Listen to Nick Olson, Andrew Garvey and Wes Lefler talk about their experience racing UTV World Championship 2020 in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Transcription:

It’s not desert season without a campfire or chupacabra off-road now here’s your host nick olsen what’s happening everybody welcome back to chupacabra offroads podcast this is around the campfire and we got the gang back we got wes andrew and nick how’s it going everybody what’s going on guys west champion from las vegas andrew from el centro and myself here in peoria arizona and chupacabra off-road we are an off-road brand we sell off-road accessories for side-by-sides we talk about all things off-road on the show mostly of the side-by-side flavor and I got a lot of talk about today guys because chupacabra off road became a legit race team this week that weekend definitely got our desert badge so um if you guys follow us at all on our YouTube channel we put out four videos from utv world championships as well as a shakedown video the week before so this would be a fun time we were all three at the race west race in a different car in the pro turbo class and andrew and I of course were racing together in unlimited class in our first big race man our third race ever in the race car and as as a whole like we I felt like we we showed up and we showed that we had some speed to be we weren’t just out there you know like we were running at a good pace and um had a lot leading up to it so it’s a really exciting weekend and overall I’m just smiling like ear to ear thinking back about the experience so it’s been a long hard road especially if you guys have been following the channel um the race car the ups and downs a lot of downs so finally to get a big up and get this car screaming was like I was honestly guys it was a dream come true yeah we were all relieved believe me I can say that I was relieved also did you walk over to the pits and stop the pit for no reason yep I was like ah this could be a long day for me being in the pits but now you guys did really well the carbon one one lap yeah that’s true that’s true that’s true so so going backwards before the race um starting off you know wes pre-ran the course before us andrew and I got out to the the race event um just to do the poker run and it was illegal through the pre-run but west you pre-ran it and um wes you race all the time like you’ve done the whole series you’ve done you’ve been everywhere what was you and your team’s impression um of this course of being a new venue in new race course well it’s kind of a funny story so those who don’t know I race with sierra roma or co-driver with roma motorsports and her dad also races pro tober class with us also and they actually went out on the weekend I was actually out of town on a family trip and I just got a phone call saying hey you really need to go pre-run this we really need you to see it sierra is really worried like hey I really want you to be able to see the course so um me the wife hopped in the car drove down to have sue and we did it the Monday before the race just in my turbo s and man it I’d heard little things I’d heard it was slower or it was more like king the hammers one of the best acronyms I heard for it was it was king of the hammers and parker and I was like okay and when I pre-run it the first first few miles isn’t wasn’t didn’t seem like it’s that bad you know there’s a lot of big rocks and things like that but um the mortalities in the utv world championship organization they they only had a small area to put this whole course in so if you guys had seen the map it would basically was like a like when you see a heart monitor going it was just up down up down up down up and down these watches and it was very interesting compared to some of the courses that we had seen it was it was very interesting there’s some sections where you were I mean I think our top speed was 77 miles an hour and now it’s coming down a wash and I think we’re probably averaging about I don’t know 50 minute lap times for a 29 mile course so that’s not very it’s not very fast at all if you think about it and you got rock crawling you had a couple rock gardens there that it would be good enough for low range if if you were going slow just because you’re going a little bit faster in the race cars you probably need to use low range but pre-run in and the cool thing about it was is that I’ve never really raced the mexico races where you can pick a line here pick line there this is a true vcp race and so there was lines and there was people taking lines and believe me we found some lines during the race day that made us happy missing some of the rough stuff that we had to do and coming up over some rises things like that and it was pretty fun um yeah I mean the pre-run was a little little crazy it had me a little worried I just went in with the mentality that we just got to finish you know it was going to be five laps and 29 miles didn’t seem like it was that far but after pre-running I would have been okay with three laps that’s how I that’s how I honestly felt obviously called nick right after I got done I said man guys this is gonna be a rough one you know yeah you know I think I remember you calling remember you didn’t say how long you thought the lap times are gonna be so I think until a day or two before we even got there we’re thinking 30 minute and you know 30 mile laps we’re talking 40 minutes a lap this race will be like three hours and um could have been further from the truth I think the winning lap times or most people’s average lap times were from the what 50 to 57 minute range I’d say almost an hour yeah I think the fastest lap in pro turbo was like 48 minutes a lap um there’s somebody else in the n a class that happened to post like a 46 and a half minute time which is completely impossible so I don’t know how that person did that I don’t I don’t know where they could have got that fast um but like I said it was a vcp to vcp race but I can remember giving you that call and I was just like man this is these are going to be our lap times is what I figured I figured 29 miles was going to take us an hour which is that’s crazy you know I mean if you think of us racing 11 hours to go 550 miles of vegas arena I mean we wouldn’t even be close to that yeah yeah I feel like the course was very keen to utvs it was made for utvs really tight really technical so really felt like it was for the utv market I guess you can say because it is gtv world championship yeah like a class seven truck and some of those washes wouldn’t even fit I didn’t even know house I don’t even know how some of these four-seat four-seat names were fitting through that yeah there was a couple of the big 4c can-ams I know kaminsky had their car there and they raced both days they raced in your guys’s class and unlimited and they also went and raced in the pro turbo class and was talking with them and you know he said it was really tight but you know there’s you got to do what you got to do type of thing after the race though I did hear I don’t know if it’s fact rumor I don’t know if martillo’s will ever respond or see this podcast but basically that was almost all new trail like everything up those washes we’re just running up a wash that wasn’t a wash that was driven a lot or anything like that I’m sure there had been vehicles on in the past but it was fresh cut washes like we were the cars cutting the trail in those washes yeah that’d be good to know I mean there’s a maze of trails out there to begin with and all you have is two locals like no standard wash that’s just there’s trails everywhere there so that’d be interesting I’d imagine maybe not all of them because there were so many you know ridge lines and stuff but that’d be cool to know um and speaking of leading up to the race you know um around the same time the weekend before the race I did a proper shakedown or a final shakedown and we kind of put a lot of elements of our car together and it was a really good experience out of geyser loop replacement test all the time and though we had made a lot of improvements from the motor and the tune the new tires we put a new steering rack in it all these things added up to a car that just felt like I could drive it more predictably faster but the car did heat up so we knew that coming into this event um our motor temperature was gonna be something we’re gonna have to be concerned but so in west said it was even tighter than what we thought it was it was like okay this is this is a huge you know tailwind for us because now this is something where long hard pulls are really going to get the motor hot are not going to be as bad and we can maybe make it through without having to unfortunately hopefully not let off the gas and basically just lose time so you know all that goes through we get the car all buttoned up brent american engineering did a great job prepping gets it all dialed we load up we head out there and as soon as we get there we jump in andrew’s car um and we did the the poker run which andrew does premature first time off-roading out in havasu right yep first time out there in havasu and it was definitely definitely a different terrain than what I’m used to you know a lot of washes a lot of you know chop and chatter I’m used to out here superstition octyl wells you know two-track that’s not as chattery as it is but poker poker run was definitely was definitely a good one 65-mile loop took us through a lot of different terrain I even got the car down into low range to do some rock crawling which was kind of cool um out towards the back of the mountains but um some fast sections some slow sections some really flowy fun up and down up and down um but yeah definitely a good poker and I felt like it was it was a well thought out course yeah it’s cool how much smoother it got when you got away from town and then how much the terrain changed how less rocky it got and you know it reminds me wes like I know there’s a rumor that maybe they’ll run that full 64 mile loop something like that in the future maybe next year for lucky and you know we’ve all done like off-road racing like like works racing on dirt bikes and you think about a small loop a ton of people over the same miles the course just gets nasty which we’ll get into in a bit but I mean let’s just say wes knowing what you know now if and both of you guys if the course is 65 miles next year just instead of 30 I’m not saying the course is going to be half as rough but it’s going to be a lot less rough just because you have twice the mileage with the same amount of cars going through it yeah I could definitely make a difference I just have to look back at parker so everybody talks about parker for their chatter so when you’re racing parker the first 17 miles is basically up a wash and by lap two of the three lap race that 17 miles just seems like forever it’s that chatter and everybody talks about it and then lap three it’s even worse you start getting that chatter so I think it’s going to be similar to rain as that when it comes to the washes I honestly don’t mind the big bumps and the rough like that because that I feel like the car is actually handling it and there’s a reason so I don’t know I mean it it just depends those those chatter washes they they come from people just on the gas and every tire is digging at a different rate of speed and so I mean if they do that 64 mile loop which would it’d be really cool because you know you’d be out further they’d have to have I think they’d have to have another pit out there somewhere to give people the opportunity to finish but that chatter is just not going to go away I don’t think I think it’s there to stay I think that um especially if they opened up for pre-running we got a you know before race day that there had been hundreds and hundreds of miles and hundreds and hundreds of vehicles pre-running that course so it was open pre-run you didn’t have to register so you gotta imagine it wasn’t just racers it was all your locals and everything like that so I don’t know if the pre-runs good or bad I think it saved the organization some time they didn’t have to go out and mark their own dangers they put it on the racer some racers like that but it’d be interesting to see I saw that they’ve already released the dates for next year and it will be in havasu so we’ll see what they do I’m pretty sure they’ll switch up the course though they’d have to going back on west right there’s they came out with the dates and everything but they they’re seeing it as the four the 4c in the future being in havasu every single year from now on which would be really cool um you know that 65 mile course would be cool how we set up the race cars is we we set them up the harder you drive them the better they work so when it was those tight and slow choppy sections you know you’re just getting rattled rattled rattled yeah no doubt and um before the rattle got too bad um we did qualifying so I don’t know how many races you guys have got to qualify for west but that that’s kind of more of a reserve for the big class ones and trophies right in most desert racing is this a rare this is a rare deal that we get to qualify right as utv this is the first time that we actually had qualifying which I was pretty when they announced it six seven months ago that there was going to qualify I was pretty excited about it because you’re right I mean you got your trophy trucks your unlimited buggies 6100 usually are the most that qualify invest the desert best in desert’s offered a couple more classes I think class 10 and 6200 are both qualified now um the thing about the pro turbo production class that are racing though is that if you had a bad race the race before and you don’t get a top 10 you basically get into a draw and you could be anywhere from 11th to 65th in in starting position so there’s been rumblings back and forth in other organizations about hey can we qualify can we qualify but I think I don’t think that’ll ever take place um just because it’s extra money things like that but it was really fun I mean it was really cool to go qualify and know that you’re not lining up against a a person that maybe not be as fast as you you know or if you were that person that’s not very fast you don’t have to really worry about you know this fast guy coming up and creaming you or things like that and that’s really cool because the rate as the race develops if you’re a faster guy and you draw further in the back without a qualifier and you draw further in the back you catch a lot of slower vehicles and sometimes to get around them you have to play you know bumper cars a little bit and I don’t know I I enjoyed it I’m glad that we were able to qualify there was it was a cool experience makes you feel like a big dog like you said yeah you know it seems like it’s like the elevation of the utv racing they’ve gotten so popular and I thought that was a cool perk too like you said I bet a lot of racers are kind of on the fence about it because it’s some events if that requires you getting out there an extra day earlier and that’s the thing for your crew and rooms and all that stuff and adds up the cost quite a bit it really does a lot of us a lot of us say hey instead of doing a draw they should anybody who raced the previous race should start where they finished and then those who didn’t race the previous race should be put in a draw and I agree with that because you know you kind of earn your spot you know and if you if you finished 11th and by 10 seconds you’re not getting shafted you know but we’ll see they might make some changes I mean not you know so fast forward to our qualifying run um they gave us all a little sight lap it was um what six minutes roughly fastest was about five and a half minutes so we all do a long little loop going slow and then andrew and I swear there’s like five cars behind us we waited and waited and waited and by the time we got the checkered flag I was just hot and sweaty I was sick of sitting in the car I’m like let’s just go and we um we were ripping I thought we had a really good run and I’ve never driven a side by side that fast ever um you know but at the same time I didn’t feel like I think we got up on two wheels once maybe but you know it wasn’t something like I thought we were on the verge of of crashing just once I think it was once or twice yeah I just say my driver she if we’re not on two wheels in a corner I tell her to speed up and I’ve gotten used to it first couple races and scare the crap out of you but you know you get used to looking at the ground or looking at the sky we’re new to that or I’m new to that so you know yeah that’s awesome we probably did it a lot on race day too I know we did it a lot on race day oh yeah definitely we had a good a great run going and then our car went into lit mode um in the last section so we posted the video I think honestly we lost this summer between 10 and 12 seconds but either way you know we finish we don’t I don’t know what we’re finishing we have about 20 cars in our unlimited class which is what we race and I don’t know how fast we are or how slow we are you know you like you I was hoping top top ten um you know eight through ten and then like you were in a decent starting position and it’s a long race anyway and um we get done we load up we’re like geez you know and we knew the car was gonna get warm we thought we had checked the cooling system we had two people go through and burp it and make sure that we had plenty of coolant in it but we sit down for lunch and I’m you know I’m like do we even do this can I get my money back like you know like should we go literally we’re at lunch I’m like I’m making phone calls what should we do what should we do yeah we call tuner we called some friends um look for everyone’s advice you know which luckily is a total game changer in this game when you have people you know like randy romo that can really calm you down or just guide you and say you know take chill out it’ll be good you know yeah so that’s a going down bro um but our tuner said hey if you can’t fix your cooling I wouldn’t even show up to the starting line so you know we have these big seats that we’re getting out of the car that obstruct a lot of airflow we’re thinking about switching up the radiator setup potentially or at least adding a fan so you know the good news is the car cooled way down as soon as it did get hot and we’re like you know what let’s put some water wetter in it let’s make sure we burp it and the course is tight and let’s just do what we can do we’re already here let’s just go for it so as we’re doing that you know we’re just taking our time double checking we decided to raise the right eye a little bit and then we see that we qualified for so like total total from like should we even be here you know like seriously the cars aren’t like oh no it’s game on like it’s game run 100 we lost at least 10 seconds like and I knew I believe yeah I was like nah nah what’s up I’m ready let’s do this it’s awesome we’re here that’s how I felt I was really really stoked when I saw that and saw you guys got before it that’s freaking awesome because I at that point I did I I was busy doing other stuff so I didn’t know you would win the limp mode or anything so but yeah man that’s awesome and we’re making it feel good yeah we’re burping the system right as this is happening right andrew like andrew’s brother came it was a huge help mike whose idea was the water winner oh so at first it was my brother’s idea was like hey water wetter distilled water let’s give it a shot you know that’s the best lubrication or sorry the best cooling is distilled water has the highest boiling tip so for lubrication you just add a bottle of water wetter to it claims to cool your car at least 20 degrees I don’t know if it cooled it that much but it definitely was my brother’s idea and then we got confirmation from a couple other people such as ray shout out to mike garvey yeah he’s a tuner guy he’s a car guy he’s more in the on-road scene but he knows his stuff and he brought it up you know and then um your buddy aaron johnson helped us drop off graphics I knows what he’s doing and and he works for the can-am race team and said that’s what they run yep exactly so a lot of people a lot of people recommended it um and so we went to autozone right there grabbed a couple bottles of water wetter went to the store you can get distilled water for a dollar a gallon so we got a bunch of gallons of distilled water took it back to the house where we’re staying you know dumped all the coolant that was in there flushed the system probably about three four times with distilled water make sure it was 100 no coolant in it and then we filled it up and and ran the distilled water and water wetter and hoped for the best yeah how did you guys qualify and go I mean um you guys qualified a couple times oh here we go well so I mean we were back in the back with you waiting in line and then we started realizing like because we were told that you’re gonna qualify by class but according to how you registered well we registered like the night before we didn’t tell anybody we were coming anything like that we knew we were going you know probably about a week before but we just didn’t register until honestly I think I think they said they registered like 2 am and you know the qualifying was at 11. um but then we started seeing the organization just wasn’t there so you had all these people like going up to the front and there was n8 cars going and I’m like what in the world is going on like so we kind of like weaseled around because we wanted to get in front of the na cars because we knew we’d be faster than them and so um senior and I take off and they’re doing 30 second intervals at that time and the course was like what 3.2 miles I believe isn’t that what it was yeah 3.5 or 3.2 something so I would have to say probably about mile two and a half we started getting real thick dust started seeing a guy in front of us blue lights and um right where those last zigzags are and those big boulders that one left-hand turn we didn’t even see those big boulders in that left-hand turn and qualifying you know the big giant ones we missed them like we I don’t know we didn’t even see them and I’m on the siren I’m hoping this guy’s just gonna jump out of the way and because honestly I felt as though we were super fast and sierra just got back from a trip like the night before so she was on for like three hours of sleep so she was like she felt like she was super slow but we get all the way to the finish and I’m on the horn for this whole time just hoping this guy there’s nowhere to pass him and we’re right on him we go over the finish line he’s right there and we’re not happy at all I’m pretty livid um one because we caught the guy two because I know we were fast um and at that point um josh martelly or matt martelly sorry matt he saw us he came up to the car because we kind of pulled off like we were going to go tell them like hey we want another run um because a lot of people don’t understand is in qualifying not only are other cars you know are hold you back but dust also that’s why they give you time yeah you’re gonna get a little bit of dust here and there but once you catch another car it’s taking away your time you know so he’s like yeah I saw you guys you’re on the siren you were in their dust for a while they’re radioing from the top of the hill they said that you were right behind them and the guy didn’t get on the way you were right there for as long as they could see so we go line up again um and at this point they’re already into the n8 cars and um we’re waiting our turn we take off again probably about mile 1.5 there’s that hard right into the wash there’s a car flipped over blocking the course dead stopped we’re dead stopped so then we’re like now what the freak so I told her I was like just we’re just going to put it in so we putted it in went back to matt again and said hey now there’s a car turned over I was like we’re catching these cars though because we were already catching a little bit dust I don’t know if we were if that guy saw us lying up next to him and he was pushing too hard whatever so finally on our third run we asked the race director because he was at the start line we’re like hey can you have them give us a few more minutes I was like we’re turbo these guys are a little bit slower not that they’re worse drivers or anything like that and they just don’t have the horsepower you know so he shut it down for about three minutes and then we took off and I I thought we did really well um I don’t think we were as fast as our first lap um just because there was things in that dust that we didn’t see that we were checking up for on the third lap and like you guys I mean I was thinking oh we’ll be decent I figured there was what we had like 50 cards or something like that in our class I was thinking we as long as we’re top 15 I’m fine with it it is what it is and like you guys we we’re kind of down in the dumps a little bit and sierra’s like there’s no way we’re top 20 like there’s no way and we were at the store grabbing a couple things headed to dinner as we’re headed to dinner all of a sudden somebody screams from the back of the car and I was driving almost crashed you know you hate when people do that and shari’s like we qualified second so so we qualified second and yes I understand there’ll be people listening to this that don’t agree with that we got three runs but at the same time if it would happen to anybody else same thing you know what I mean it is what it is you know other people got somebody’s different runs too so it’s just yeah when a qualifying is right to give everybody a fair shake so yeah and that’s the thing is you want to get your best run so you can qualify and 806
00:24:18,559 –> 00:24:19,120 you know it was we got um doug forton who’s you know a legend in the sport of off-road and kind of new to the side-by-sides he beat us and it was like 2.2.7 seconds I think so we would have won five grand and we had one guy that he just couldn’t get over it after the race he’d started commenting on some FaceBook feed or instagram feeds and blowing up some stuff and he didn’t understand and it actually ended up being the guy that we caught in the first run and he was a little upset saying some things and I mean I don’t know if he’s gonna listen to his podcast or not but it’s I kind of tried to be civil with the guy and be like hey you know this is what happened well come to find out he was broken he had a broken charge tube so then I was really upset because I’m like dude you shouldn’t be upset at all because he was upset he didn’t get a second run and I’m like well if we would have gotten flat we would have rolled we had a broken charge tube like yourself we wouldn’t got a second run because that’s a mechanical it’s not that’s our fault and he he didn’t understand that and I basically had to explain to him like look we should be the ones upset because I feel as though he cost us five thousand dollars because I think our first run we had it won you know and people are to understand it I get it and then you know you guys can sometimes in the second or third yeah they could you know and that’s the thing we had to we had to damage our car twice as much as everybody else and speaking of damage we came in and our left rear wheel was wobbling like crazy we end up bending a hub which you know those are cast so bending them you know it takes a lot of hit and um so we actually had to go through and fix a bunch of things that night to get ready for race day and stuff so overall we were super stoked it was really a good experience for for sierra and myself and the whole team and to have that and um yeah so it’s good yeah overall cool that I think the promoters did that I thought that was cool and fun and then gave us a feel of like life in the premiere class and their strategy right you can kind of simmer down and make sure you don’t damage your car because worst case scenario go into a big race and then you do something major to your car or something where you’re working on it all night which I’m sure happened to a few people out there there’s a guy there’s a guy who actually brought a front a-arm kit from 56 industries they’re local here in the imperial valley so they hit me up the morning I was leaving they’re like hey have you left yet I’m like I’m leaving right now they’re like hey can we you take this set of a arms to this guy he busted him up during pre-running um pretty much broke his both lower arms and had to give a new new set of arms sent out to him so I know he was in the sportsman class but utv rally um but yeah he got it fixed and was out on race day so moving on to the race day one thing I loved too was um we were on Friday so wes and the whole crew was there to help us because our race was until Saturday we didn’t race until two o’clock so that was really cool um and then for us you know we had a smoother track of course but um you know we showed up we’re excited from qualifying we get the water better in the car you know good qualifying position and we’re sitting on the starting line and I again you know asked randy you know randy what do I do like do we just try to stay in the people in front of us let’s trying to stay in their dust he’s like dude it doesn’t matter what they do if you get passed it doesn’t matter don’t even think about it whether you’re in their dust or or you know you get past several times like just get through the first two laps and then reassess right we’ll see if we can pick up the pace from there if you’re comfortable or whatever happens so you know I listen to randy randy randy knows what he’s doing so we took off um we thought I thought we were going in a pretty good position by space but I thought we were babying the car and then um I think mile marker 11 right wes and andrew you guys you start jamming up a wash um it’s like the biggest longest run where you really kind of stretch the legs in the car it was still smooth um first two laps I think our car got to like 222 but as soon as we get to like we’re thinking like 224 225 we’re really gonna let off because we don’t want to hit lip mode um we had to let off the gas to jump back into the rocks slow way down the pace goes down to what eight miles an hour and then the car just like that so yeah we’re down in the 190s that’s awesome so we get through lap one and we’re like okay like this isn’t even an issue for us like our biggest fear you know um and we’re there are some rocks we’re avoiding everything we’re just kind of like tiptoeing but like running a really in my opinion like smooth pace I think two guys passed us andrew on the first lap yeah so two two guys passed us on the first lap and I kept telling nick hey don’t worry about it don’t worry about it we’ll catch him we’ll catch him um it’s a long race we’re going to we’re going to have a long race and yeah they got bossed us you know they slowly crept away they didn’t really just take off on us so we were in their dust pretty much the first whole lap second lap you know we got towards the end of the lap probably mile marker 22 23 when we started going back up into the bigger hills and it was more of a more of a slower section we would catch them and I think we passed one or one car back in that section so we were back back into our into our I think fifth position or something like that so yeah you know and I think our second lab showed that we were slower I think I was just kind of like being too slow through the tight slow stuff where there was two sections of 30 mile course that you really had to go slow up and down to us it seemed like that’s where that passing happened because then you didn’t have dust and things were happening cars were broken um so we made it through the second lap but we were on our gas gauge out of one of 100 we’re showing 40. so we made the decision to go in and we thought we could take all 11 gallons which is what we have we have a quick dump can of 11 gallons and you know um had we kind of looked at it differently we probably could have at least gone extra to lap three to get fuel but we thought let’s be safe make it through two laps get an eye on the car right we’ll double check so we pull in from lap two we get a fuel splash we kind of shake the car everyone’s looking at everything you know we didn’t bring up heating wes was on our main like point guy in the crew chief along with brent he didn’t ask we didn’t tell you know like it was just all gravy it was asked it was asked not to you guys like I probably got asked about by four people you know in our pits that you know knew that we didn’t eat you guys in easing issues and they’re like hey hey wes ask them about the heating or they’d be like what did they say about the heating and I just told the same thing you just said they haven’t told me I’m not bringing it up you know because a lot of people don’t realize that when you’re in a race car half the stuff you don’t hear and you don’t really have time to answer questions like that you know the questions should always come from the driver and the co-writer to the pits and the answers you know should go back to the to the to them so um yeah they wanted me to ask and I said I’m not asking not asking it’s obviously not a problem they’re running they’re doing good let’s just keep going yeah exactly so then you know we get some gas things are good I’m feeling like really hyper focused I’m just trying to think about you know having all this newfound confidence because we qualified for that we’re still running for sure in top 10 at this point even though you know we were a conservative or whatever that pace we’d want to call it but it was a lot slower than qualifying pace and it was you know stable and easy so then lap three I’m like okay let’s let’s try to move and stop being such a wuss on this slow technical stuff and and um when we came in through right at the very end um a couple guys passed us on laptops and andrew’s like you gotta pick it up through there like that’s where we kind of tested our suspension the car can work better you know carry a little more momentum and speed through that section so lab three you know we started going we were flowing and at this point too I thought like maybe we’d have caught a lot of the slow non-turbo cars in front of us but there is very few cars on the track you know going back to your pre-run you’re like yeah there could be some model necks so the whole first lap I’m telling andrew like get ready to get on the horn if there’s a bottleneck like how do I get up and around it like but really there was not that much drama and as we talked through it I think a lot of that was attributed to qualifying yeah definitely let me cut in there after lap two we’re coming out of the pits wes had our lap times and and our time our lap times and he came over the radio and told nick that he dropped his lap time by two minutes nick decided he wanted to drive really fast because he was fired up so I was like that was yeah that was after lap three where wes gave us the lap time and we had dropped two minutes from map too let’s give credit where credit is due I’m I’m good at saying times but you know my wife is the time guru she does the times and she has a down pat so you know mary’s out there and she she tells me what to say I might bend it a little bit I did not bend that one I did I’ll tell you right now I did not bend that when you were you were two minutes faster than that lap time but you know it’s easier to say one minute and 30 seconds and one went in 37 seconds you know so right but you guys you really picked it up that lap and you know and I honestly had you running that was the highlight of the race for me I got so fired up I was like yelling and cussing and I was like ready to go get everybody I could smell blood in the water I just wanted to whatever nerf everybody out of the way like I was going for the victory at that point you know I wasn’t but like I was really jacked that as the course gets rougher that we had picked up the pace so um lap four I felt like we had a heater lap too I thought we had a really good pace and I think at that point probably some cars had started to break and I think it’s safe to say at lap four we were in fourth position right west yeah so you when you’re headed out for your last lap you were right behind fourth I believe just real quick like it was hard to kind of tell because I think the the fifth place or the the car a car behind you we didn’t know right away but I mean the way people were braking though like I was stoked because I’m thinking even if you went out on your last lap in fifth place you have a huge shot of being on the podium because every lap there’d be a car coming around the guy that was leading the first three laps and he was he was out like he’d put in some real fast laps one of the last laps he came in his right rear wheel was like completely candid over and the next lap he didn’t come in so but then he got it fixed and he started trucking again so cars were breaking left and right they were in the pits I mean they were not coming back around you know you start memorizing which cars in which order and you know you guys had a definite shot at a podium which is you know I don’t want to pour salt in any wounds but that’s just racing but you guys did really well you know you really did yeah and that that guy west stockton right he had a black and orange can-am I don’t know his name but he rips he had a I think he had the top qualifying time and he had broke somewhere I wanted to say lap three maybe andrew and passed us and like left us like we were standing still and like you said wes his wheel was like like he was hanging off the back of the car and you could tell his car was like not really it didn’t seem like it was all really really beefy and and andrew and I kept saying like this guy if he gets it to the finish he deserves to beat us because he’s a flat out probably the fastest driver in the class like it was funny because when he came through and his wheel was you can do know I looked at brent and brad looked at me I’m like that guy’s not coming back to her he’s not coming back there for sure there’s no way like and he went out for another lap and I’m like either he has a terrible pit crew that didn’t see it and didn’t say anything or he just didn’t care because he went back out and I’m like oh he’s gonna be stuck for a while oh yeah we saw him he was parked behind a tree um we passed him and we we saw his wheel even off the start line his wheel is starting to really get candid in and we’re like I don’t know he was the fastest qualifier I thought he brought his car in qualifying but he showed up on race day the same way so that was the only way you know I don’t know the guy’s name they’re not gonna drive him steve yeah I don’t even pull cool oh yeah do you know he registered for both days also right he’s supposed to really he didn’t make it to the start line though well shout out to you mr pool you’re a hell of a driver isn’t it you were yeah he was definitely he was on I was on a FaceBook page utv side-by-side racing on on FaceBook and he was commenting on another car that’s getting built right now on the on that page and he said that his cars all gusted through geyser so he’s running stock chassis just all gusted it up nothing too special on that car dude flat out rips and so we get to that four and we’re going good and like you said maybe one of those guys breaks and and man like mile marker four you get up to this nasty wash you have to climb up and it was so chattery these watches you’re like how does every bolt not just rattle out of your car like and again like this whole thing with desert racing and a utv like you know I’m a dirt bike guy so the bike never fails you fail you know what I mean and it’s a different game where you’ve got to figure out your pace and figure out what the car can handle and unfortunately we lost a bolt and our driver’s side a arm in the front and it was ironic because we were actually going slow when we started to feel the issue we caught somebody in the dust and all the nice breeze we had all day really died down so like it was so beautiful right when the sun went down it was an awesome experience and then we had no dust so um we had to go really slow up the wash and the next thing you know like the car is really hard to turn one way but not the other then I kind of start to blow off a turn and I’m telling andrew like is it a flat tire is it a is it a bent hub I thought it was maybe a tie rod and you know we don’t know what it is but we’re in this tight wash for what two miles would you say until you come up to to check point two yeah yeah about two two and a half miles maybe even three but yeah it definitely was it was nasty it was chattery like at one point I had to even grab my helmet strap because it was digging into my my chin so bad I was it was it was bad so right at this time the sun’s going down right and it’s it’s almost pitch black and you know I’m like well andrew those guys are up there at the check check two let’s just pull up and yell at them and ask them is our front wheel wobbly or what’s going on you know so we do that they’re like yeah you know you need to get out of the car we get out of the car um at first we see the the spindle is really rolled over so I’m thinking the upper uniball broke you know it looked really weird when you first looked at it and then andrew noticed that the bolt was gone and total rookie mistake we didn’t have a bolt but even if we did um we wouldn’t have been able we did have a ratchet strap to get that sucker back in place to put a bolt through it so we radio in luckily we had great radio communications to us we told you that we identified the problem you guys found some bolts and you sent it in the race car behind us at your pit which only took like 15-20 minutes to get to us and um unfortunately the bolts were too big they wouldn’t fit in anyway but I even tried when I got home I couldn’t even get a punch in there and unfortunately being at race mile six of 29 like I really hated having a dnf and not finished that last lap it kills me I just want to get finishes and you know that probably would have been the difference between our our 10th place position and I think that top five still had we just looked around that last lap you know I think we could have been we’re so so close to that podium spot if the car would have stayed together oh I think we would have been on the box I really do because at the end of the lap we really were catching a lot of people especially in our class towards that end of the lap um so unfortunately a little three dollar bolt ended our night um and the guy that’s racing second place the funniest vp car the blue razor he passed us on lap four and he went away from us we got stuck behind this slow guy in a wash who wouldn’t get out of the way and after we we bumped him the guy this funniest guy caught us too and then he bumped us and got out of his way and he creeped away from us he ended up getting second place so that just goes to show you I mean he started probably back from us they had a faster pace than us but um that was lap four as the race was really really mature that that we were legit like you said we limped it around we would have at least got four to fifth yeah well considering this is your guys’s first real big race against the real big competition I mean honestly some of those guys in unlimited are really fast you know um obviously that pool guy is fast I’ve seen that funniest car at several races so they race quite a bit and um so it’s nothing to be ashamed of it sucks you know it sucks I remember you called me on the radio and I was bummed because it’s just like if it was gonna happen you knew it was gonna be on the last lap and you know it’s just one of those things it had been a while since I’d been in a pit and had to hear that on the radio and man I don’t like that like what was yours what was your saying would you say in the video that’s racing it’s not always rainbows and sunshine there’s a lot of rainbows and there’s a lot of sunshine until that bulk honestly it was yeah for me like finally getting a car that was competitive and then for some reason I I figured out how to drive competitively like you said against people who have raced for at least dozens of times and know what the pace is and this game is so much about sea time in my opinion it’s just like moto you really got to put the seat time in figure out what you’re capable of work on building your speed without flipping your car you know feel try to figure out what your car can handle after you have good preps and that just takes it takes time that takes racing right I think you have a really good style though I mean there’s there’s a lot of guys out there that just mash it and go and you know sometimes that works you know but a lot of times a lot of times that doesn’t work you know you got to learn how to protect your car it’s really hard in these short sprint style races I don’t consider this a short sprint style just because the lap times are so long but when you think about laughlin I mean even rage of the river that’s a sprint man it’s like you have no choice but to keep that pedal mashed and go if you want to do anything but when you get these longer races you know and you guys start getting doing longer ones 250 300 500 miles that’s a long race to keep a car together you know so it’s important to you know make sure that you raise your style I know that for us in our car excuse me us in our car that we have a certain style that that we fit and I love those races when it when it fits into our style you know we can hang with the best on any style but there’s other races where it’s like I know that this is us like so it’s your time to shine super pumped for you guys though man I mean I obviously I was bombed I was really happy to talk with you afterwards nick and see that you weren’t like down in the doldrums you know I was really excited about that because that made me not feel so bad um especially it’s like you said it’s always the three dollar part that ends your day but it could have been worse you guys could have been going 70 miles an hour down the wash and that thing could have buckled underneath and sent it over and you know instead of a one lower arm you could be in it you know in it for a lot more money so it’s just one of those things I mean we had we had experiences like that also I mean our races our race wasn’t that that perfect either so yeah um let’s take it back a little bit so we get to check point two the guys there at checkpoint two are cooking hot you I was dogs after being in the car for four and a half almost five hours you know that bratwurst that he had some mustard oh that was super good yeah shout out shout out those guys to check too yes awesome they said they watched our videos and they were hilarious they were real ball buster lifesavers yeah um and um he kept saying we’re gonna we’re gonna cook some dog soon I’m like no we’re gonna get back we’re gonna get going like you know and then after a while we kind of realized we weren’t gonna make the last lap I’m like you know what the beer in the cooler back at the pit is still going to be cold and then at that time he has a dog done so it’s like and it wasn’t you have to so shout out to you guys hope to see you guys again and they were really rad and um and as helpful as they could be considering they were officials yeah that’s an important thing because there’s a lot of spectators out there you got to make sure that they’re able to help you you know I mean you don’t want to get a dq because somebody’s like oh I know what I’m doing then you find out they’re not even official and then you get dq so like there’s somebody in our class I got dq for cheating like that so we did we did ask that question when we got out of the car hey can you guys help us yep and they’re like yeah no yeah for sure should be the first thing out of your mouth and if they say no and say then get the freak away don’t have any tools don’t have me nothing because somebody’s always watching and at that point you don’t know where you are you could have fixed it and went going and then the guy that got fourth place could have said I saw them getting help and you know protests and it turns into drama but I I know that whole lesson I’m gonna be better prepared we’re gonna have more parts like one thing I was thinking about um the the jack we have on the race car is just a foa screwjack and in my opinion that the setup of that is really only good for a tire change and I was thinking like if I had that traco jack or the all german motorsports where they have a cup on the top you know you could lift the whole front of the car up or the rear of the car by the bumper which is way easier if you do have to do an axle if you do have to do a tie rod we had a tie rod on the car we had a heim for the tie rod we had tools we had an impact we had that we did take the tire off we had a lot of stuff but you know this race was so brutal that we should have had more parts and I feel like one of those jacks where we that is tall enough to get the whole front end up on the front bumper same on the rear bumper um would be great because it’ll also do the just the tire change quick in a hurry well you you do have your your rubber jack stand always and that’s what I call it so like for an axle and stuff like that you can always just take your spare off and what I like to do is if I need to brace the car I’ll jack the car up as high as I can take the one tire after to get to the axle and take the spare shoulder under the car and then you have your jack stands and you let the jack down and you have a working that you have a working thing that’s just something that I’ve learned at least with the utvs um but yeah obviously a different jack would be great too yeah because even you look at it macro like at that race we could have spent a half an hour on the car and as long as we got it buttoned up and limped around the course and just got in with a with a horrible lap time we would have a top ten we would have got fifth place instead of turn no it was a graveyard the cars that were coming by after it was dark were going so slow and there was so few of them that that course really just like it decimated so many and I was just telling andrew like right before I got dark like this is going to be interesting at dark because even though we had gone over these rises and these blind turns in the slow section four laps in a row you still second guess yourself that all goes off to the right and you know it goes off the left it goes straight you know like in a dark that would have been extra scary in a race car where you don’t have that visibility like our stock razor yeah absolutely so that was our race um you know thanks to you thanks to you guys was awesome it was still an amazing experience we learned a lot we gained a lot thanks to our friends thanks to randy and and brent for engineering the car all the things we learned from randy and what to do and who to take our car to get it set up and made me feel like we made a lot of progress after ever since that car was built a lot of drama so we got the right people touching it um you know it’s like running a business from the race team there’s so many variables to it but it was it was literally a dream come true for me so so moving on um that was Friday night Saturday morning the rally class race so the course got hammered again by 40 rally cars racing four laps and then wes give us your little roundup of how your race went racing against the big dogs qualifying second well our race didn’t start on time um did you yours is race pretty much starting on time right yeah I think you guys what 2 45 3 o’clock by the time you actually started yeah we were supposed to go off the line at 2 and then I don’t think we went off until at least 3. um they had some of the little races going on and got a little bit behind which it happens I get it you know so cool thing is you know we lined up um seconds or second row um doug forton was going off by himself we were next to a kid that I’m not too familiar with but you know you got to respect anybody that can qualify that fast not too familiar with him I think he comes from more of the rocks more of like keenan hammers racing 44 that type of type racing but yeah so we I just you know let her know like hey that’s what we’re gonna do it’s a long race um you know there’s a lot of things there’s there’s day enders on every corner just need to be careful and um honestly I felt that we were gonna pull that guy off the line he wasn’t a two-seater so I knew that we’d have that that problem but once our car wound up I thought that we would we’d get around him um and right off the start like I said takes off he gets about a wheel in front of us and he he pushes over right on pushes right over in front of us and like just right on us and at that point I was just like it is what it is let’s let the guy go um I don’t we didn’t want to give him the bumper then we could have gave him the bumper a little probably like three times before the first left-hand turn there was about one half mile up and just like let’s just settle in because they’re coming up to a bunch of rocks so we stepped into our pace we knew that there’s gonna be a lot of fast guys coming we knew that there was a lot of people that weren’t happy that we had qualified second so we you know we had that in the background too but you got to kind of like you said you got to just throw all that out the window race your race that’s the only thing you can do and so we settled in and ryan piplik the eventual winner he was a row behind us along with um wheeler boomer he was he was a row behind us but then they’re both real fast guys and they both come from works and you know very familiar um to us and we know that they’re they’re fast guys and you know we give all those guys credit but we’re just running our race and I think um pick probably caught us right around mile like 18 or so you know um maybe maybe 20. it was one of those last washes coming down and we let him go and um he’s kind of like a guy that just goes like he’ll go and he’s not afraid um I always joke with his co-writer who I I’m buddies with that barnum that better using me bro because I couldn’t ride in that car because it would scare me to death you know and he takes off and then I think boomer got us probably around my like 25 or so over those those big hills the slow stuff it seemed like you said we were being kind of conservative on that stuff because we didn’t know how the race car was going to react to those ups and downs and then it’s really hard to see over the dash so when you’re zoomed in on the gps you kind of get a at least for our ranch you get that lag so I’m calling them out as best as I can but it’s better to see them and um yeah so we’re just running our race got passed I think by one one other guy by the first lap and we’re just rolling and we’re going feeling good the course was destroyed mile two where you head up that wash it was so bad on the first and second lap that I was in my head I’m just like man I hope I can do this for five laps I mean it was so bad that I would grab my chest going up that first wash like this because I’d already tightened my straps down I was I knew I was tight and I was grabbing my chest because it felt like my heart was shaking inside of my body and luckily it was mostly straight so I only had to get out a couple notes and you know sierra drove really well um then right past where you guys kind of broke a mile six you start go through that little tight section and then it’s when it starts to open up there’s those two lines it’s either a right line or a left line well on the first lap we took the right line and that’s I didn’t like it like I I thought I remembered from pre-running that the left line I took it and it was faster so lap two I tell sierra I’m like and I was kind of late on we’re going up over because it’s come up over the steep rise and then it’s right or left real quick and I’m like no no and boom she she hit a rock I take full responsibility for it and we’re going she’s like it’s gonna be flat and I’m like no it’s not there’s no way you know we’re going and probably about a quarter mile I’m like it’s not flat as as we’re like this you know I’m like it’s not flat it’s not flat of course it was flat so we get out and are we get out I get out and um start going to work get over there I like to always pop a few lugs um and leave one lug on grab the jack and then start jacking it up well we learned that um jack prep is a very important thing so we use a scissor type jack that we beef up extend the arm out put the socket on the end of it so it’s just it’s all the same 19mm that we use for um our lugs and I was like man is my gun dead and it’s a fresh battery and I checked the battery and it just wouldn’t raise the car so I got it up as far as I could and I just start digging and digging and digging and I get the tire off get the new tire on and I’m putting it on I try to release the jack and that jack won’t come down and it’s just and I’m like what in the world you know and it’s a snap-on impact I’ve never had problems with it I freaking boot that jack I started just kicking it I freaking kicked it out get him out mount it up she’s like wondering like what the heck where have you been why is this taking you so long you know like I think she was posting on instagram like hey new code driver needed you know like I don’t know so so anyways I’m freaking out because I’m like stupid jack you know and you get mad when you when you get called to service as a as a co-writer you know you want to be fast because you know and we got passed by a few people I think robbie went past this jake carver and sims went past us all fast guys that you know and we get going again getting on the radio hey I need a new jack I need you know this and get done with lap two um stop for a jack take off lap three right it must have been right in that rough stuff right before the two finish line hills hit something um and I was like it feels really weird she’s like I don’t feel like no I can feel it like I think we might have a flat or something something’s on the left side well we pulled into the pitch right then had a radius a radius that had we’d hit something it was bent and we also had another flat now you know people will be like oh what tires are you running these are this is the first flat tires we’ve had in a year and a half so it’s like you know it happened I think we earned earned them um for sure so our pit crew was great they they fixed this up um and at that point randy who was on fire in a rental car we call it you know he’s in a rental car two-seater because he had sold his car and randy’s just on a mission randy’s is such a great driver um you know he’s very very calm driver he he doesn’t get upset or anything like that he just drives and he drives fast um and he puts his his equipment to the test he was right in front of us so we followed him all lap four was in his dust the whole time and it was kind of fun we’ve done this several times with with randy where he’s been right in front of us and it’s fun and talking afterwards you know he could tell that we picked up our pace the previous lap before he broke he’s like I know you picked up your pace because you know I was kind of trying I was trying to catch you guys and I couldn’t and then when he got in front of us he’s like matt his co-writer who was riding with him manuelos it was like I saw you guys a couple corners and I knew you were coming you guys right there you’re coming you’re coming and it’s kind of fun because it lists both our paces and we had a good time and then um going out for our last lap and at this point you know we’re beat to death track is beat to death and I think we’re like ninth or something like that um maybe eighth corrected time and we’d kind of just figured okay we’re just going to roll in we’re going to get our finish top 10 worlds we’ll take that after the problems that we’ve had and right around mile 18. just up a wash it was it was that same that same wash where it’s just a long pole it was like the only uphill wash that was kind of smooth to where you could just rip and go and 1904
00:56:43,119 –> 00:56:44,559 we we passed carver he’s broken I’m like oh man here we go you know maybe we’re you know gaining positions and and all of a sudden we’re just driving and we’re going in a straight line and all of a sudden the front right wheel just drops off and freaking rocks everything you’re shooting up in my face and and I’m like get over here and she’s fighting and she gets us over and I’m like she’s like I’m like oh I was like we might be done something something broke something gave way so I hop out and um the lower ball joint on the lower arm connecting to the spindle that bolt that sheared now we use the best bolts and everything but sometimes it’s just so it’s sheared off so I’m like okay grab all the bags out grab the bolts that we have I ended up having not that exact bolt it was a little too long but um it’s threaded the only problem is to get that bolt out and get the new bolt in got to take the whole axle off the recovery guys like you had we had great experience with them they showed up guys like hey do you want some help and I was like can you help and he’s like good that you asked yes can help so he was just handed me a couple tools when I needed it pulled axle out get the bolt changed um knowing that it wasn’t the actual bolt and how beat up we are and how far we had to go still another 10 miles we just kind of got it back together radioed in at this point you know the race was over um even randy had finished who was right in front of us so um we just limped it in um we actually stopped one time and helped another guy that was having problems stopped in radio contact for him and flipped it back in and you know it was really cool you don’t come over that final finish line and you know your whole crew when you see them all there and they’re all waiting for you that’s that’s one of the best feelings in racing is just seeing the people that support you it’s one thing to be sitting in the right seat or the left seat of a race car but without those people in the pits doing all those things and spending their time it’s it’s kind of a cool family thing you know that we got going especially with romo’s um such a great group and you know it’s one of those races yeah we would like to win the race yeah every single race we want to win and that’s what we go for but sometimes things happen and if you get the finish after having those problems you know and you’re able to fix them if you have the parts and stuff it it feels good so um I think we finished 13th um is where we finally ended up so which is still really impressive for the fastest class and I was listening on the romo channel I think yeah one of your crew chiefs said hey lap four you guys nobody’s coming in just keep the car together and then I started watching the video live cast you know like writers they’re trying to figure out does piplik win who’s gonna win uncorrected time sims making up a lot of ground but you know they had a live camera and nobody was coming you know like right the same thing as our race but probably worse because the course was so nasty and you guys had 40 cars so that’s even more um just attributed to how gnarly that course was that very few people were coming on that last lap in your race yeah shout out shout out to ryan piplik man laying it down and no pre-running he didn’t pre-run it once and you know like I said that guy’s you know he’s a fast driver and he goes for it shout out to him and you know brandon sims been around forever and I mean that guy’s won all the races that we want to win you know there’s just so many fast guys that that we look up to that were at this race and just being able to race with them and you know sometimes we we get we can beat them and sometimes they beat us but but just seeing what a pace that they can carry it just gives you that that goal you know you always look for the next guy what can I do better what can I how can I be faster you know how can be a better co-writer driver or you know any of any part of the team and that’s really what race is about you know you go back two years ago when I started racing with with ramos and the things that we’ve changed and the things that we’ve got better at you know you guys will start experiencing that too as you race more you’ll you’ll see that every race it’s never perfect you always learn something like for instance the jack we never prepped the jacks we just because we hadn’t used them in like a year and a half you know like yeah I think one flat that we got in the last year and a half we were so close to the pit that we just drove to the pit and you know so now that’s one thing you learn and you move on and you learn and you make sure that everything’s working and that’s just another part of your prep so yeah huge huge props to ryan public I remember doing works races a long time ago and seeing him like being one of the guys who’s part of the the organizational staff you know um biking his quad days I think and then um he said on the finish line you know like he said he didn’t pre-run he drove out and qualified and then drove back home worked on Friday and then drove up Saturday morning and raced and won yeah it’s pretty cool no it’s pretty amazing and you know I’m everybody knows what I race in and the the vehicles that I support and you know the company that I that I prefer um but hey you know the podium and I think yeah I mean I know what you’re saying towards I mean polaris we’re all three polaris guys and we get to talk smack at this race because I think players are top six in the in the pro turbo class and the big boy class yeah yeah they’re just falling apart out there mind you there was some fast cam guys there you know guys that we really respect but there was a few of the really fast guys that that weren’t there you know could have changed some things but I think if those guys were there it would just it would just make more attrition um for everybody it just changes you add one racer and change the whole dynamic of the race but not saying that I’m not happy that you know we swept it and everything was great you know but at the same time you know there are some fast can-am guys out there they have things dialed down yeah you know and and um the the speed utv that I think they were talking about they were gonna race the new one didn’t race it was there um we can’t talk about this event without talking about the speed because it did make its debut in real life to most of us normal folk and I got to bring it up man because you know this the speed hype is just at this level we’ll get into another podcast and talking about the sand show where it was there too and and the sancho booth was busier than polaris and canada maybe combined but either way at the race you know robbie pulls this thing out finally or one of his guys it doesn’t even have shocks on it um he had a guy driving straight across the country just to get it there and um there’s a crowd of people waiting to take it out we post a video on instagram it’s got almost 200 000 views it’s just it’s crazy the amount of hype for that car right now where we were hoping that it would have been raced there which would have been exciting and that kind of is a good segue into a couple other cars that have been debatable should they be able to race which is a turbo honda and rock the car robbie did race which is a turbo wildcat and gotta give shout out props to the your boy elliot watson there andrew el sancho loco he kicked butt and I think the honda’s got sixth and seventh they had a killer yeah I thought it was seventh amendment robbie got yeah seven and eight yeah yeah top three for now yeah well yeah yep he was he was for sure I mean that guy can drive there’s no you can’t ever take that away from robbie gordon that he is a really good driver but no definitely got to give you know props to those guys you know I don’t know the honda drivers too well um but yeah anybody that can go out and and do what we do and race and get a top ten and I say that like top ten you know people are like oh you need to make a podium or this or that if you can get a top 10 in the pro production turbo class at any rather race in my book you’re a fast guy you’re really fast because it takes a lot of work and you know segway into that little conversation you know it’s like I kind of feel as though you know if if they really wanted to be in the pro production turbo class and fit the rules of most race organizations then honda needs to step up and make a turbo car now we both know that that’s probably not going to happen for honda or kawasaki but that doesn’t mean that they can’t race you know and the best argument I heard is yeah well let us race why are you is everybody afraid of us they think that we’re going to win and it has nothing to do with being fearful or anything like that it’s the fact that you can go to a player shop and buy the turbo that is on our race car you know and it’s there everybody knows what it is and these are the rules x y and z now in every other off-road class and off-road the unlimited class are the big dogs you know a trophy truck spec which has limitations on motor and things like that higher size the truck the unlimited trophy trucks don’t have that and they are the faster ones well in side-by-sides it’s different the unlimited class most of the time is not the fastest class so you know my arguments like west like I remember based on limited class because it’s kind of like we’re scared to raise the big boys class like that’s that’s my take on it no disrespect to anybody but this is what it is it’s not the premier class and and we thought it was a great segue for us and like you said no it’s perfect finish but I agree with what you’re saying we usually don’t agree on a lot of things but I agree with where you’re holding they have a place they have a place to race and if they go to the unlimited class and kawasaki throws a turbo on theirs and honda and yamaha they all throw turbos on their cars and they’re laying down times that are faster than pro production turbo fast factory guys whether they’re can-am or or whatever or polaris I promise you that polaris or k m will tell their boys hey we’re going to go beat these guys like we’re going unlimited we’re going to do it they have a place to race they can race n a pro they can race unlimited pro that’s just my argument with it because there’s no way there’s no way to know what actual power that those things are going to be putting out or there are no limitations but shout out to them man I mean the martelly’s let them race and you know they come out and they don’t make a big stink about it and they seem to be real good guys and they’re obviously well-funded team and you know they went out and got two top tens and showed that the hondas can can run and good for them you know but on the on the side note of that of the hondas they didn’t run their big desert cars they ran their little king the hammer cars yeah there were several people doing that so it made sense though I mean if we had a king hammer if we had a king hammer’s car we would have been running the king hammer’s car too this was a two-seat course and I was gonna say the same thing andrew they their big desert cars were there and I was hoping to see those things because they’re a work of art it made sense why they did this short car but I think both of these cars when they got them done like I think the first race of the year they really went big was king of the hammers and then cobia happened so um they really don’t even have a lot of real racing chop experience so that’s another reason why they deserve big I think vegas cerino cars top ten yeah did they race vegas to reno I know that they raced the mint I know they didn’t have a good showing at the min they had some parts but that was like their first race in those desert cars but you’re right those cars are a workmark when I saw him I was like man that is a good looking off-road car I know they raced the 500 I thought they were down there racing the 500 but they also raced that and then the classic score doesn’t let them race production turbo best and desert won’t I’m sure the new um legos he won’t the martelli are a little bit different they have two races a mint 400 and this race they’re gonna let anybody who wants to race race you know honestly like at least honda has the produced cars you know not to bash on speed or anything like that but you know the rules say that you have to have a a thousand produced units not a thousand ordered units so yeah and robbie’s gonna get there you know he’s gonna he’s gonna have his turbo cars running and you know there is a lot of hype behind those things um robbie’s a you know he’s been doing this for a long time he understands what goes fast and what’s going to work and obviously obviously everybody’s excited I’m excited also you know I’m hoping to see that if it is as great as everybody’s saying or as great as robbie’s saying or even a tenth of that for about what robbie’s saying that it’ll push the other manufacturers to update their stuff and make things better and it’s going to progress a sport this is not going to slow down it’s shown through and through that utvs is one of the most affordable ways to enjoy your you know your life outside and outdoors with your family but also one of the most affordable ways that you can race um race a vehicle and we’re getting faster and faster and in best the desert and this year and last year we were the biggest class there was more utvs in than any other class um in in those races and in most cases just in the pro production turbo class there’s more entries than any other class yeah so yeah I agree with you I think unless the vehicle comes off the showroom floor of the turbo it’s not a lot of pro production it’s just not fair you’re going to maybe get canon and polaris about out if they let them do it and they started kicking butt it’s just I totally agree with that they should race unlimited if they go lay it down in a limited class at the fastest lap times they’ll turn heads they’ll drag more people to their class it might take a year or so but you know glad that more people are playing ball honda’s of the japanese for sure is the most committed to racing um and then also even kind of promoting the turbo kit in general maybe more so than yamaha even did hopefully kawasaki I mean they had mcgrath through a couple races and such I think he was racing this race with his daughter I think so hopefully the the oems just continue to play ball like you said I mean even covet has been a huge benefit to this whole industry go to your local dealer there’s a slim chance you’re going to find many of them on the floor right now and the ones that are coming in are already pre-sold I think andrew was saying from talking a couple dealers same what I’ve heard around the you know around town so you know it’s only getting bigger and at the end of the day I have to say this event was great I mean I had a good experience I thought it was a good value for the price the entry fee and racing habits do and now we have a race that was always in unlawful in which we have a ton of races a year on laughlin and I have a new venue so it’s different it’s new and exciting and new is always better and that really doesn’t happen that often in our sport yeah definitely no it’s it’s just it’s exciting you know um it’s also fun to go and race a race that isn’t a points race as we know that the min and the utv championships both used to be points race that we race in best of desert and to be able to actually have a different mindset going into a race it feels really good because getting doing get to the end of the season when you’re in the points race and things like that you’re thinking about okay I gotta get finished no matter what and that can sometimes slow you up a lot and have you be more conservative and these types of races you can actually run and go for it and go for wins and that was exciting for a change the stress of not worrying about points you know let’s talk about that in the future if we have you know interviews some other racers like what they think about that racing for a series versus the the clout or the the upside of the sponsors or their personal gain if they’re just going for individual race wins I think that’s something that’s really interesting topic to talk about in our sport or in desert racing in general you know from almost all classes so thank you guys for listening we’re going to wrap it up um tune in for the next episode of our podcast we got a little bit more to talk about current events the sand show so thank you guys for listening thank you guys for joining it’s fun as always um check us out on YouTube we are a company that manufactures accessories for side by side supercobra offroad.com you can find us everywhere on social even the tick tock we’re out there thanks for listening everybody we’ll see on the next one