The first race of the year was a huge learning experience for me as it was my first desert race and first time racing in our new car so coming into the UTVWC I was pretty confident. At this point I at least knew what we were getting into, we had the car more dialed in, and I somewhat had the whole desert racing thing figured out.
We were happy to get a good finish in Parker which set us up with a front row start in Laughlin which was huge as I knew how dusty the course would be. We got a pretty good start around 4th, my main goal was to keep the car together. I tried to keep calm off the start and just get a good fast pace going into the 1st few laps. And that is what we did, we held 4th and I wanted to keep the car together but I also knew the guys up front would be pushing hard to get a gap going early on.
We kept a good pace and the leaders within a good distance and as the race went on people started to drop out. We moved up to 3rd and then up to 2nd as people were in the pits and on the side of the track fixing mechanicals. We kept pushing for a few laps and eventually it became an awesome battle between us and Justin Lambert. We were able to gain some time and set our sights on him in a couple laps. From there we were able to work our way through the dust and have an awesome battle on the split line straight aways for a couple miles and were eventually able to edge him out.
Once we finally got the lead I knew it was now going to be a battle of the pits as the race was coming to the final laps. We held the lead but eventually came in to pit with a couple laps to go. The laps prior to this I was pushing hard trying to get as much time as possible between me and Justin so I wouldn't be too far behind him after our pit or possibly keep the lead. He was able to pass us while we were in the pits so now the race was on. I was pushing so hard to stay with him because I was assuming he was going to pit on lap 9 and give us a chance to take the lead back.
Unfortunately something began to happen to the car, it was either the front diff or a rear axle we are still not sure what went first but I knew something was wrong with the car. We still were able to keep a great pace going and keep Justin in our sights. As we were coming close to the pits and about to come into our last lap I radioed to my dad that something was up, but we were still at speed. He watched us as we passed and said the car looked fine so we decided not to pull in and checkout the car. At the same time Justin pulled into the pits to gas up and we made the pass to take the lead back as we we're coming into our final lap.
About 1/2 of a mile past the pits while in the lead something catastrophic happened to the car. I jumped out to checkout the damage and we had 2 rear axles broken. At this point I took a second to think, we had a blown out front diff 2 blown out rear axles and only one spare on the car. We ended up starting to change at least one axle to get something done when one of the BITD volunteers pulled up to see what was wrong. He was a great help giving us tools and whatever we needed to get back running... I can't thank the volunteers enough for what they do for us racers!! So we got one axle changed and my dad radioed another was on the way. At that point .......... pulled up and gave us another rear axle. I can't thank .... enough for taking time out of his race to help us get back up and running, that's true sportsmanship!!
After about 30 minutes we were back on the move. We were able to cruise the car in the last lap and come out with a 5th in class and a 8th overall. I was bummed as I felt we had the car to win but also happy to get a solid finish and keep in the running for the championship!
