1932 Race Report:
First off congrats to Marc Burnett and Derek Murray for getting first and second at the SF250. Also congratulations to all of the Pro UTV finishers, and I think we got 12 out of 14 across the line. The Pro UTV field continues to grow in SCORE and again we were the third largest class.
For us the race was very fun, but it was a very weird day. We heard at the drivers meeting that the Summit and the top part of Laguna Salada were completely washed out and impassible. Soooo....on race day we monitored Weatherman and discovered that the they re-routed and shortened the course around this area and the Car/Truck start would be delayed. This was disappointing to me and Jason because we had done our best recon in this area from Valle T to the road crossing. Oh well!
We drew the 4th starting position and I think we went off the line just after 2 pm. We had moved past the three Utes ahead of us by RM 12 and had passed about ten other cars/trucks in other classes. But our belt was getting hot so we decided to back off. By the time we got into the whoops at RM 20 we had lost 4wd, which made driving in the whoops to Morellia Junction very difficult in a short wheel base UTV. We just putt putted along until we could get to our crew at RM 40. Brandon checked all of the connections and figured that the switch had come un-plugged. So we lost about four minutes here and when we took off we had only had a two minute lead on Glascraft.
We hauled azz across Laguna Diablo into a wicked head wind. We caught a SCORE Lite coming off the lake but we again lost 4wd. So we just cruised up the wash to Matias, where we met the Bill and Bill show in the PBR chase truck for fuel and 4wd fix. They couldn't reattach the electrical so we tore the top of the dash off pulled the switch and taped and zip tied it so we would finally be done with this issue. Here we lost about 14 minutes and again Glascraft was two minutes behind us. So we got after it going up the Mike's loop, but is was now pouring rain and it had been raining in this area for a long time. There were crashed cars everywhere in this section, but super fun rallycrossing the RZR through the baby-chit mud. Jason had a jacket on, but I was too stupid to have one so I was soaked from head to toe.
At Valle T the course would have turned left and gone up the Goat Trail, but due to the storm we were redirected south on the highway for around 45 miles. It rained for about half of this highway section and we met our crew at Borrego for a splash of fuel and our light bar. Here we were redirected up a new 12 mile section where we would then intersect the course at RM224. This rocky crap really sucked but we were able to get by a few more trucks and buggies. We got to RM 230 and we lost power steering. It was weird so we met our crew at RM 240 for a quick look, but when we stopped the car died. We jump started the car and took off but about two miles up the road the RZR went into limp mode. Soooo...we pulled off the course, and tried to call the team but we had no power. We jumped out and Jason went to work on the electrical while I shut off everything and then restart the radio. I was able to get word to the crew of our 20. They met us about five minutes later and they went to work on the electrical. We thought we had lost the stator but were not sure. So we decided to change the battery and try and limp the final 30 miles to the finish. We were down around 30-35 minutes and we were just trying to crawl to the finish with all of our electrical stuff turned off and only running the stock headlights. During this down time we saw the Glazcraft and the Tire Blocks car pass us. About 15 miles from the finish we broke the sway bar and it was banging around back there, but obviously we couldn't do anything about it except drive the rollie pollie thing the rest of the way. But as luck would have it the two cars that passed us were both broken down and we thought we might be leading again. About 10 miles from the finish Jason thought that we were now charging again and we turned the radio back on and the lower Vision X lights. We saw some bright lights in mirror and we figured it was the Derek in the Canned Hammer. So we put the hammer down, but knew that they were likely going to beat us on time. We crossed the finish line and they were right behind us. We congratulated them on the win, but learned from George on the podium that the Burnett 1905 car came in a half hour ago. After the race a lot of people were questioning this because they hadn't seen them all day. But the bottom line is they must have done more homework during their pre-run than the rest of us and got by with better lines in a section where the course was running VCP to VCP. So Kudo's to them. It was really fun hanging out and drinking beer with the other UTV finishers after the race. Our class is very tight knit and we all get along with each other.
Even though this is the worst finish for the 1932 car since October of 2012, we fought through our issues and got our brand new XP1000 on the box. Thanks to our very small crew of JXWS, JXBS, Bill 'Santa' Rowe, Mussle Mark, and Dakata...plus long time co-dog Jason. The team would also like to thank Polaris, Jagged X, Walker Evans Racing Shocks, CR Designs, Muzzy Exhaust, OMF, Vision X and finally 'La Generale' taco stand. Plus let's not forget Joey D from UTVUG. Woot...woot!
Again congrats to all of the winners and finishers. See you at the next one. Let's get some of the other BITD guys at the SCORE IV250. It would be great to see over 20 Utes show up there.
-MP
since we were not racing.
