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From The Drivers Seat - Matt Parks / Blue Water Desert Challenge
// Matt Parks race summary in his Holz built ‘Baja Bobsled’ RZR-4 at the Blue Water Desert Challenge//
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“We came into the weekends’ two-day Best In The Desert Blue Water Challenge seven points out of the BITD points lead. With a 3rd place at the Parker 250, a win at Silver State 300, a win at the Blue Water GP and a second place at Vegas to Reno, we really needed a win to close the points gap.
The race consisted of three 25 mile laps both Saturday and Sunday with the cumulative time determining the finishing order. The UTV’s were in the first race of the day which started at 6:15 am. The UTV’s were gridded behind the Jeep Speed class, and Baja Bug class. We drew a 5th place starting position out of the 15 UTV’s entered. This race is unique in that they start us every 30 seconds, in pairs, in a side by side drag race to the first turn. We raced another RZR and got the hole shot. We were quickly chasing dust from the two UTV’s that started 30 seconds ahead and by mile 3 we had caught both, then by mile 4 we were the second place UTV on course physically. Next we the process of passing all of the Jeep Speeds and Baja Bugs that started ahead of us. Most of these guys would get out of the way quickly with the use of the air horn, but several simply would not move and we were driving virtually blind behind them in the dust and silt. After following a Baja Bug a couple of miles with the horn blaring, and had to give him a little ‘bumper love’ because the lead UTV was getting away. The nerf did the trick and we now were past all of the other classes that started ahead of us and past all of the UTV’s except one; Jagged X who is leading points and who started first UTV off the line.
With clean air we started the second lap and could see their dust, but they were a quite a bit ahead. We tried hard to catch them, but ended Saturday’s race in 2nd place around a minute and a half behind Jagged X on corrected time. Jason Spiess rode with me on Saturday and he not only did an excellent job calling the course and navigating the dust, he also did an excellent job prepping the RZR.
Day two started the same way as day one with the UTV’s gridded behind the Jeep Speed and Baja Bug classes. But the good news was that day one’s finishing order was the starting order for day two. We lined up side by side with Jagged X. They’re running a RZR XP 900 and predictably their 20 horsepower advantage had them to the first turn ahead of us, but the Kroyer-built engine in our RZR 4 800 gave them a good fight. We were right on their bumper giving them the horn at race mile 2 when both of us caught our first Jeep Speed. The Jeep Speed got right out of the way, but didn’t realize that there were two UTV’s behind them and they cut right in front of us after letting Jagged X get by. The air horn had died, so we followed for a couple miles. Eventually they saw us and we past. In a couple of more miles we were past all of the other classes and were closing on Jagged. Coming into the hot pit we were only 30 seconds behind and by the end of the three mile Parker Python infield section we were within 20 seconds.
The course on day two was really torn up after 175 race vehicles each did three laps on the 25 mile course. The whoops were massive, the silt blinding and the ruts so deep that we dragged the skid plate. We could get to Jagged but couldn’t get on their bumper due to virtually zero visibility. We came out of the sand washes heading toward the Colorado River, and now were only 30 feet behind. We tried our regular horn but they obviously didn’t hear us so we gave them a gentle tap coming onto the river road. They went wide and it allowed us to get by. Now, with clean air we were able to make some time. We had a minute and a half to make up in a lap and a half in order to take the overall win. We came into the start of the third lap focused on gapping them. 15 miles from the finish we smelled burning grease and knew that we had one or two blown rear CV joints. The car was struggling with only front wheel drive and we just babied it to the finish. Mike Carr was my co-driver in the RH seat on Sunday and he did a great job navigating in what was his first desert race. Mike and I waited at the finish line and, after a while, celebrated knowing we had won on corrected time having made up our one minute thirty second deficit from day one. I don’t know where we are in the points, but we have to be really close going into the final, 2011 Best In The Desert race, which is the Transwest Ford Henderson 250 in Henderson Nevada on December 3rd.”
// Congrats to Matt Parks for a good race and a dominating presence 2 years in a row at the Blue Water Desert Challenge.
Thank you JoeyD of UTV Underground for the cool picture.
