JoeyD23
#utvunderground
The 2012 Soboba Grand Prix
Before I get into the weekends report I want to get right of by thanking a few people. #1 - UTVUnderground's La Familia. These guys gave up their weekend to all come out to Soboba, post up in their RV's and Haulers and not only camp but volunteer as track support for the entire weekends races. These guys worked their butts off but the thing that surprised me the most is they also partied their butts off! La Familia knows how to have a good time and I can promise you my goal from now on is to make as many La Familia rides and events as I can. What a solid group of people they are. They welcome in anyone and once you are in you are family. So thank you to each and every one of you for doing what you did this weekend. Papa Bear, we all owe a little to you for making this happen and putting so much effort into the organization of this.
#2 - I want to thank Daniel "OffRoadSwapMeet" Fernandez and Rusty "Rusty5150" Baptist for helping me this weekend. Daniel brought out his Toy Hauler and allowed me to crash in it to make sure I didn't miss any action! Rusty came out Saturday and Sunday to help provide photo coverage and site support to racers.
#3 - The team at Pro Armor. Fred, Bradley, and Andy along with many others came out to not only support UTVUnderground in producing what is sure to be one sick video, but also to support all those who competed with providing this same coverage. They too gave up their weekend to help me cover the Long Jump Contest as well as support La Familia Volunteers in making sure the contest went off without a hitch. So thank you for all you do Pro Armor!
#4 - Last but not least UTVUnderground and me personally want to thank Jake and Faith Briones, Dan, and the entire tribe at Soboba Rez along with the Soboba Casino and tribal council who put so much time, effort, resources, and money to host and make this event go off. I say it every year but this is by far my favorite UTV race and event and each year it gets better and better. The Soboba people are welcoming and without there land and commitment there is no way this event would ever take place. $10,000 purse for UTV's is amazing and the fact you get CASH as soon as the checkered flag drops makes Soboba a sweet race to compete in. So thank you Jake for allowing UTVUnderground.com be a big part of the UTV race and events. We appreciate all of your support and look forward to many more years of participation! We launched our site at Soboba back in 2009 so it has a spot in our hearts forever!
Now to the RACE!
What can I say? 33 sick UTV's lined up in a staggered, single row start line all sent off in a land rush for the first corner once the green flag drops. The line up was determined by the order racers signed up in which made it extremely fair. So remember that for next year! Almost every UTV you could think of was lined up at the starting line including Polaris's BRAND NEW Polaris RZR-4 XP900! Last years GP winner Beau Baron would be racing his new ATVRiders.com XP 4 seater along with Alabama's own Brit Mansell and Doug Mittag who took home the Soboba Leap 1st prize award the night before with his 164ft launch. Instead of racing his long jump short course UTV Doug would be in the Walker Evans Racing Pre-Production RZR-4 XP900 racing along side his buddy RJ Anderson who the year before broke in the final laps after leading the GP! This year RJ was here to redeem himself!
It was hard to ignore all of the Polaris RZR XP900's in the lineup but there were still a handfull of Kawasaki Teryx's and Yamaha Rhino's lined up as well. Mike Lasher brought out his BITD Monster Energy / Kawasaki Teryx to compete and LOORRS Super-Lite truck racer Brent Fouch knocked the dust off his former CORR/LOORRS Kawasaki Teryx to come out and compete. The car has raced since last years GP where Brent would finish in the top 5. A racer known on UTVUnderground simply for his hair raising wheelies up and down Oldsmobile Hill in Glamis would also be competing with his extremely fast and light weight Yamaha Rhino powered by a R1 engine, Jimmy Fishback. A couple other BITD racers came out with their cars including Dennis Jean who debuted his new XMF/UTVUnderground Polaris XP900. Justin Wells brought out his II Brothers Racing Yamaha Rhino also to compete coming fresh from the Parker 250.
Newcomer JD Marsh who also competed in the jump contest would put on a solid showing in his new Polaris RZR XP900 as would UTV racer Brian "Fitz" Fitzpatrick. UTVUnderground's own Shawheen (sp?) "El Kido" Abdi would also be running his RZR XP900 coming fresh off the jump contest the night before. The #1 entry for Soboba this year and starting on the pole was Tyrone "TJWIZ" Jackson. He and his co-dog Lee hung out all weekend long and that RZR 50" just kept on clicking off the lamps despite losing a wheel resulting in a roll over mid race! The team of Guthrie Racing, Mitch and Mitch Jr. came out to play and unfortunately both would end up DNF'ing on the day.
The race itself was full of excitement. Numerous roll overs including Mitch Guthrie Jr. who would be punted going into the first turn of the race resulting in the first roll of the day. He would get back on all 4 and pass up to 15 UTV's before rolling again while pushing to get into the top 5 and ending his day. Mike Lasher would end up catching on fire!!! He got it out and would walk away with no serious injury to him or his Teryx. We will let him tell the whole story! Jimmy Fishback would lose a steering rack ending his day early and Brian Pevehouse in his Rotax Powered Rhino would also lose a rack causing him to pull out of the race early.
Many others would fall victim to the Soboba terrain but despite the harsh jumps and brutal course many would outlast the competition and complete the 2 hour race! 2011 Soboba Winner Beau Baron would take an early lead and hold that lead for most of the first hour of the race. Despite starting mid pack LOORRS UTV Champion RJ Anderson would begin to make his way to the front and by the mid way point would be putting lots of pressure on the backside of Baron. RJ was forced to bump many competitors out of the way after failing to move over and a couple paid the price, breaking out of the race. Anderson was on a mission this year and soon after reaching Baron's rear bumper Beau would concede the lead to RJ allowing him to get by and never look back.
From that point on RJ Anderson would proceed to check out not allowing anyone else to challenge for the lead. RJ pushed and pushed and his new Walker Evans Racing / Holz Racing Products Polaris RZR XP900 would hold up to the abuse without one failure. It was a big win for RJ having took the second place long jump $500.00 prize the night before increasing his weekends total winnings to $4000.00!! Not a bad weekend for the young 18 year old off road racing star!
Beau Baron would hang on to take home 2nd place in the UTV race. He too had a solid weekend as Beau would also win the Pro Quad race held earlier this same day!! Talk about an athlete! Beau injured his wrist in the quad race and despite the ailment was able to press hard to take home the second place prize money in the UTV race.
New comer JD Marsh would hang on for 3rd, Brian Fitzpatrick 4th, Brit Mansell 5th, John Goodman 6th, and Evan Deitrich 7th making the top 7 UTV's all Polaris XP900's with Mansell and Baron in new RZR-4 XP900's! Pretty impressive to say the least. 8th place was Jeremia Akin in his stock Can-Am Commander 1000X.
In all it was another amazing weekend and event held at the Soboba Indian Reservation. The people of Soboba once again opened their doors to us crazy off-roaders and not only sponsored the race but enlisted their people to design and develop one of the coolest race tracks in all of UTV racing. Many other series' should take notes, Soboba isn't the tightest ship ran but they lead with passion and commitment. The payouts are big and the fun is even bigger.
Until next year Soboba.........
Related Threads:
http://www.utvunderground.com/f70/2...cs-results-utvunderground-pro-armor-8793.html
http://www.utvunderground.com/f70/2012-soboba-grand-prix-info-7792.html
http://www.utvunderground.com/f70/2012-soboba-grand-prix-purse-payout-big-money-8742.html
http://www.utvunderground.com/f70/2012-soboba-gp-pics-video-8782.html
http://www.utvunderground.com/f70/soboba-dirty-iphone-5290.html
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