Starting from row 6, we ran the entire race in the dust, never seeing clean air. Unfortunately this killed our chances at setting the fast lap time, but it did allow us to settle into a decent pace and start ticking off the laps. Blue Torch Fab ran an excellent pit and kept everyone informed of all of the changing race topology and lap count. Fortunately, we did not have to bring the RZR into the pits f or anything but fuel.
Charging hard through the high speed UTV Rally Raid course was never a concern thanks to our HiPer Racing Wheels and GBC Dirt Commander tires. We chalked up another four race hours on this wheel tire combination with zero issues. I also need to give a big plug for King shocks. From the last race, we made a very subtle compression change which put them right in the sweet spot. The shocks were flawless all through the night.
The race lead was hotly contested throughout the evening with several teams within striking distance of the overall. The UTV Rally Raid series has a unique way of scoring teams (multiple drivers and multiple UTV’s) directly alongside “ironman” entries. The rules heavily favor team entries, which makes competing solo a risky affair. Thankfully, it worked out for us this race and the RZR was flawless all night long.
After 16 laps and four hours, our center seat Polaris RZR was able to best the second and third place teams by one minute, barely squeaking out the win.All in all, it was a great night with nearly perfect weather. Overcoming the dust was, thankfully, the largest challenge of the night.
Again, we can’t give thanks enough to our team sponsors. Without their help, this wouldn’t be possible:
Polaris, GBC Motorsports, HiPer Technology, Octane Media, ATVScene.com, Blue Torch Fab, Yoshimura, King Shocks, DirtyDawg Performance, SXSPerformance.com, K&N Engineering and Benchmark Performance.