made it to third and the SCORE guys wouldn't let us go futher. At the start line I was still buckleing in. Eric Fitch was driving the first 150 and I was navigating, then we would switch. The famous Coco from Cocos corner droped the green flag and we were off. the first 2 miles there was alot of locals driving backwards on the course so it was very tough to go fast. We quickly passed the 2 UTVs that started ahead of us and had some clean air. At mile 5 the first problem occured, we lost power and the Maverick died. The digital dash told us the voltage was low. I checked the wireing and found that the plug to the voltage regulator was not pluged in all the way, oops. I switched to the other Shorai battery secured the plug and we were off again. Unfortanately during that stop all the other UTVs drove buy us. We then lost the brakes at around mile 20 and drove to mile 27 where our chase team 1 met us. We found the the left front brake line was loose and had leaked out all the fluid. We fixed that. We also noticed that our stock Fox shock on the right rear had leaked out most of the oil from the top. We are a Elka Shock sponsored team but Elka could not get the new Maverick shocks done it time so we were forced to run the stocked ones. We asked our chase team to try to get a replacement shock from our teammates "Murray" racing. We left rm 27 and headed to rm 80 to our schedualed stop for fuel. We had a good run dispite the blown shock. We passed 2 Artic Cats and a Polaris I think. At rm 80 we puled in to our pit again with no brakes. This time it was the right rear line that was loose. The Murrays were pitted with us and they did have shocks we could use. Not sure what we were thinking but we decided to wait to put the shocks on till rm 147 our next schedualed stop, oops. We left the pit at rm 80 and went only 7 miles and the drive belt broke. While we were fixing that both Artic cats and the Polaris went by. Got the belt fixed and we were racing again. We were moving along at a good pase and even passed one of the Artic cats back. Then at rm 114 the right rear shock shaft broke! This was a game changer. I had thrown a block of wood in the Maverick to put onder the jack just in case the jack would not go high enough to change a tire. I used the block of would in "Mcgiever fashion" to prop the A-arm up and rachet strapped in. We limped along slowly to rm 137 where our chase teams 1-2 met us with the shocks we got from the Murrays. It was now 9 oclock dark and very cold. We changes out both rear shocks, put on second driving suits and heaed out into the night. We new at this point we would not finish in time but that didn't matter to us we were commited to complete the whole course no matter how long it took! Baja was not going to beat us!! We only went 4 miles and hit a big rock with the right rear tire and got a flat. We only carry a front spare and it was a left one. Our crew was behind us and we did not want to wait for them to get another spare so we pressed on with no spare. At rm 152 we switched and it was my turn to drive my new Maverick that I had designed and built. I have to say that the Maverick definately "Hauls the mail" it has sooo much power and corners like its on rails. I drove at about 70% thru my section just having fun. My navigator went to sleep only waking up to tell me I hit somthing too hard. We were schedualed to get a splash of fuel at rm 224 but our chase teams didn't make it there. Knowing that I had to save fuel I backed down to 60% and pressed on and of course at mile 245 we ran out of gas! Dam it. Ourt chase teams were close and they brought us gas pretty quickly. We crossed the finish line around 1:30 am too late for an official finish but we did race the whole course. We went straight to the taco stand and celabrated with beer tacos. It was a loooong tough day but the Maverick ran strong all day and so did my team. Thanks to Can-Am for giving me a great UTV to race, to Rigid lights for the best lights ever !!!! to Maxxis for some super tough tires, to OMF for the great wheels, and to my teamate Eric Fitch, and my crew Todd, Steve, Donavan, and Baja Billy!
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