First of all, I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who came out to the races this weekend, whether you were racing or there to support the series!! We pulled in, saw the Traxxas semi's and the Monster semi's and knew that THIS was going to be an epic weekend!!! Anyone who follows short course racing knows that to have all of these TORC drivers here on the West Coast for the opening round of LOORRS was simply AMAZING!!! Just like the good ol' days!!
Next, I'd like to say thank you once again to LOORRS for allowing us to be a part of the series this year! We are soooo excited to see how this year will play out, and can't wait for everyone to get their SR1's finished and out there to mix it up!
Joey/Rusty - thanks for your support and for being there for all of us! You guys ROCK!
I have to say THANK YOU to Weller Racing, Tilted Kilt, XMF, Walker Evans, Maxxis, Twisted Stitch, Unisteer and all of my sponsors for supporting me this season - I brought home my first LOORRS trophy on Sunday - the first of many, I hope!!
Also, huge thanks to Magna Flow for giving away an exhaust system to the winner of Saturday's SR1 class race!!! Very cool of those guys to come up and offer such an awesome contingency to our new class at the very first round! Tyler Herzog should be sporting a shiny new muffler sometime soon!
We had almost half of the UTV field this weekend - 5 SR1's on Saturday, and 6 on Sunday.....a number of SR1 guys were not able to make the deadline for this weekend, but we know that these numbers will grow throughout the season, and are really looking forward to watching it happen!
As for the racing action - wow!! It's a whole different ballgame this season, but I love it! The track at Vegas was tight and technical, with a ton of turns and some off-camber tricky stuff! The big jumps were SO fun, and the SR1's put on a clinic on how to clear the biggest jumps out there!
The tab on my shift linkage broke off on Saturday's main on lap 2 - leaving me in neutral! I was towed to the hotpits, where Jason asked me what gear I wanted to race in. I chose 2nd - I would rather clutch it through the corners than hit the rev limiter on the straights! So I finished Saturday's race in 2nd gear....coming in 4th in my class.
Sunday's race was much better - even though I had to start near the back due to having to start in the order we finished on Sat, I wanted to be up front and on that podium! They mixed the field of 600 and 800's, so it made for some really good racing, but it also made it trickier to get up through the pack!
Once the green flag dropped, all I remember thinking is "holy SH*t this field is FAST!!" Roost flying, UTv's all over the place - the start was crazy and it just stayed that way pretty much until the end - but the racing was SO fun!! I remember the days of being out by myself in the field in 4th place or so....everyone stretched out....just trying to get closer to the front. NOT ANYMORE! This time it was bar to bar and wheel to wheel until the finish line!! Me, Tyler W, Bobby V, and Gary T battled for a long time, with Gary finishing just in front of me for 1st place in the SR1 class, and just behind RJ for 2nd overall!
Doug Mittag was out there in Bobby's SR1 and driving his butt off - great job! Dan brought his SR1 out for day two since something happened to his Teryx on Sat, and was flying until he flatlanded somewhere - hope you are feeling better, Dan!.....Tyler H. won on Saturday, and Josh S. did great in his new build, just had to work out some suspension bugs still.
These first two rounds proved that this will be an exciting year for both classes - no one has this thing locked in, and it will be fun to watch the season play out! Congrats to Austin Kimbrell for doing a great job this weekend.....how he managed to drive so fast with one hand on the throttle lever after his cable broke is beyond me!! Skillz!! RJ did awesome - put that little RZR on the podium twice! It was fun hanging out with everyone, and Kimbrell's new Monster canopy is just SICK!!!
As for the SR1 class comments, what can I say? There is obviously a lot of mis-information out there.....no one ever said this was the Premier UTV class. It was never meant to be.....it was simply meant to ADD numbers to a dwindling UTV count. I consider the 600 class to still be the premier class - with factory support, etc......the SR1 class is an economy class, more than anything. It's a way to go faster in a bone stock motor than Rhinos could ever do before, and still have a motor last all season! It was never meant to pull anything away from the 600 class......it was also never meant to compete with the 600 class. The SR1 is a totally different animal.....6-speed, two wheel drive makes for a completely different driving/racing experience. It's much closer to what it's like to race a truck, and will actually be a great platform for jumping into a truck class!
The SR1 class is in LOORRS because they felt it would be a good addition to the series. Lucas has seen these cars run before - they had seen them run before ever adding them to the series - so they knew what to expect when they brought us on board, and from all of the feedback I have received, this class is delivering!
I had a number of track workers, big truck team members, announcers, spectators and now future SR1 racers talk to me this weekend about the class - they liked what they saw, and wanted to know more about it!
As far as wanting to change the class, and do different things already, I agree with what others have said. If you are really interested in this class, then get behind the wheel, get some seat time in.....race a season.......let this BRAND NEW class do it's thing for a bit. The rules are right there......the ones building these cars to race them are doing so because they like what they see, and they like how the class is set up. It's not because they don't like it and want to change it. Let's just go have some FUN!!
