Green Castle, IN (3/23/2019) – Polaris RZR/Yokley Racing driver, John Barnes traveled to the State of Indiana on Saturday to race Round 2 of the IXCR. The team’s last outing at the series landed them on the podium.
The weather was nice at 50 degrees. The ground in the fields was perfectly tacky. In the weeks prior, the large amounts of rains in the area took a toll. Deep mud could be found in lots of the trails in the woods with an abundance of dust in the fields.
With a beautiful race day, fans were walking the starting line checking out the UTVs that were about to endure in a 1 hour session to the checkered flag. There was something different about this weekend for the Polaris team. Looking at Barnes’s RZR, it appeared to be a Polaris RZR S 1000. After interviewing team co-pilot, Nathaniel Woodard it was hinted that there was a secret weapon no one wanted to talk about. We got the secret out of them.
The team added a Packard Performance turbo. It was something to see in person. The car is narrow with short wheel base but will shoot out of a corner almost pulling the front wheels.
Barnes commented before the race, “For many years, we have raced the S 1000. It is a great car for the tighter woods. With everyone racing turbos, we were looking to keep the RZR working awesome in the woods but to have something more when we hit the fields.
We found a nice piece. It was a lot of work on our mechanics to prepare 2 units for the weekend. Tomorrow, we are headed to Loretta Lynn’s Dude for Round 2 of the AXCC. We’ve been doing a lot of testing. In the season openers, we raced 3 cars in a weekend, and we had a lot of maintenance to do. I feel confident that adding the turbo to the S 1000, we will have the power to compete. The only thing I am going to be conservative about is on the front differential.”
Barnes would get off to a strong start going second into the woods. The team would run in the top 3 all day battling for a win. Unfortunately, the awesome power of the turbo was too much for the front differential. The 4wd went out in the worst possible place, a huge mud hole that was in the course sinking the machine to the frame.
Barnes commented after the race, “We knew that the power of the Packard turbo was awesome. We put a brand new diff in our preparation, and it wasn’t enough. The STI Roctane Tires hooked up awesome. The Super ATV components held up great. The power was just too much for it. We ran up front all day. The solution that we are going to move toward is a Coffman Performance RS1 Diff conversion for it. We have R&D to do to get it to work.”
The team loaded up and headed for Hurricane Mills, Tennessee for Round 2 of the AXCC disappointed that they didn’t make the podium but knowing what needs to be done in terms of preparation.
A special thanks to mechanics: Dennis Fisher, Jeffrey Woodard, Jason Yarbourough, Jason Wofford. Co-Pilot- Nathaniel Woodard
