American Rock Rods
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Lets start by saying that I personally had a great time, as did everyone else I saw. We ran last year in a Teryx, and went 9 miles before the belt popped. So we switched it up this year.
Car #711 is a standard 08 RZR 800, and car #712 is an 09 RZR S. Both were setup pretty similar, HCR longarms with King shocks, 27.5" Pit Bull tires on 14" ITP beadlocks, Pro Armor doors, PRP seats. 711 has a slip on muffler and Power commander added on. Both cars have some of our ARR vent panels. I know its strange racing the 800's while using a pair of 900's as pit vehicles, but that's just how it went. Next year we should be in the same class winning 800 as this year, plus a 900 or two.
We were pushing hard in the months prior to get both UTV's done in time. Ended up down to the wire. PRP was awesome enough to get our nets done with a few days left before the race, with basically zero notice. They arrived literally 2 days before we left for the race, which was 2 days after we sent them the patterns.
We went to Glamis first to play around and make sure everything worked. Worked great, had a blast.
Showed up and preran the course. On day 2 of prerunning, we popped the front pinion bearing on both cars, within a few hundred feet of each other on Jack North. This was Tuesday night. Took them apart, everything was destroyed except the outer housings.
We thought we were in trouble, as we didn't have spares. So first Damon from HCR stepped up, and let us dismantle his personal RZR and use his diff assembly in car 712. This was Wednesday about noon. So one car is handled, the other is not. So Jim from Triple S Polaris had one of his employees drive all the way out with the parts needed to rebuild our diff. The employee got to KOH around 11 pm, and Jim spent the next hour rebuilding ours. We finally had both cars ready to go a little after midnight, less than 8 hours before the race started.
Racetime: Everything went perfect. We knew we couldn't compete for the overall win, as we were way behind on speed, but we wanted to finish. #711 topped out at 55 mph in the desert sections, while 712 was a little over 60 mph. We finished 1st and 3rd in class, with Damon from HCR driving another persons RZR 800 to 2nd in Class. Damon is a class act for sure, stepping up to give us parts, which in turn allowed us to beat him.
Car 711 had two drivers, and we swapped at Pit 1. It went a lot faster than expected, but we still left the pits way behind. I passed 3 cars in the whoops, one in the rocks, plus all the broken cars. At the VERY end, someone passed me in an XP. I couldn't see with the dust, and ended up taking a bad line up the final hill, almost rolling. I had to back down, and it went up on one wheel. I lost probably 3 minutes during this fiasco. It happened right in front of all of the media and spectators, so I'm sure it will end up on youtube.
Thanks again to HCR Racing and Triple S Polaris for the parts and support at the race. We couldn't have raced without you guys. Thanks to Mike Green at Pit Bull for helping us with tires and for putting up the cash for the three podium finishers. Thanks to PRP Seats, Rugged Radio, King Shocks, and Pro Armor. Thanks to car 712 drivers Dale and Zane, and 711 codriver Scottycards. Thanks to Polaris for building such kick ass vehicles. Thanks to all the KOH staff for being great. And finally thanks to Bill, the owner of ARR, for letting me drive the second half of the race. He drove the first half.
Next up, we want to run the Werock Dirt riot Mountain series, but first we need to actually build an ARR cage for the 711 car. We used some random cage we had sitting around, and it's pretty damn ugly.
Car #711 is a standard 08 RZR 800, and car #712 is an 09 RZR S. Both were setup pretty similar, HCR longarms with King shocks, 27.5" Pit Bull tires on 14" ITP beadlocks, Pro Armor doors, PRP seats. 711 has a slip on muffler and Power commander added on. Both cars have some of our ARR vent panels. I know its strange racing the 800's while using a pair of 900's as pit vehicles, but that's just how it went. Next year we should be in the same class winning 800 as this year, plus a 900 or two.
We were pushing hard in the months prior to get both UTV's done in time. Ended up down to the wire. PRP was awesome enough to get our nets done with a few days left before the race, with basically zero notice. They arrived literally 2 days before we left for the race, which was 2 days after we sent them the patterns.
We went to Glamis first to play around and make sure everything worked. Worked great, had a blast.
Showed up and preran the course. On day 2 of prerunning, we popped the front pinion bearing on both cars, within a few hundred feet of each other on Jack North. This was Tuesday night. Took them apart, everything was destroyed except the outer housings.
We thought we were in trouble, as we didn't have spares. So first Damon from HCR stepped up, and let us dismantle his personal RZR and use his diff assembly in car 712. This was Wednesday about noon. So one car is handled, the other is not. So Jim from Triple S Polaris had one of his employees drive all the way out with the parts needed to rebuild our diff. The employee got to KOH around 11 pm, and Jim spent the next hour rebuilding ours. We finally had both cars ready to go a little after midnight, less than 8 hours before the race started.
Racetime: Everything went perfect. We knew we couldn't compete for the overall win, as we were way behind on speed, but we wanted to finish. #711 topped out at 55 mph in the desert sections, while 712 was a little over 60 mph. We finished 1st and 3rd in class, with Damon from HCR driving another persons RZR 800 to 2nd in Class. Damon is a class act for sure, stepping up to give us parts, which in turn allowed us to beat him.
Car 711 had two drivers, and we swapped at Pit 1. It went a lot faster than expected, but we still left the pits way behind. I passed 3 cars in the whoops, one in the rocks, plus all the broken cars. At the VERY end, someone passed me in an XP. I couldn't see with the dust, and ended up taking a bad line up the final hill, almost rolling. I had to back down, and it went up on one wheel. I lost probably 3 minutes during this fiasco. It happened right in front of all of the media and spectators, so I'm sure it will end up on youtube.
Thanks again to HCR Racing and Triple S Polaris for the parts and support at the race. We couldn't have raced without you guys. Thanks to Mike Green at Pit Bull for helping us with tires and for putting up the cash for the three podium finishers. Thanks to PRP Seats, Rugged Radio, King Shocks, and Pro Armor. Thanks to car 712 drivers Dale and Zane, and 711 codriver Scottycards. Thanks to Polaris for building such kick ass vehicles. Thanks to all the KOH staff for being great. And finally thanks to Bill, the owner of ARR, for letting me drive the second half of the race. He drove the first half.
Next up, we want to run the Werock Dirt riot Mountain series, but first we need to actually build an ARR cage for the 711 car. We used some random cage we had sitting around, and it's pretty damn ugly.