We left the line about 1:00pm in 2nd place with Brandon Schueler driving and myself as co-Dawg.
We took the lead within the first mile, we even worked our way around a few of the SUV's and buggys, everyone was being real respectful as it should be that early in the race. Brandon works like a surgeon, carving up the desert and working traffic.
We encountered our first traffic jam a few miles before pit one. I guess there was a buggy blocking the trail in a mountain section, we were told there was 60-70 vehicals in front of us. That cleared out and traffic was real tight as we were all bunched up, still in the mountain section. Visibility was fair to none. Next thing we know we felt the car shift and slide to a stop. When the dust cleared we were off the road with a nice 30' rock slide to our left to the next swichback, and no chance of clawing our way back onto the road. The driver cuts the wheel and punches it, tring to avoid us rolling down. We make it only to find everyone stoped again for another roll over. The driver stays put and I jump out to help. Myself and about 8 other guys finaly get this toyota back on its wheels. There is no place for him to go, and he is blocking the trail so he decides to coast down to an area he can get out of the way. We are 2 vehicals behind the injured Toyota.
About 1/4 of a mile later everyone slides to a stop at a tight switchback. The 7 truck infront of us throws it in reverse to 2 point the turn slams into the passeger side of our car and damm near turns us over. He peels out and is gone. We rip around the corner and ee what the problem was. Aparently the Toyota with no engine, and power steering, didn't make a corner, shot over the edge and landed on it's side on the next switch back. They all look OK so we get around them, thankfully that was our last traffic jam.
The silt beds were without a doubt the worst I have seen. Everything is going real smooth till between the 3rd and 4th pits. We hit a rock and damage an A-arm bolt and bushing. We never stoped but slowed our pace. Our pit crew had us fixed up in less than 10 minutes.
Everything is just smooth as can be Brandon settles into a great pace, we have a great lead on 2nd and 5 hours or so before the finish line closes. I take over driving at pit 9, and we set it on cruise, not taking any chances and enjoying the darkness. Everything is good so we blow through the next pit. 5 miles out I'm in a real deap silt rut in a turn. I see it too late too react and I hit a 12" square rock wedged in the rut. It breaks the lower A-arm bolt.
Now we are 23 miles from the last pit. We peel the A-arms off and pile everything in the car. I hold onto a strap and hang off the back and we 3-wheel it in. 23 MILES! It took us about 2 hours, during the smooth sections we were hitting 25-27 MPH other time we were lucky to make it through. The highlight was when a class 7 truck starts to catch us, we pull over as far we could while being injured before he get to us, leaving more than half the road. He pulls right up behid us, with my dead lifeless body hanging on the back of the car, and starts laying on the horn
Finally all I could do was laugh, cause all the cuss words I was yelling didn't seem to be working, I think my fullfaced helmet was blocking their veiw had something to do with that. They must have been injured too and didn't want to risk driving on the sand shoulder.We finaly make it to the pits, and our crew was ready, They had the axle in and both A-arms back on, fuel, PB&J's and a couple Monsters in 27 minutes.
Brandon drives it to the finish with no more problems, other than he fell asleep driveing about 10 times. Seeing as how him and I were the only gys in the car all day, we were sick of each other by that time, and had nothing left to talk about. So the only way I could help him stay awake was to scream into the intercom every few minutes
My hats off to Jagged X . They build and prep the best race UTV's!
I would also like to thank Bill, Cris, Justin and Brandon Schueler, for letting me be part of their racing program.
The pit crew consisted of the guys from Polaris (sorry guys I can't remeber everyones name),Bill, Justin, Cris, Lindsee, Craig,my best friend Brian and my wife who kept track of us via iratrack from home, texting our position and everyone else's to our pit crew.
See ya at the next race in a month at Mesquite
Blake
