May 4th, 2011
The 1904 Desert Toyz Racing CanAm Commander had a good day. After 4 years of trying to finish the BITD Silver State 300, 1904 got her done this year! Just getting to the race was harder than the race itself. Cory had committed himself to finishing the Murray Commander and was not able to spend any time on the 1904 Commander.

Cory’s long time teammate and co dog “Buttons” did most the race prep himself on the 1904 Commander. Both Cory and Buttons had only got 5 hours of sleep in 3 days and drove through the night to get to the start line on time. With an arrival at the start line with only 15 minutes to get ready, Cory guzzled a Lemonade Rockstar, jumped into his fire suit, buckled up and pulled in line just in time. While leaving the fake start line and cruising to the real start line 6 miles ahead, Cory began to feel the Rockstar kicking in.The 1904 Commander was staged 3rd off the line. With his second wind, Cory was off the line and quickly upon the John Deere #1913, then quickly catch the H-Town Commander #1920. As Cory motors past 1920 he starts to fade left and almost collide! At mile 38 just while entering a wash the CV drive belt breaks and the whole UTV pack roles by. While working on the installation of the clutch, the 1904 gets roosted by Parks and Lasher as they passed by. It took about an hour to fix the drive belt and get back running again. Cory decided to back down from 70mph to 60mph to save the drive belt. While getting back up and running 1904 had made up about an hour of time and began catching the rest of the UTV class. Then at mile 220 the drive belt broke again. This time there was no spare belt in the UTV. Cory put a call in on the BITD channel asking for a CanAm Commander drive belt to be delivered to us by contacting the chase crew at pit 6 and having them go back to pit 5 and ask another racer to bring it to them. After waiting about 2.5 hours and falling asleep several times Cory’s co-dog had just opened 1 eye, to see a pro truck go by at around 100mph. Buttons starts yelling “Hey that guy just threw something out the window”. There lying right in the middle of the course was a CanAm Commander drive belt!!!!!!!!!!! It had landed perfect right in front of Cory and Buttons. The Murrays had dispatched the belt to the previous pit and it was delivered unexpectedly. After quickly installing the belt the 1904 Desert Toyz Commander was back racing again. There was a final stop at pit 6 for fuel and then in for the finish, never exceeding 50mph to save the drive belt. The final outcome was a 9th place out of 16. Not an impressive ranking but a finish none the less after 3 days of virtually no sleep, and the first full race in the new Can Am Commander. Thank you to all the UTV racers for choosing BITD to race with. The 1904 Commander is supported by Maxxis Tires, which were great and had no flats, the Elka Shocks worked flawless, Dragon Fire Racings exhaust and fuel management gave me that extra power to drive by the other Commander (1920) and all the BRP CanAm Commander factory parts proved to be strong and durable. Thanks to OMF for the beadlock wheels, and Desert Toyz for the fabrication on the new Commanders. Looking forward to the BlueWater GP.

The 1917 Can Am Commander is co driven by Jason and Derek Murray. The team was really looking forward to contingency on Friday at the Aliante Station to see all the new UTV builds for the 2011 season and to enjoy the camaraderie. Unfortunately the 1904 and 1917 team were a little behind. Our team tries hard to be as organized, and prepared as possible for these races, but on this one occasion there was truly scrambling to the last minutes. The team under the lead of Cory Sappington, had been working hard over the last 2 months to build up and debut the new 1917 Can Am Commander at Silver State. The last week all team members were helping Cory finish up the details to ensure the new 1917 car was built to the highest standards. Cory did a great job on the suspension, and fabrication, but the details just took lots more time than was available, and Cory did not want to skip any details nor cut any corners on this build. The Murrays had 2 hours of sleep from Thursday-Saturday at the race. After having one of the 1917 teammates drive earlier to the drivers meeting the rest of the team left Phoenix at 10:30 pm Friday night by pushing the 1917 Commander into the toy hauler. The UTV had not even been started since purchase prior to the build. On the way from Phoenix to Alamo the Murray brothers worked in the trailer (which is not safe or recommended) all night long. On the ride to Alamo NV, they installed and primed the fuel system, hooked up the 5 point safety harnesses, filled the brakes and bled them, installed the seats, filled the radiator, started the Commander for the first time, tightened all bolts, hooked up all the electrical systems-radio, horn, lights, irc, parker pump, intercom, etc and before they knew it the 1904 and 1917 team pulled up to the staging area, and everyone was already lining up to begin the race. The Commander was still missing the body panels, stickers, etc. The team begins to throw the body panels on and realize that they are missing one front quarter panel somehow? So it becomes a tape job. Bill the pit captain decides to use the paper from the Commander graphics, and some red duct tape, (yes 100 mph tape to be safe) and continues to put the number stickers on with the help of a few people who the team did not even know.
To everyone who helped, thank you so much!!! Then instantly, someone remembered that the Commander still did not have differential oil in the front or rear, so Derek quickly adds some, the Murray Brothers throw their fire suits on and scramble to get into the Commander as the BITD official is saying that if 1917 does not leave now they will be disqualified. 1917 ended up leaving the line about 30+ minutes late, and Derek and Jason decided to just do a shake down run with the new Commander since there had been no proper suspension adjustments on the newly build long travel kit by Desert Toyz, nor any test miles on the car. It had only been started for the first time a few hours ago in the trailer on the way to the race. Immediately after leaving the pre start line and while driving to the actual start, Jason and Derek realize the ride height with their weight is extremely low. 2″ rocks are becoming a big problem, and they begin to grading out the course for the trophy trucks to follow. All this adventure and the 1917 Commander had only begun the first 100 yards of the low speed section before the actual start. Everyone knew it was going to be a long day. Jason and Derek almost called it quits in the low speed section, but decided after all the work the team had put in to get this far, there was no turning back! Jason wanted to at least get the starting points, and try to get to pit 1 to jack up the Commander and get more ride height on the suspension. Jason was at the wheel, and was greatly impressed with the power, and capabilities of the new Commander. He could feel that the motor, and drive train wanted to push harder, and go faster. It was ready for the 300. Jason struggled with the suspension due to the lack of tuning, yet with carful driving somehow made it to pit 1. The Desert Toyz pit crew quickly raise the car about 3 inches by doing a full 4 corner shock ride height adjustment, and 1917 is off to see the improvements. The increased ride height is much better, but still not close to where the Commander needs to be. Pit 2 more ride height, and tuning. About 100 miles in, the 1917 Commander finally can start to open up at a medium pace. At this point is when Jason and Derek really begin to enjoy and remember why its so much fun to race. The pure challenge and adventure of the sport. With the increased ride height the Elka shocks begin to get pushed hard, and Jason and Derek trade off driving stopping only for fuel through pits
5. At Pit 6 the front right steering rod was bent slightly. Quickly it was welded with reinforcement, so that it would make it to the end. By this time the Murray Commander had managed to pull into running place of 5th by pit 6. With the power and speed of the new Commander they were making good time and the Can Am was running perfectly. Then going up a steep hill when BJ Baldwin was approaching, Jason pulled off to the side of the road at the last possible second to let the leading Trophy truck pass, when the Commander lost fuel pressure, and came to a stop about 9 miles out. Jason tried to find out the problem and after sitting for 20 minutes more they had a older couple who happened to be watching the race on a quad, and who were riding on the course with the Trophy trucks approaching, ironically had 1 gallon of gas strapped to their hood. After some begging they got 1 gallon of fuel, and were on the way again. 1 mile from the finish the 1917 ran out of fuel again. They check and saw that the fuel cell still had 4-5 gallons of fuel in the tank once opened, but found that the fuel pick up had not been fully to the bottom of the tank. This was fixed by pushing the pick up down, and placing a small log under the tank to tilt it towards the fuel pick up to make it in the last mile. While working on this fuel issue, 1917 was passed by 3-4 utvs right before the finish. Over all the Murray Racing team was happy just to finish, the odds were against them coming in with the lack of prep, and no miles even being on the new Commander. The BRP Can Am Commander ran amazing with no issues, the Desert Toyz Fabrication and suspension was perfect, the ITP Baja Cross tires and T-9 wheels beadlocked by OMF took a beating at very high speeds and performed all race long. The Elka Suspension was craving more abuse, and allowed us to finish the race with no suspension tuning. Thanks to our other sponsors, Sunset Vans Inc, Dead Rabbit clothing, Racers Edge graphics and Electrick Motorsports. Thanks to everyone for the help, and we look forward to seeing everyone for a good time in Parker in 2 weeks! This Commander is going to ROCK!!!
Here is a quote from Joey, the founder of UTV Underground the most well respected forum for the UTV sport. We thought we would share his words about the Desert Toyz, Murray Racing team,
”Guys I got to share this……….

So we are at the start line and I am walking up and down all the 16 or 17 cars that are staging to line up. I am snapping pics, shaking hands, and wishing good lucks. I then see Cory and Murray getting their cars ready so I walk over and Murray is running around franticly finishing assembling the car. He looks at me and says “dude I have been up for 3 days strait!” lol I am like woah, Murray is seriously pinging right now, you could see it in his eyes. 2 other guys are doing stuff to the car, one is making a section of side panel out of poster paper and duct tape…lol Poor guys are doing whatever it takes to start. Then Murray tells me he rode in Cory’s toy hauler all the way from Arizona to the start line and that is where they put the car together…lol……These guys are dedicated!!!!!
I never saw Murray go off the line but he did eventually make a late start and finish. So congrats to him! I hope now he can get the car finished and dialed so he can go on to compete the rest of the season in his new Commander!”
You can view a clip of the race at:

Pictures can be viewed at
http://rotimmedia.com/photocart/index.php?vp=2&do=photocart&viewGallery=10404
http://www.tracksidephoto.com/gallery/index.php?module=media&pId=102&id=513830&category=gall ery/2011/BestintheDesert/Silver State 300/SilverStateUTV&start=15/