Holy cow what a race!!
For Desert Toyz Rhino Race Team this was the most important race of the season. Due to a computer malfunction we were stripped of our second place points position and moved to third. The first place points position was out of reach, but we still had a chance at second place. To accomplish that, we would have to finish ahead of Team 1905. Team 1905 had drawn the pole position which made it even more difficult to beat them. The starting format for this race was different from all the others. The format was, two UTV’s starting off the line side by side every thirty seconds. We started in the second row, on the outside next to Team 1944. We pulled the hole shot on 1944 and the race was on!!

Each lap was 50 miles and our race was three laps. It was smooth sailing until race mile nine, when we hit a series of whoops, used up our 8 inches of rear wheel travel and did four nose wheelies in a row!! My wife was white-knuckling the grab bar and yelled “settle down Cowboy, we got a long ways to go”. At around rm 13 Team 1946 passed us ,in the rough, like we were standing still. Then at rm 17 Team 1919 passed us. After about a mile we caught 1919 and passed them back. We only went one more mile and 1919 passed us back. Only a few miles later we started seeing dust and spotted Team 1905, the team we had to beat. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t believe we were catching them so soon. Within a mile or two we had caught them and were right on their bumper. We were in a very rocky section and there was really no place for them to pull over, so we followed them for 6 miles. Finally the course opened up, so we ran up on them and gave them a little “nerf”, and they immediately pulled over and let us pass. We only went 2 miles before they caught us and passed us back. They stayed about a quarter mile ahead of us all the way into the pits. They had to stop for gas and we didn’t. We passed them in the pits and never saw them again. The rest of lap two we ran hard and fast, we were determined to stay ahead of 1905. We starting Lap 3, our last lap, and were so excited that 1905 had not caught us. We still had a shot at the second place points position. I told my as we left the pits “all we have to do is run a clean lap with no mistakes”. At race mile 3 our pit crew called us on the radio telling us we were in third place and that the second place team had lost a rear axle nut and were stopped on the course. We soon passed them on the side of the course and they were still trying to fix it. Now in second place for the race and the points championship we were thrilled!! We raced the last lap clean with the exception of one more nose wheelie only a thousand feet from the finish line and my wife scolded me for that as we crossed the line.

I have to say thank you to my wife for great navigation, my brother Darren for his help, my pit crew for great service, and “Buttons” my race prep helper for working late nights. Thanks to all the UTV racers that made this a great event. Thank you to my sponsors: Yamaha Motor Corp., Maxxis Tires, Elka Shocks, Black Rhino, OMF Wheels, Web Cams, PWR Radiators, Powroll, Yoshimura Exhaust, PCI Race Radios, ACRO Lights, Full Bore Plastic, JP Precision Brake lines, Fat Katz skid plates and Desert Toyz. What a great 2008 series!!

It sure feels great to be the 2008 Best In The Desert points champion runner-up. Many “long travel” Rhinos came out and tryed to beat us. In the end, it was the combination of Elka Shocks, stock Yamaha a-rms, great driving, an awsome pit crew, a fast, reliable engine and the best sponsors that brought us our 2nd place position in the points championship!!