2012 Volume 29 Number 5 Dusty Times Magazine : simplebooklet.com

I· Volume 29 - Number s May 2012 DllliYlil■II Publisher Emeritus Jean Calvin Editor John Calvin Associate Editor Judy Smith Editorial Assistant Bekki Wikel Controller John Calvin Marketing Pat Caplan Circulation Vance Scott Contributors Homer Eubanks J. Preston Bradshaw Jim Culp Martin Holmes Rod Koch Byrle Moore Steve Ruddick Maurice Selden Tony Tellier Trackside Photo Art Director Larry Worsham B.O.R.E. Subscription Rates: $25.00 per year, 12 issues, USA, Foreign Subscription rates on request. Contributions: DUSTY TIMES welcomes contributions, but is not responsible for such material. Unsolicited material will be returned only by request and with a self addressed stamped envelope. Classified Ads: will be published as received, prepaid.·DUSTY TIMES assumes no liability for omissions or errors. All ads . may be subject to editing. DUSTY TIMES: (ISSN 8750-1732) is published monthly by Hillside Racing Corp, 20761 Plummer St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, (818) 882-0004 with additional Dusty Times, LLC offices at 415 N. Higgins Avenue, Suite lA, Missoula, MT 59802. Copyright by Hillside Racing Corp. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Periodical Postage paid at Chatsworth, CA 91311 and at additfonal mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address change to DUSTY TIMES, 20761 Plummer St., Chatsworth, CA 91311. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Four weeks notice is required for change of address. Please furnish both old and new address, and send to DUSTY TIMES, 20761 Plummer St., Chatsworth, CA 91311 ' SNAPSHOT OF THE : MONTH ••• 1982, some of the big hames in the off road racing group. Stan Parnell (left), Jim Conner - .and the HDRA bosses. DUSTY TIMES will feature pictures of similar "funnies"·or woes on this page each month. Send us your snapshot of something comic or some disaster for consideration. DUSTY TIMES will pay $10 for the picture used. If you wish the photo returned, enclose a stamped, self-addressed 1:nvelope. Only prints up to 8xl0 or electronic media submitted via email will be considered. In This Issue ... FEATURES BITD Mint 400 by Judy Smith .................................................................. 8 Rally Of Portugal by Martin Holmes ...................................................... 16 HDRA Imperial 250 by Steve Ruddick ................................................... 20 Lucas Oil At Firebird by] Preston Bradshaw .......................................... 28 SNORE At Ridgecrest by] Preston Bradshaw ········:································ 32 Lucas Oil At Lake Elsinore by Homer Eubanks ....................................... 36 DEPARTMENTS Happenings ............................................................................................. 5 Trail Notes .............................................................................................. 6 Good Stuff Directory ........................................................................... 4 2 Classified Ads ....................................................................................... 46 Index To Advertisers .................................. _. .......................................... 46 ON THE COVER Robby Gordon made it look fairly easy as he took the overall win Jit the BITD Mint 400. He's seen here with the right foot buried in the floorboard. Photo - Trackside Photo Sheldon Creed is off to a good start in the Lucas Oil races, he took the win both days at Firebird, seen here nicely airborne on his way to the checkers. Photo - Trackside Photo Visit Our Website at Dustytimes.com IJ Finduson Facebook S udae-11,tde 7 ~ ta D.USTY TIMES THE FASTEST GROWING OFF ROAD MONTHLY l·N THE COUNT.RY!! y~ lil , 1 -year -$25.Q0 □ 2 years -$40.00 □ 3 years -$55.00 (to subscribe online go to www.dustytimes.com) □ NEW □ RENEWAL Name:.· ___ ·.:.---=•~ -----~........;...-----'--------Address-----------------~----City ________ -'--------'-------,----1 State. ____________ ~ ___ Zip __ .......,;... ____ _ Primary Interest Cars ~D Trucks D MotorcyclesO Send check or money order to: DUSTY TIMES 20761 Plummer St., Chatsworth, CA 91311 · · Canadian• 1 year $30.00 US • Overseas subscription rates upon request D~sty Times May 2C>12_ ~ ' Page3 .. 1 l

Page 4

Page 5

.... • .... ' •• - # •• • • • • • # 2012 Happenings ... 10K FOUR WHEELERS P.O. Box36 CLEVES, OHIO 45002 <4x4 forever.org> (All events staged at the club grounds in Cleves. Ohio) 4x4 FOREVER, Lro. 1665 DELAWARE ST. 0sHKOSH, Wl54901 AMERICAN RALLY SPORT GROUP, INc. 3650 SolJTH POINTE CIRCLE, SUITE 205 LAUGHLIN, NV 89208 (702) 298-8171/FAX: (702) 521-0597 <web l.userinstinct.com/271413 25-ameri-can-rally-sport-group.htm. E Mail: roger@rallyusa.com AMERICAN TRlALs ASSOCIATION AMA Obsmied Trials Southern California Championship Seri~ BtLL MARKuM, 2010 PRESIDENT (909) 860-1857 24 HR HoruNE, 2010 (714) 562-7742 E MAIL: BMARK909@AOLCOM <www.atatrails.com> AsOCIACION EsTATAL DE AUTOMOVILISMO SAM lAsELL, TECH INSPECTOR APTo42 SAN JOSE DEL CABO BAJA CALIFORNIA DEL SUR. MEXICO AusTRALIAN OFF RoAD CHAMPIONSHIP DARRYL SMITI-I 19 SoMERS ST. CAsHMERE, QUEENSLAND, 4500, AUSTRALIA DUSTY TIMES @bigpond.com AUTocRoss QUEBEC OFF RoAD Cl.Ass 10 CARS ONLY RENALD VAILLANCOURT 3069 DAGENAIS WEST LAVAL QUEBEC, CANADA H7P 1T7 (450) 622-4440 <www.autocrossquebec.com/ pages/ indexpag.html> BAJA CUP CHALLENGE BAJA PRoTRucK OFF RoAD RAcE SERIES 14402 BoND CoURT EL CAJON, CA 92021 619-390-6252 The Protruck schedule far 2012 will consist of both the SCORE and Best In The Desert races. BARONA SAND DRAG ASSN. P.O. Box 1521 LAKESIDE, CA 92040 All Races Are Night Races All Races At Barona Racewa:,, Lakeside, CA BBM MARKETING PROMOTIONS Off Road Short Course Racing & Special Event Marketing NORCO, CA 92860 e-mail bbmracing@aol.com (909) 815-5811 BEST IN THE DESERT 3475 BoULDER HIGHWAY LAs VEGAS, NV 89121 702-457-577 5/FAX: 702-641-2431 <www.bitd.com> August 16 - 18, 2012 General Tire Vegas To Reno Nevada October 12 - 14, 2012 Bluewater Desert Challenge Parker, AZ Novem.ber 30 - Decem.ber 2, 2012 Transwest Ford Henderson 250 Henderson, NV BORR BONNEVILLE OFF RoAD RACING Allen Gerber 801-380-9011 - after 5pm please www.BORracing.org June 8-9, 2012 Caliente, NV July 20-22, 2012 Wendover Night Race Wendover, NV Septem.ber 14-16, 2012 Wendover NV October 27, 2012 2nd Annual Adopt-a-highway Poker Run Lehi, UT BP MoTORSPORTS Dusty Times P.O. Box411 WoooLANo Htu.s, CA 91365 760-578-6258/760-578-6259 FAX: 818-348-4648 E-Mail: bpmotorsports@earthlink.net All Events Ac California Cicy, CA BRIGHTON SPEEDWAY R.R.3 BRIGHTON, ONTARIO, CANADA KOK-lH0 (613) 475-1102/FAX (613) 475-3250 CAJOR Cum AUTOMOVILISTA ]UARENSE DE CHAMPIONSHIP OFF-ROAD RACING 7210 GATEWAY EAsT EL PASO, TX 79915 (915) 593-4848 RALPH GARCIA 0ll-52-16-17-45-42 CESAR FUENTES CALIFORNIA RALLY SERIES <www.Californiarallyseries.com> CANNING ATTRACTIONS P.O. Box400 MAYWOOD, CA 90270 (323) 560-SHOW CENTRAL SOUTH DAKOTA RACING ASSOCIATION P.O. Box645 PIERRE, SD 57501 DAVE ADAMS (PILOTS AND BAJAS) (605) 224-9481 DoN ENGLEMAN (BIKES) (605) 224-4967 CHAMPLAIN VALLEY RACING ASSOCIATION C.J. RICHARDS P.O. Box332 FAIR HAVEN, VT 05743 (802) 265-8618 CLAIRTON HI-JACKERS l.C.O. TOM DELAUDER SR 1091 TWP. LINE ROAD WEU.SVllLE, OHIO 43968 May 2012 (330) 532-4589 Short Course off Road Racing At Har-rison Couni:, Fair Grounds. Cadiz. OH CLUB AUTOMOVILISTICA SAN QUINTIN CALLE 6TA FRAcc Co. DE SAN QUINTIN SAN QUINTIN, BC, MEXICO HERACLIO PATINO (011 52 616-5-22-07) CLUB AUTOMOVILISTICO SAN VICENTE San Vicente Off Road ENSENADA, BC, MEXICO USA JAN WRIGHT (011 52 61746834) RAM6N CASTRO & RUBEN ACEVEDO (61637/7 0034) CMC CONTINENTAL MoTOSPORT Cum P.O. Box 3187 . MISSION VIEJO, CA 92690-3178 Fax: (714) 367-1608 CODE TECATE 2012 CHAMPIONSHIP MADERO 621-A ZONA CENTRO MEXICALI, BAJA CALIFORNIA 21100 01 l-52-686-553-4087 USA 686-553-4087 MEXICO <www.codeoffroad.com.mx> E Mail: mail@codeoffroad.com.mx July 27-29, 2012 ORW Gran Prix Tecate, BC, MX October 5-7, 2012 Mexicana Logistics 300 Mexicali, BC, MX November 30-December 1-2, 2012 OXXO Race Ready 275 Mexical San Felipe, BC, MX COLORADO HnL CLIMB ASSOCIATION BARB V AHSHOLTZ, PRESIDENT (719) 531-3642 W/(719)687-9827 H P.O Box 8286 COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80933 (719) 653-8449 Continued on •••• 6 Pages

Page 6

Trail Notes ... ELEGANT INDY 500 PARTY AT LUCAS ESTATE - May 25th -To Benefit Garth Brooks' Teamates For Kids Foundation. Country music superstar Garth Brooks, IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard, and Forrest and Charlotte Lucas are throwing an elegant Indy 500 party during race weekend. The inspiration for the party came in February during Super Bowl XLVI. Bernard was so enthused by the great time he had at the Lucas' super bash at the Lucas Estate in Carmel on February 1st that he wanted one of his very own. That's just what he's getting, according to an announcement from IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Lucas Oil Products. The newly-minted Indy 500 Soiree, presented by Lucas Oil, will include gourmet food, cocktails, live music, dancing and some surprises will take place on Friday, May 25. Proceeds from the event will benefit Brooks' Teammates for Kids Foundation and a children's play space planned for Riley Hospital for Children. Called Child Life Zones, the high-tech colorful places can include a theater, stage, interactive broadcast studio, kitchen, computers and a craft and play area for patients. To date, there are seven such environments in the United States. "It is not easy for any kid to be in the hospital," said Jason Grahame, director of operations for Teammates for Kids. "It's just kind of an escape more than anything." Brooks will be on hand during the event and walk down the red carpet, but he isn't scheduled to perform. Drivers who have qualified for the Indy 500 on Saturday, May 27th as well"as other celebrities are expected. For more information and/or tickets please visit: www.lucasoil.com/ indy500soiree or call (317) 423-3590. 3 0 SCORE RACERS REMAIN IN CHASE FOR TOYOTA MILESTONE AWARDS -Heading to upcoming 44th Tecate SCORE Baja 500 desert race. Nearly 280 entries expected in Mexico for Round 4 of the 2012 SCORE Desert Series race June 1-3; Draw for start positions Saturday at SCORE headquarters. Following the first three of five races in the 2012 SCORE Desert Series, 30 of SCORE's toughest drivers remain in the hunt to earn 2011 SCORE Toyota Milestone Awards. Leading the way are six racers in the featured SCORE Trophy Truck division, three in Class 1 for unlimited open-wheelers and and five in Class 1/2-1600 for single or two-seat open wheelers powered by 1600cc VW engines. The six SCORE Trophy Truck drivers who have completed every race mile so far this season are: Rob MacCachren, Las Vegas (No~ 20 Ford F-150), Juan C. Lopez, Tecate, Mexico (No. 18 Chevy Silverado), Steven Strobel, Clarks, Neb. (No. 94 Ford F-150), Scott Whipple, Norco, Calif. (No. 95 Ford F-150), Tim Herbst, Las Vegas (No. 19 Ford F-150) and Ryan Arciero, Foothill Ranch, Calif. (No. 49 Ford F-150). Tim Herbst and Arciero, who races with Tim Herbst's younger brother Troy, are part of the Las Vegas-based Terrible Herbst Motorsports team. Nearly 280 entries are expected to compete in 36 Pro and 7 Sportsman classes for cars and trucks in the upcoming 44th Annual Tecate SCORE Baja 500. Round four of the five-race 2012 SCORE Desert Series will be held June 1-3 in Ensenada, Mexico. With late entries accepted up until race morning, entries from 30 US States and 10 countries are expected to take the green flag in the popular early-summer race. The drawing for starting positions will be held on Saturday at the SCORE headquarters in Los Angeles. In order to be included in the start draw, entries must be received by tomorrow (Wednesday). Pre-race festivities will be held on the heart of Ensenada on Friday, June 1, and the elapsed-time race will start at 6 a.m. (PDT) on Saturday, June 2. The awards celebration will be held at 11 a.m. (PDT) on Sunday, June 3 poolside at the San Nicolas Resort. Toyota is presenting these prestigious awards to the world's toughest desert racers for the 27th consecutive year. The Toyota Milestone awards will go to those pro car and truck drivers who finish every required mile in the five-race 2012 SCORE Desert Series, the World's Foremost Desert Racing Series. "Toyota is proud to honor the world's best desert racing drivers," said Les Unger, national motorsports manager at Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. "For over a quarter of a century, Toyota has had the privilege of presenting the SCORE Toyota Milestone Awards to the toughest racers on the planet." 2 012 SCORE TOYOTA MILESTONE AWARDS - (30 Racers have completed every required mile after three rounds in the five-race 2012 SCORE Desert Series) SCORE Trophy Truck: Juan C. Lopez; Rob MacCachren; Steven Strobel; Scott Whipple; Tim Herbst; Ryan Arciero. Class 1: Cody Parkhouse; Darnen Jefferies; Monica Greenhill. Class 1/2-1600: Robert Archibald; Cody Robinson; Brad Wilson; George Peters; Brian Wilson. Class 3: Donald Moss. Class 5: Kevin Carr. Class 5-1600: Clyde Stacy. Class 6: Eduardo Laguna. Class 7SX: Elias Hanna. Class 8: Rodolfo lribe. Class 10: Peter Hajas; Matt Cullen; Perry McNeil; Mike Lawrence; Mark Lawrence. SCORE Lites: Otoneil Huerta. Stock Full: West Bevly Ill. Class 7-2: Billy Wilson; Reid Page& CowRADO OFF RoAD EXTREME www.coloradooffroadextreme.com 303-956-3600 June 8, 2012 Rally Cross National Challenge June 9-10, 2012 Colorado 200 desert race Cars,Trucks,4400,and buu:,'s www.coloradooffroadextreme.com June 14, 2011 Rocky Mountain Auto Press Event June 16-17, 2012 Colorado Hill Climb Event June 24, 2012 Mile High Desert Racing Series Bikes,Quads and UTV's on!, www.rsenalracing.com July 7, 2012 Colorado Rally Cross Event July 1S, 2012 Mile High Desert Racing Series Bikes,Quads and llrV's on!, www.rsenalracing.com July 28-29, 2012 Tumbleweed 150 Desert Race Cars,Trucks,4400,and buu:,'s www.coloradooffroadextreme.com August 11, 2012 Colorado Rally Cross Event August 26, 2012 Mile High Desert Racing Series Bikes,Quads and llrV's on!, www.rsenalracing.com September 1-2, 2012 CORE Classic 125 desert Race Cars, Trucks, 4400,and buu:,'s www.coloradooffroadextreme.com September 9, 2012 Mile High Desert Racing Series Bikes,Quads and llrV's on!, www.rsenalracing.com September IS, 2012 Colorado Rally Cross November 3, 2012 Colorado Rally Cross CORP P.O. Box392 CALEXICO, CA 92232 HECTOR CERECER 011-52-65-66-4458 CORR SERIES 270 NEWPORT CENTER DR., Sum 100 NEWPORT BEACH, CA 92660 866-501.CORR CORVA 1500 WEST EL CAMINO, Sum 352 SACRAMENTO, CA 95833 1-80042 CORVA EXT 42 Fax (818) 957-4435 CRS CALIFORNIA RALLY SERIES <www,CaliforniaRallySeries.com June 9 -10 2012 Idaho Rally Boise, Idaho July 13 - 14, 2012 North Nevada Rally Lovelock, Nevada August 4, 2012 Mendocino Rally Ukiah, California August 28, 2012 Gorman Rally Frazier Park, CA October S - 6, 2012 Prescott Rally Prescott, Arizona D&T PROMOTIONS DAVE VAN DEREN 2405 BAKER AVE. EVERETT, WA 98201 (206) 339-9079 (AU events at Hannigan race track, Bellingham, WA or Thurston Count)' ORV Park, Ot,mpia, WA) DAKAR RALLY DARREN SKILTON BAJA AUTOMOTIVE ADVENTURES 455 E. OcEAN BLVD., Sum 208 loNG BEACH, CA 90802 (562) 755-2278/FAX: (562) 590-7925 <www.dakar.com> Bajaautomotive@Yahoo.com DECATUR Foua WHEEL DRIVE CuJB DECATUR, TX 76234 ToMALLEN (800) 662-3649/(214) 641-2090 DESERT STEEL MoTORSPORTS 1863 CoMMANDER DRIVE LAKE HAVASU CITY, AZ 86403 (928) 855-2208 EAsrF.RN OFF-ROAD RACING AssN. TOM DELAUDER, SR. 1091 TOWNSHIP LINE ROAD May 2012 WELI.SVILLE, Omo 43968 (330) 532-4589 ENSENADA BAJA OFF ROAD RACING Av. REFORMA 1136 ENSADA,BC,MX 011-52-646-1818989 Eus10 0ll-52-646-1715230 AARON Races for buu:,s & Motorcycles EsTERO BEACH INTERNATIONAL Short Coone Racing VICTORIA GALINDO ENSENAOA, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO 0ll-52-646-176-6230 EDR EXTREME DESERT RACING P.O. Box 91615 AuSTIN,TX 78709 (512) 848-4344 / E FAx (1512) 687-5310 www.EDRTexas.com Car Truck Series Bike Quad Series FORDA FWRIDA OFF ROAD DRIVER'S ASSOCIATION JASON UIBIN (727) 376-4176 Mar, Apr, Ma,, Noo at Davidson Racewa, GENERAL TIRE TROPHYLITE SERIES DRIVE RACING ORGANIZATION 760-352-6020 Las Vegas, NV GLEN HELEN BAJA Cup CHALLENGE SERIES PO Box6950 SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92412 PHONE: (909) 384-9343 www.glenhelen.com Lucas Oil Regional OH Road Series June 9, 2012 July 21, 2012 December 8, 2012 Baja Cup Challenge GORRA GEORGIA OFF RoAD RACING ASSOCIATION 420 HOSEA ROAD LAWRENCEVILLE, GA 30245 (404) 963-0252 GPORRA GREAT PLANES OFF ROAD RACING ASSOCIATION TIM HODGE (402) 991-6048 SCOTT MORROW (816) 792-2126 (AU races are short course, stadium style Classes, 2010 Sportsman, 1/2-1600, 5-1600, Sport Truck, Quads, Tough Truck Nebraska Racewa, Park, Exit 420 on I.SO between Omaha and Lincoln.) For latest info check < www.gporra.net> HORA HIGH DESERT RACING ASSOCIATION P.O. Box 750208 LAs VEGAS, NV 89136 <www.hdrarace.com> July 4-8, 2012 Fireworks 500 Tahoe-Reno Motorplex Reno,NV October S-7, 2012 Southern Nevacl.a 400 Pahrump, NV November 9-12, 2012 Riot on the River Laughlin, NV HIGH PLAINS OFF ROAD RACING 2000 w. QUINCY AVENUE #B ENGLEWOOD, CO 80110 303-806-8062/303-781-0974 fax INTERNATIONAL ICE RACING ASSOCIATION P.O. Box 8105 ST. PAUL, MN 55108 STEVE BEDDOR (612) 937-3816/Fax 474-2769 INTER-SHOWS MOTORSPORTS PRoMoTioNs, INc. P.O. Box 24)10 MISSION VIEJO, CA 92690 (949) 582-2371 ]EEPSPEED 1826 N. WINDES ORANGE, CA 92869 714-538-7434/ fax 714-633-1724 Same schedule as Best In The Desert KAMLooPS OFF ROAD RACING Whispering Pines Sports & Recreation Center l<AMLOOPS, BC, CANADA www.korrbc.ca. Mike Strange (250) 573-4003 LAS VEGAS SANDSPORTS & OFFROAD ExP0 (626) 961-3782 <www.prerunners.com> <www.megashow.com> Curt LeDucs Off Road Swap Meet L.I.T.R.E. JEFF ELROD (408) 926-0522 J1MARUTA (408) 247-4402 LOORRS LucASOIL OFF ROAD RACING SERIES <www.LucasOilOffRoad.com> June 23 - 24, 2012 Miller Motorsports Park August 4 -S, 2012 Glen Helen Raceway September 1 - 2, 2012 Reno September 22 - 23, 2012 Las Vegas Motor Speedway October 27 - 28, 2012 Firebird Raceway MAMARRITA OFF ROAD RACING LUIS CARLOS Al.VAREZO PANAMERICANA AVE #5105 Co. JUAREZ, CH1H., MX 0ll-52-1637-1799 MicmGAN BUGGY BUILDERS Dune Buggy Trade Show (517) 543-7214 <www.buggybuilders.com> MicmGAN OFF RoAD CHAMPIONSHIPS M.T.B. Enterprises Inc. 15529 JONES ROAD GRAND LEDGE, ML 48837 (517) 627-6200 Motorcycles, Quads, ATVs and Pilots only MAORA Mm-AMERICA OFF RoAD AssocIATION P.O. Box664 GREENUP, IL 62428 (217) 962-1318 E-MAIL: rooster@maourracing.us <www.maoraracing.us> M.O.R.E. MoJA VE OFF RoAD RACING ENTHUSIASTS P.O. Box 1231 BARSTOW, CA 92312 760-253-4453 <www.moreracing.net moreracing@earthlink.net July 21, 2012 Freedom 250 Barstow, CA September 8, 2012 Chili Cook Off Lucerne, CA October 6, 2012 7th Annual Powder Puff Barstow, CA December 1, 2012 Holiday 200 Barstow, CA MlcmGAN SPORT BUGGY As-SOCIATION DAVE BARRET 6363 NIGHTINGALE DR. FUNT, ML 48506 (810) 730-9221 MoroWFST WINTER 1'RIALs SERIES BILL MARKHAM (909) 860-1857 <www.lTStrials.com> A!! events at Perris Racewa, (At Reed Valley with a school) NATIONAL Mun RAcING AssN. RT. #l, 2010 Box 380 DAVE OR MARI.ENE RYAN PALATKA, FL 32177 (904) 325-5422 NATIONAL TUFF TRUCK AssN. Butch Chapin Motorsports Promo-tions 1404 EAST 3RD STREET HASTINGS, MN 55033-1415 (612) 437-2459 Dusty Times 7

Page 7

... NOORA NORTHERN Omo OFF RoAD RACING AssN. GARY WULFF (724) 283-2678 E-MAIL Kaylaaron@aol.com <www.Nooraoffroadracing.com> Buggies, Pilot/Odysseys, Trucks, Quads (Spring Valle, Racewa1, on route 518, 20 · minutes SW of U.!bon, OH) (Thunder Valle, located 15 minutes from Spring Valle,) NORRA NATIONAL OFF ROAD RACING AsSOCIATION www.norra.com (661) 262-7171 info@norra.com <www.mexicanlOOO.com> OFFROADExP0 SPIN COMMUNICATIONS (415) 380.3890 Meghan@spinpr.com OFF ROAD RACING ASSOCIATION Volunteered Series PRESIDENT, 2010 GEOFF LEE 1243 TRICE ROAD LEBANON, TN 37087 (615) 453-5830 CLASS REP., 201t, 1/2-1600 BRUCE MEYERS (865) 453-1005 CLASS REP., 2010 9 & UNLTD. MICHAEL MOORE (334) 271-7035 OlJI1AW REP. DON PONDER . (314) 631-8190 (All Races at Wheeling in the County 900 Acres) · Omo OFF RoADERS INc. 1427 GOSHEN HILLS ROAD S.E. NEW PHILADELPHIA, OHIO 44663 JIM KENDEL (216) 339-4674 All races held at Harrison County Fairgrounds. Cadiz, Ohio ONTARIO OFF ROAD RACERS AssOCIATION RICK TICHBOURNE, Pusuc REIATIONS (519)-681-4192(H)/(519) 457-2913(W) Olm.AW SEVEN PICKUP 9269 UMMELMAN ST. Lou!S, MO 63123 (314) 631-8140/Fax: ((314) 631-1921 PACE MOTOR SPORTS U.S. Off Road Championship 495 N. CoMMONS DRIVE AURORA, lL 60504 - • (630) 566-6100 <www.lfsoff-road.com> PENNSYLVANIA SHORT CoURSE RACING SMmITON HOLE RAcEWAY 313 SKYLINE DRIVE SMITTITON,PA. 15479 MIKE GEISER 330-683-0263 www.smithtonhole.com Short Course Offroad Racing All Races At Smithton Hole Racewa1 PIKES PEAK P.O. Box 6962 COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80934 (719) 685-4400 PINE BARRENS ROUGH RIDERS OFF RoAD RACING CHATSWORTH, NJ (856) 87 5-7 591 PROTRUCK PROTRUCK MANAGEMENT lNC. 11409 PINEHURST DR. LAKEsmE, CA 92040 (619) 885-4458 Protruck Schedule consists of all SCORE and Best In The Desert Races PRo 1600 SHOOTOUT CoREYG01N 559-047-0132 GOINRACIN@HOTMAIL.COM PuRE ENERGY PROMOTIONS P.O. Box50 RICKETTS, 1A 51460 (712) 679-2221 RALLY AMERICA <www.rallly-america.com> June 1 • 2, 2012 Susquehannock Trail Rally Wellsboro, PA July 13 · 14, 2012 New England Forest Rally Newry,ME Dusty Times September 22 • 23, 2012 Olympus Rally Seattle, WA 22ND RALLYE AICHA DES GAZELLES The Only AU-Women's Off-Road Rally Raid In The World U.S. Liaison:Kelly Van Hoesen 203-249-1340 Skype: kellanvanhoesen kellan@soulsidenet.com <www.rallyeaichadesgazelles.com> RG CANNING PRODUCTIONS, INc. OFF ROAD SWAP MEET P.O. Box400 MAYWOOD, CA 90270.0400 New/Used Off Road Related Parts & Accessories MIKE CAMPBEU 323-560.7469 Ext 507 mc@rgcshows.com RocK CRAWLERS AssocIATION OF AMERICA P.O. Box 1406 RivERTON, UT 84065 (801) 446-5337/Fax: (801) 253-3176 SAN DIEGo SHORT CoURSE WINTERNATIONALS A New Series !ry Snowbird Off Road Racing Pro Tmcks, Desert Tmcks, Buggies, Pilots, Tough Tmck <www.snowbirdracing.com> (858) 571-5088 SAN DIP.Go OFF RoAD ExPOsmoN (888) 836 7918 SCCA RoADRALLY P.O. Box 19400 TOPEKA, KS 66619 800.770.2055 <www.scca.org> SFX MoTORSPORTS GROUP 495 N. CoMMONS DRIVE, SUITE 200 AURORA, IL 60504 (630) 566-6100/(630) 556-6180 Fax SCORE SCORE INTERNATIONAL 23961 CRAFTSMAN Ro., SUITE A CA!ABASAS, CA 91302 (818) 225-8402/FAX: (818) 225-8102 <www.score-international.com> June 1-3, 2012 SCORE Baja 500 Ensenada, Baja CA Mexico November 14-17, 2012 SCORE Baja 1000 Ensenada To La Paz Baja CA Mexico December 8, 2012 SCORE Awards Night To Be Determined SCCA RALLYCRoss NATIONAL CHALLENGE May 26-27, 2012 Dixie National Challenge European Rally School June 9-10, 2012 Rocky Mountain National Challenge US Truck Driving School June 30 -July 1, 2012 Midwest National Challenge 1-80 Speedway August 25-26, 2012 Great Lakes National Challenge National Trail Raceway October 5-7, 2012 SCCA RallyCross National Championship Tulsa Raceway Park SNORE SOUTHERN NEVADA OFF ROAD ENTffuSIASTS -P.O. Box 270516 LAs VEGAS, NV 89127 702-277-2295 www.Snoreracing.net June 8 - 10, 2012 Dusty Times 250 Caliente, NV September 7 • 9, 2012 KC Hilites Midnight Special SNORE/MORE Lucerne, CA October 26 - 28, 2012 · SNORE 250 Jean, NV December 7 - 9, 2012 Rage At The River Laughlin,NV SONS OF THUNDER 4 WHEELERS RAcEDMSION KEITH STEWART (714) 522-1899 SOUTHEASTERN OFF ROAD CH,µli:NGE STEVE RULE (800) 313-5621 OR((770) 963-0252 Mike Moore, 2010 (224) 272-5400 SPEED SPORTS EXPO MEGA PRODUCTIONS 3129 S. HACIENDA BLVD. #322 HACIENDA HEIGHTS, CA 91745 (626) 961-0522 SCTA SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TIMING AsSOCIATION & BONNEVILLE NATIONALS, INc. P.O. Box 10 OROS!, CA 93647 (559) 528-0279 (559) 528-9749 FAX -<www.SCTA-BNI.org> SOUTHERN SHORT CoURSE OFF ROAD RACING AssN. 4305 WOOTIARK DRIVE TAMPA FL 33624 (813) 962-2857 (All Races at Eastba, Racewa:,, Tampa, FL) TRAxxAs T ORC SERIES May 26-27, 2012 Round 3-4 Red Bud Buchanan, MI June 16-17, 2012 Round 5-o Crandon International Raceway Crandon, WI more H1pp1nin91 on page 39 Attention Race & Rally Organizers List your coming events in DUSTY TIMES free. It is the only way some fans know about your event, if they don't happen to be on your club mailing list. Don't call, but mail your-2012 schedules as soon as possible for listing in this column; it could bring you some ex-tra entries! Mail your race or rally schedule to: D-t.1sty Times 20761 Plummer St., Chatsworth, CA 91311-5003 May 2012 Trail Notes ... Rutherford. Class 4: Derek Fletcher. KING SHOCKS CONTINUES TO SUPPORT MORR SPORTSMAN RACERS IN A BIG WAY•• King Shocks enters into its third year of Contingency support for MORR members competing in the 2012 Traxxas TORC Series presented by AMSOIL. The Contingency Plan awards competitors running King Shocks with a $100 product or service certificate when they win their class. This covers all Sportsman classes; Classix, Enduro Truck, Formula 4x4, Light Buggy, Single Buggy, Super Stock Truck, Super Buggy, Sport 4 and Super Truck during all ten rounds of racing. The total posting is valued at $8,000. "We see the Sportsman off-road marketplace expanding and know there are other manufacturers the racers could choose, King Shocks want to say thank you to the competitors that choose our product," notes King Shocks Marketing Director Micheal Leighton. "The MORR contingency rewards our customers, and creates feedback from the racing community that will assist in the refinement of our existing products and develop new technology to keep them out front." The Traxxas TORC Series presente_d by AMSOIL offers ten rounds of racing for Sportsman competitors, with events scheduled throughout the Upper Midwest. The 2012 TORC Sportsman season will begin, May 26, at Red Bud MX in Buchanan, Ml. MEDIA APPLICATIONS Av AILABLE FoR THE U.S. RALLYciloss SERIES • Round 1 of JSC Speed Rallycross presented by Tony Carbajal Set for Saturday, May 19 at NJMP . Rally America's U.S. Rallycross Series is coming back with a slew of new and returning rallycross talent for the first event of the 2012 U.S. Rallycross Series at New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP), in Millville, NJ, on May 19th. Media applications can be found at http://rally-america. com/credentials.php and should be faxed to 802-879-8121 or emailed to media@rally-america.com. A .jpg headshot must be included with each application and it is recommended that all media review Rally America's guidelines at http://www.rally-america.com/pdf/2012%20 Media%20Guidelines_National.pdf. Media applications must be received by Tuesday, May 15th. At the event, media will have access to a media room. Rally America is proud to see nine returning drivers ~~o competed at Rally America's first rallycross events at New Jersey Motorsports Park in 2010. Highlighting the list is Art Gruszka, X Games athlete and perennial Rally America National Championship competitor. Gruszka was a top 4WD Class competitor in the original 2010 rallycross events ;md is a top favorite for the upcoming rallycross rounds. Gruszka is joined by Josh Wimpey, 2WD Class winner from the very first U.S. Rallycross Series event in 2010. He returns to take on an even larger 2WD field with the entrance of eight new rallycross teams challenging the 2WD category. The entire entry list can be found at: http://rally-america.com/ events/2012/NJMPRC 1/ entries/ DAVID HIGGINS WINS FOURTH OREGON TRAIL RALLY - David Higgins holds the most Oregon Trail Rally wins in the event's history. Subaru Rally Team USA's David Higgins and Craig Drew won 12 stages out of 16 to win his fourth Oregon Trail Rally. Higgins never trailed in the rally even when he shot off the road at high speed and bent his rear control arms. The team managed to finish the stage and hobbled to the service for repairs. "I thought I was done for when I went off," said Higgins, "But my team got me back on the road. I couldn't have done it without them. I 'm so proud to win four Oregon Trail Rallies. I'm getting up there with Ken Block in wins at single events!" said Higgins. Notably, Higgins' closest rival, the Rockstar Energy Drink Rally Team's Antoine I:Estage and Nathalie Richard, needed to bounce back from a DNF suffered at the second round of the Rally American National Championship. At the Oregon Trail Rally the team dogged Higgins until a few turns into stage 7 the car stopped. They were unable to continue and a second DNF severely complicated their chances for another Rally America title. The overall podium and class podiums were graced by many new Rally America drivers and teams. Canadian Rally Championship regular, Leonid Urlichlich with Carl Williamson drove their 2007 Subaru ST! to second place overall for his first American podium finish 4:25.9 minutes behind Higgins. 2011 Rally America Rookie of the Year Adam Yeoman with co-driver Jordan Shulze proudly stepped up to the overall podium by finishing third for the first time in his Rally America career. He finished 10:20.2 minutes behind Higgins. The Super Production (SP) Class was won by Belgium Group N Champ, David Sterckx with co-driver Karen Jankowski for their first SP podium in just three U.S. events. Sterckx edged local Hood River driver, Dave Henderson with Terrence McDowell, by 30.9 seconds. This was Henderson's first 2nd place podium in his SP Class car. Page7

Page 8

~~~ GENERAL TIRE MINT 400 Robby Gordon Wins overall Photos: Trackside Photo Steve Sourapas and Rob MacCachren drove their Ford Pickup to a first place finish in Class 1400 and they were second overall as well. Robby Gordon drove the Geiser to the win in the Class 1500 contest and, by the by, he was the overall winner in the Mint 400 race as well. an edict that no overnight park-ing would be allowed at the start/ finish/main pit area, most of the teams had overnighted elsewhere, and had to come to the start/finish area on race morning. They started to arrive between 3:30 and 4 a.m., and by ab_out 4:30 there was a solid line of trucks and trailers and frantic racers, stretching clear back out to the highway. There was only one road in (the other was closed to all but the water-truck and BITD officials). As Casey Folks started flagging off the early starters, there were still many gaps in the lineup. It must have been a nightmare for the timing folk. The starts were two-at-a-time, but in many instances Robby Gordon drove his Geiser built Class 1500 car to the overall win at the BITD produced Mint 400. While there were a lot of simi-larities between the Mints of old and this resurrected one, its format was entirely different. The pow-ers that be (the BLM) had limited the entry to just 300 vehicles, but even at that, there would not be room for all of them at once on the 92 mile-long course just north of Jean, Nevada. Therefore, the BITD had to resort to separating the classes more or less by size and speed. Split into two "heats", the groups would each have a safer day. In the first group they put all the Sportsmen, the UTVs and the limited classes. They ran either two or three laps. In the second "heat", there were eight classes, including the Trick Trucks and Unlimited Open Wheel cars, and they all ran four laps. The first group started at six a.m., and the second one was flagged off at 11:30 and the finish line closed at midnight. The pre-race festivities were an approximation of those for the old Mint 400 events, with tech and contingency on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas. Many of the secondary functions, like registration and handing out pit passes and press passes were done downtown also, and meet and greet events as well as the drivers' meeting, were held at the Golden used to be, then southward, past the second car was missing. Then it Nugget. Jean and down to Roach Dry Lake. might show up a few minutes later, A big difference was the Time In an attempt to get as many miles and Folks would let it slip in to the Trials, which, held on Thursday, as possible into such a small area, lineup wherever it happened to be, involved classes 1400, 1500 and the course was laid out with a lot and wave it on. 1100. The results of the Trials deter-of switchbacks. It ran cl0se to itself There were eight classes in that mined· the start order of the event, in many areas, doubling back and first group, and a total of 7 5 cars. In and Rob MacCachren, in the Steve then paralleling and meeting up the Sportsman class, which did two Sourapas Trick Truck was the tor, with itself at a couple of spots. No laps, the winner was the team of of the heap there. In past, historical pre-running was allowed. Specta- Eric Trondel, who drove all the way Mint events, the start order was de-tors were not allowed to choose in his Playtech. It's a four-seater, so termined by the "luck of the draw" their viewing site. But five separate he had plenty of company. Vinnie - originally all classes were mixed in "spectator areas" were set up, where Pires navigated, while Veronica together, but toward the end of its folks could watch the action. No Schwartz and Galina Maffei rode run the classes were segregated, and overnight camping was allowed in along. Shawn Schawacher, who start positions within the classes those areas, and no play motor- sat in back said that his job was to were drawn. cycles, Quads, UTVs or bicycles "cheer the driver on or to change Another big difference, of were allowed. There were also no flat tires, leaving the driver still in course, was the location. Early, support teams allowed in those the car." Their time was 4:00:53. early Mints took place at the hotel's areas. They filled up early and were In ·second it was Lalo Laguna Gun Club, north of Las Vegas. closed by the BLM so no more spec-and Gatza Lopez in one of Clyde Then there were a few that started tators could join in, and they didn't Stacy's fleet of cars. They were pre-and finished in the Sloan/Good-re-open until about five o'clock in running for their later event, and springs area, across the freeway the afternoon. It wasn't easy to be a said the course was "Half and half from Jean. Those ran through spectator. Unless one arrived really - really fast and really, really rough." Sandy Valley and up into the hills early, it meant parking a fair dis- They finished in 4:26:35. to the west of the 15 freeway. Then, tance from the actual spectator spot The third place finisher was during the SCORE/HDRA era, and hiking in with folding chairs, Jacob LeCompte and Vince Gale-the races started and finished in the ice chests and kids. (The BLM wick and Vince Galewick Jr, in area where the Las Vegas Speedway should probably consider including a DuneBuggy. Their time was is now. They went north and in- a "Senior Citizen Spectator area" 4:29:39. eluded the infamous "rock garden" at future events, and have someone In fourth it was brothers Rich and crossed the freeway to the east with a side-by-side to transport the and Andy Langren and Ben Shaw to include bits of the Red Rock elderly and lefs than agile fans to in a 15-year-old car with 20-year-Canyon area and some additional the viewing site.) old tires on it. They came from silt beds. This year's Mint was all Entries who'd be racing in the Colorado, where they're active on the east side of the 15 Freeway. first event were staged at 5 a.m. in Colorado Off Road Extreme The territory involved included for a six a.m. start. Or they tried (CORE). They said they had "no the neighborhood of where Sloan to stage. Because there had been problems, no flats, and the best -------------------------,.------------------------, time of our lives." Comparing this course to what they race on in Colorado, they said, "The terrain here is much rockier -we don't have rocks-don't have sand back there." Their time was 4:42:09.ln fifth it was Robby Gordon, who did the first lap, and Justin Matney, who did lap two. This was the first time Matney drove since his doctor side-lined him because of a bad back. He said he had "no pain right now" at the finish. Rudy Iribe, another of their team drivers, did the navigat-ing in the Alpha car. Their time was 5:12:20. Sixth place went to Matthew Bassion and Tom McKay in a red VW Thing that dates back to the mid-'70s. They said that the Thing had raced in a couple of the early Mint 400 races and after that had gone through "a couple of owners", and then it had run in the Mint again. In the late '80s it was once more prepped to race in a Mint, but they weren't real certain of all the history of the car: They did say that "Grandfathers were involved." This was Bassion's first ever race on four wheels. He had a very long., second lap, and became the final finisher in the class in 6:29:44. In Class 3700 the winning team was Darren Skilton and Barrie Thompson in a 20-year-old Jeep that Skilton's .dad, Clive, cam-paigned, along with Curt LeDuc. Thompson's son, Kevin, navigated here. They said that the course is "standard Nevada - dusty and a lot of hidden rocks." Thompson want-ed to go on record with "Special thanks to Darren for leaving me a wet seat." Their time was 4: 11:53. In second it was Bob Mamer, with navigator K. J Wycoff. They said they'd had a "lot of fun" pass-ing and being repassed by Skilton's car. They had to replace a drive-shaft, and finished in 4:26:49. Third place went to Brandon Berge and Joe Reyes, who navigat-ed. Berge did all the driving in the jeep Grand Cherokee. They lost their radio and intercom halfway through the race and had to resort to hand signals. They said, 'We Harley l etner drove his Custom built car to a second place finish in the Chip Prescott drove his Alumicraft car to a second place finish in the Jason Rodriguez didn't have too bad a race, he took second place honors c rass 1 contest at the Mint, seen here at speed on the course. Class 10 conflict, seen here just airborne on his way to the checkers. in the Class 7200 fracas, he's seen here at high speed headin' for home. Pages May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 9

Al Hogan drove his Ford to the Mini Trick Truck Class win at the Mint Race, Al is seen here just getting airborne for the thousandth time. adapted." Their time was 5:02: 15. front shocks and a rear driveline Fourth in this class was earned and broke their front axle. Their by Dan, Mikki, and Chase Simon- time was 6:39:47. son all from Washington, in an-Class 1700, the J eepSpeed other Jeep. Dan is the dad, Mikki group, went to Eric Helgeson, who is the mom, and Chase is their 16 drove all the way in his Jeep. Rob year old son. They changed two Renken navigated. They had one It was a good day for Troy Vest, he took the gold medal in the Pro Truck category, he's seen here in his Chevrolet at high speed. flat. On the first lap they drove at "dust and traffic" and said, "In about 80% because they said the these little things it's tough." His course was very dusty. They "drove time was 4:55: 15.Todd Jackson was smart." Their time was 4:34:43. third with teammates Mike Barnett In second it was Michael Vernak and Michael Slater. They looked who drove all the way and had "no pretty good on their first lap, but problems". But he did mention lost about forty minutes on lap two, and finished in the time of 5:45:23. In fourth it was Eric Heiden, Joshua Reiter and Erik Bauhofer. They also had a long second lap, probably involving lapped traffic and more dust, and finished in 5:52:48. The fifth place team was Tom Richardson, Cliff Seubert, Rob Seubert and Randy Peterson, all from Oregon. This group lost about a half-hour on their first lap, and finished less than a minute behind fourth place, in 5:53: 18. Brendan King and John Bran-nan teamed for a sixth place finish, running two fairly evenly paced laps and crossing the line in 6: 16:27. Seventh went to Bruno Zvirzin, Todd Coomes and Kris Farrin who were fourth at the end of the first lap, but lost about an hour and 15 minutes with some problem, which dropped them back. Their time was 6:22:58. In eighth place it was Calvin and Ashley Booth who said they'd Continued on page 10 ="',.,.,..,..., ....... The Weyhrich brothers, Marie and Gary, took third place honors in Ann and Jim Anderson took the silver medal in the Class 5 battle at the It was a second place finish in the Baja Pro Truck Class for Larry Trim, the Trick Truck contest, they're seen here just at landing in their good Mint 400, they're seen hereat speed heading towards the checkered flag. he's seen here racing across the tundra in his Ford pickup. _lo_ok_in_,,g'-Fi_o_rd_. ________________ _ Dusty Times 2,160 Rooms And Suites 60 Table· Games 2,600 Slot Machines 22-Table Poker Room Race & Sports Book ·640-Seat Bingo Room 16 Movie Theaters May 2012 9 Restaurants 75,000 Sq. Ft; Of Meeting Space 4,600 Seat Equestrian & Event Center 80,000 Sq. Ft. Exhibit Hall Spa & Fitness Center Showroom 64-Lane Bowling Center Page 9

Page 10

Dave Westhem piloted his really good looking Chevrolet pickup to the Class 8 win at the Mint race, he's seen here just at one of many takeoffs. been "up to fourth", but then hit a half-hour on the first lap, and a rock and cracked the differential finished in 6:01:16. Tough course and had it welded. That cost 25 for that class. minutes. They also had a flat on There was also just one Class the second lap, which added ten 9000 entered. The team of Derek minutes to their down time. and Gary Dixon and Devyn Perong The ninth place JeepSpeed team earned a finish, completing their was John Colbert and Mike Shet- required two laps in 5: 14:05. ler. Colbert finished and Shetler In the UTVP class there were started. He broke a track bar while 20 entries, and they ran just two close to the main pit, so he had it laps. The winning team of Jason welded by Benny Pena, and it held and Derek Murray, William Ku-to the finish. They also had rear gel and David Martinez, was in a shock problems. Can Am Dragonfire with a Rotax Frank Leyendecker and Theo- motor. They said they'd had no dore Rispens were tenth, recovering problems, but took it easy on the from a very long and no doubt seri- last lap because they knew they ously troubled first lap. Their time had a good lead. Their time was was 6:51:04. 4:38:58. In 11th it was the team of Rick In second place it was one of and Cory Randall and Peter Lee. the pioneers of the class, Cory Sap-They had a very long second lap, pington, who drove the first lap in and finished in 7:00:34. their Can-Am and Jim Sharp who The 12th place finisher was drove lap two while Sappington · the 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee navigated. This was Sharp's first of George Mortis, who did all the race. Sappington said they'd had driving, and Tom Barnett who "no problems, a clean race." Thrir navigated. They said their car had time was 4:43:51. l; "overheating issues." Then said, The third side-by~ide was Jason "The fan went out." Their time was Fraser, who drove lap one, and 7: 16:25. They were the last to finish Mark Sundberg who did lap two in the class. - in their Polaris. They said "nothing Tom Bird drove the only 5-1600 went wrong - flawless." Their time (limited Baja Bug) car in the event, was 5:01:39. and got it to the finish line. We In fourth it was Justin Lambert missed him somehow, but see that and Justin Sheakley in a Kawasaki he had a problem that cost about in the time of 5:22:21. All together ---· The Class 5 win went to Cody Kellogg at the BITD Mint 400 race, Cody is seen here, throttle wide open, heading for the checkered flag. Tony Smiley took the class 10 honors with relative ease, he's seen here in his Tatum, heading for the elusive checkered flag with 11 minutes in hand. there were 12 finishers in the class, came off their alternator on the but due to the configuration of this second lap, so they fixed it at Pit 2. event, with the second race starting Chris Godfrey navigated laps one as this one finished, we were un- and two and Jake De Will navigated able to be at the finish to interview the third lap. They had no flat tires, everyone. and their time was 5:33:57. Also racing in the early morning Rick Poole and Mike Malloy event, were the Class 1100 cars, the were fourth in a Jimco. Poole had limited open-wheel buggies. They no problems, but Malloy missed a were required to complete three tom and got onto the course going laps. There were 11 of them. And at the wrong way, and got a 30 minute the end of their race, the winning penalty. Their time was 5:42:06. team was Mike Williams and Blaise In fifth it was the team of Ryan Jackson in their ME.CO. Williams Plowman and Jeffrey Stafford in a said, "I raced this race (the Mint) Kreger. They lost about 28 minutes back in 1989 and got a trophy from on the first lap with some difficulty, it." That was the same year that and lost more time on lap three, to his partner in this race, Jackson, finish in 6:13:46. started racing. He said they'd had Michael Decker, J. J. Schnarr "no major problems" - just one flat and Kevin McKinley were sixth as he got to the main pit. He de- in their Kreger. They ran a steady scribed the course as "a lot of fun." pace, just a bit slower each lap as Their winning time was 5:17:32. the course got rougher, and fin-In second place it was Bryan ished in 6: 15:20. Folks and Rick Graf in a Ford in seventh it was Richard Madi-powered Banning. Folks did laps son in a Lothringer. He had a good one and two and Graf finished. He first lap, but lost 20 minutes or so said that at Parker he'd broken the on lap two, and with a better third front end off this car, but it stayed lap, finished in 6: 16:35. together this time. He went on to The last finisher, in eighth say that there were "a lot of broken place, was Joey Ritorto, who did all cars on the course." And, he added, the driving in his 25-year-old Che-he was "glad to see Casey get this nowth. At Mile 9 he had a relay on event." Their time was 5:30:59. the fuel pump come loose and that Third place went to Lee Ban- cost about 15 minutes. He had no ning, Sr., who drove lap one, and other problems, but there was "lots Lee, Jr., who did the rest. A wire of traffic." His car has a Ford motor Blaise Jackson took the Class 1100 top honor at the Mint race, he drove his Custom Car to the win in five hours and change, seen here at speed. and this was his first race with it and he said he "loves it." His time was 7:01:20. Class 6000 had 16 entries, and they all made it through the first lap. After they'd done three laps die winning Trophylite team was Steve and Joe Hengeveld. Their first lap was the fast lap for the class, at 1:49:37 and set the pace for a good finish. Laps two and three were just a bit slower, and they took the win with a time of 5:45:44, a full 15 minutes in front of the sec-ond place truck. In second it was Troy Mess-er, Rodney Honberger and Sean Geiser. They put together three very consistent lap times, to earn that second place. Third was earned by Brandon Hollander, Austin Farner, Joe Moore and Devin Housh, a Cali-fornia team. Theirs was another very consistent effort, their best lap being their first, and they were just six minute behind second, in third place. In fourth it was second gen-eration racers Christian and Brett Sourapas and their dad, Steve, and his co-driver, Rob MacCachren. MacCachren drove the first lap as a way to get a look at the race course before heading out in the afternoon in the Trophy Truck. The Sourapas boys finished the day, with evenly paced times a few minutes faster than MacCachren's time. They finished in 6:14:55. in fifth place it was Chris Wack-er, Pete Lopez and Bret Young who ran three good laps, and finished less than a minute behind fourth place, in 6: 15:33. Sixth place was earned by Bruce Finchum, who developed the stom-ach flu and had to get out of his truck early, leaving Randy Blacker to do laps two and three. Their time was 6:17:28. In seventh it was Gary Messer, who had a long second lap and en~-ed the day with a time of 6:32,,:35. Eighth place went to Fawn Fin-chum, Bruce's wife. They were cel-ebrating their 28th anniversary on race day. Fawn and her team: Ryan Finchum, Carlo Caya, and Randy Blacker finished in 7:29:35. Ninth place was earned by Mi-chael WEst, J. T. Thomas and Tra-vis Leach. Their day went downhill, with a long second lap and even longer third lap, giving them a last place finish of 9:54:30. In Class 3000 there were nine entries, but only two managed to finish. First place in this two-seat, Eco-Tech powered, short wheel base, open wheel class, was the team of Keith Waibel, Jeff Vetter and Tim Krauss. They ran three very steady laps and were at the finish in 5:52:32. Second in the class was the team of John Gould, Wayne Gould, Stacia Greiner and Tony Nguyen. They had a slim lead on the first lap, but then lost about 23 minutes Justin Loftin drove his Jimco to a third place finish in the Class 1 contest, Macrae Glass was the silver medal winner in the Class 8 contest at the Mike Szlauko took the bronze medal in the Class 8 contest at the Mint he's seen here at high speed on the course heading for the finish. Mint 400 race, he's seen here just at liftoff in his Ford pickup. 400, he's seen here slightly airborne in his Chevrolet pickup. Page 10 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 11

on lap two. Ultimately, their time was 6: 15:25, and no one else in the class finished. Class 2000 was part of the early morning group also, with 12 en-tries. In first place after three laps it was Bob and Bryan Mathews who ran three laps each within 24 seconds of the others. Rarely does a team have such steady, consistent lap times. They must have stopped for nothing -and took the win with a ten minute cushion on second place. Their time was 5:52:49. The second place team was By-ron Ziegler, Greg Boyer and Travis Sullivan, in a Lothringer. They ran a steady pace also, but their times lengthened just a bit on laps two and three. Their total time was 6:02:12. In third it was brothers Ross and Ryan Mattox in an Alumicraft. Ross started and Ryan finished.-Ryan broke a torsion bar 30 miles from the finish line. They'd actu-ally been first at the end of the first lap, but only by 22 seconds. Their broken torsion bar cost them about 18 minutes. Their total time was 6:18:15. This class had some really close racing going on. Aaron Hawley, in a Seagrove, thought that it was so dusty that it was "dangerous out there - scary." But then he had the fastest second lap time and things were looking up. Then he hit a rock and broke a wheel, fixed it and got going again, and the alternator light was on. He also· threw two belts. He was fourth, with a time of 6: 18:40, only 25 seconds behind third place. In fifth it was Jason Markham and Jake Wreesman in a Lothring-er. They had a longish first lap, but then got faster each lap after that, to finish their three laps with a time of 6:2,0:36, only a couple of minutes behind Hawley. And less than a minute later it was Hank Winter and Jeff Hueb-ner, Bunderson, in sixth. They got fa;th each lap also, and on the third lap had the second faster time for die cli15s. They finished 43 sec-onds behind'fifrh place. Seventh place went to Darryl Covey, Eric Deen, Erin Flaherty and Kristin Flaherty in an Alu-micraft. Deen started with sister Christin Flaherty navigating. They set up and recorded the OPS which had not been loaded with the course coordinates for some rea-son. Darryl Covey drove laps two and three, and rolled the car on lap three at Mile 58. Another con-testant, with a broken race truck, helped him get back on his wheels. They also had a flat. Their time was 6:30:15. In eighth it was Jim and James Goff and Mark Gera in a Lothring-er. They ran fifth for two laps, and then had a long third lap that dropped them to eighth, finishing in 6:39:05. Steve Hengeveld was the Class 6000 winner at the Mint race, he's seen here on his way to the gold medal in his Trophylite at high speed. The final finisher in the class was the team of Zach and Christy Sizelove, who shared the driving in their Sizeco, while Jim Sizelove nav-igated all the way. Zach had a flat. Their time was 7:05:41, and they were the final finishers in the class. The Rock Racers ran in this group also, with just four entries. They're getting the hang of things, and all four of them got to the finish line. In first place it was the team of Nick Nelson, Brett Vogel and Travis Carpenter in a Chevy powered vehicle. They ran a steady pace in front all the way, and fin-ished in 6:00:40. Second place went to Dave Cole, T. J. Flores, Brandon Naves and Ben Napier. At the finish line they said the motor was gone and they couldn't shut if off or it would never start again. Their OPS "never worked", they be~t a rear rotor and on "lap two the throttle was stuck on fast." Their time was 7:00:12.The third place in this class was earned by Billy Bunch and Tarek Karam, in a Jeep. They had a fairly steady run, getting a little faster with each lap, and finished in 7:09:55. In fourth, giving the class a 100% finish rate, it was Matt Mess-er, who drove the entire distance in his Kirby. He said he had "fuel is-sues" and also had to weld the axle housing, but had no flat tires. His time was 7:31:02. Blake and Terry Henn finished first in Class 7100, which had a total entry of eight. Terry, who's the father in this team, started and did the first lap, then Blake got in to do laps two and three in their Ford. They had a clean run with no problems, not even flat tires. Their time was 6:38:17. In second place it was the team of Martin Henderson and Dennis Boyle (more often found in a Class 1500 cat). Boyle did all the driving and Henderson navigated. He's the truck owner. They had two flat tires and lost third gear. Boyle said the "speeds aren't as dangerous" (in this class VS 1500). It was a "good day" for them, and the first finish in a major race for the truck. Their time was 6:44:52. In third it was Ryan Hagy, who drove laps one and three, and Vince DiMaio who drove the middle lap, in. their Ford. They said their first lap was "good - dusty", 'but on lap two they blew a radiator hose and bent a drive shaft. They then overheated during lap three, and had to add water. They finished in 7:35:42. Fourth place went to Javier Avila, Matt Thomas, Ruben Garcia and Cameron Carlson in a Chevy. Bob Mathews took top honors in the 1/2-1600 fracas, Bob had 10 minutes on his competition when he took the checkers, here at high speed. In the Class 3000 conflict it was Keith Waibel taking the gold medal, Keith had just under an hour lead on his competition at the checkers. They had a long first lap, obviously dealing with some difficulty, then lap two got better, but things went downhill on the third lap and they lost another half hour or so, and must have spent part of that time dodging the lead Trick Trucks, because they were still out on the course for quite a while after the second heat started. Their total time was 8:25:36 and no one else in the class finished. fo Class 5500, which is VORE rental trucks, there were five en-tries, and three of them finished. In first place it was Greg,the dad, and his sons Davis and Jensen Warnock. This was the first race for all of them. The body, which is fiberglass, lost its front end, so they looked pretty sad at the finish, but were actually in fairly good shape. They did three steady laps, and finished in 6:58: 11, and have now decided they want their own truck.,In second place it was Travanon Ash who drove all the way in his rental. At one point he slid sideways on the course and ~bt t-boned before he could get out of the way. The side of the car was all caved in. He had three fairly consistent laps also, and fin-ished in 7:28:43. Third place went to David Ecker and Scott Kuhne, from New Jersey and Minnesota. (There must have been some culture shock in that vehicle.) Their third lap was pretty long, as if they had a big problem, but they got to the finish line, with a time of 8:37:41. None of the oth-ers made it. In Class 8100 there were three entries and two finishers. At the end of his three laps Tim Casey, Ford, had the win, and he did all the driving. He said he'd been stuck for 40 minutes at Mile 10, on an embankment that Casey Folks had built -apparently to keep racers from heading out into the desert, He'd been unable to see it in the dust. He then had to chase down his competitors, and didn't catch David Winner and John Webster until the last lap. Casey said it was 28 years ago that he earned his first win - in a Mint 400. Of this race he said, "It's not the same Mint -but it was a good race, and challenging." His time was 7:06:32. The David Winner Ford, with Chris Amrein driving lap 1 and Steve Erdelyi doing two and three, finished second. They had a couple of problems, which included need-ing to change a driveshaft in a pit, and also having a flat tire replaced in a pit. Then they finished on a low front tire. Their time was 7:41:43. No one else in the class finished. Continued on page 12 The Class 4400 win went to Nick Nelson, Nick drove his Chevrolet powered vehicle to the win in six hours flat, he's seen here with the power on. Philip Heynen was the third place finisher in the Class 10 battle at the David Caspino drove his Ford Custom to a third place finish in the Mini- Wendell Mortensen had a decent race, he took third place honors in Mint race, he's seen here just after liftoff on his way home. Trick Truck contest, he's seen here at speed on his way to the checkers. the Unlimited Baja Bug Class, he's seen here just at liftoff in his vehicle. Dusty Times May 2012 Page 11

Page 12

The Class 7S winner was Blake Henn, he beat out his competition by six minutes, Blake is seen here at high speed on the course on his way home. Seventy five vehicles started the first heat, and 41 of them managed to finish. The start of the second heat was a bit more orderly, but there had been a traffic jam of arriving' teams for this group also. Staging turned into a kind of free-for-all, but since most everyone knew where he was supposed to start, it sorted itself out fairly well. The big problem came when these vehicles left the start line, got to the first left turn, and found the silt really deep and the ruts square edged. The cars started two-at-a-time, side-by-side, as they'd done in the morning. The two-lane section of the course went straight from the start-line arch for about 100 yards, then made a sweeping left turn, doubling back on itself, before making a. right-hand turn, as it narrowed into one lane. It was silty and had developed deep ruts. It was not easy to plow through it. And, of course, the Trick Trucks were first off the line and dug the ruts ever deeper and deeper. And then the Class 1500s started before the Class 10s, and 7200s and 8000s and Baja Bugs. The area in front of the arch must have looked like the Grand Canyon to some of the racers. In spite of their best efforts, some of the drivers got stuck and/ or tipped over right there in front of the start line. It was entertaining to the big crowd of spectators lining the track, but must have been frus-trating as hell for the racers to be all full of piss and vinegar, and parked on their side right in front of the arch. BITD had a couple of vehicles with tow straps parked there to help yank the racers out, but often the racers had to unbuckle and climb out and get things moving on their own. As this second bunch took off. into the dirt, many of the first group were still floundering around out there. The radio was full of calls for help. It was fairly entertaining all by itself. "We're out of the race - waiting to be picked up." "Stuck on the course near the beginning .. " " . . . needs help getting off the course." "Broken at Mile 75-needs tow." "Blown engine out on the course." "Down and out at Pit 1." "Any luck locating vehicle number 75?" "7249 is high-centered ... will try to pull him out." "7250 on his side at Mile 56 -no man's land" . . . "We're putting' it on the trailtr, we're done." It's not known how many trucks the BITQ had out there for rescuing stranded racers, but it was clearly a whole fleet. And there were BLM Rangers prowling around also, helping when they could, giving directions for the best way in and out of some areas, and locating wandering racers Tim Casey drove the always beautiful la Paz Cocktail Mixes Ford pfckup to the Class 8100 gold medal, he's s~en here at high speed on the course. Greg Warnock drove to the win in the Class 5500 action, Greg is seen here at high speed on his way to the ever coveted checkered flag. occasionally. There were 26 Trick Trucks and they all made it through the first lap, though one of them needed four hours to get it done. Rob Mac-Cachren, in the Steve Sourapas Ford, had the lead at the end of the lap, with Cameron Steele in second place in his GMC. Adam House-holder ran third in a Ford. On the second lap MacCachren stayed in front, Householder moved into second, with Gary Weyhrich in third in his Ford. O~ly six minutes separated first and third. Steele dropped to 18th, and five trucks had fallen out. On lap three it was still the Sourapas truck in front, now with Sourapas at the wheel. Weyhrich was up to second, House-holder third and Juan Carlos Lopez ran fourth. Another three trucks had dropped out. Sourapas and MacCachren were still at the top of the heap at the end of the fourth lap, taking the win. Householder moved back into the lead pack to finish second, Weyhrich was third and lo{!>ez finished fourth. Three more had dropped out, so that only 15 trucks got to the finish. MacCachren reported that he'd had a "flawless" day, while Sourapas had a flat on the third lap. MacCachren had driven a lap in the morning race, to get a look at the track. Sourapas, who'd driven two laps in the morning in his sons' Trophylite, said he was "Whipped." He also said that the last lap was "rough." Sourapas and Rob Mac finished their four laps in the time of6:08:59. · In second place it was Adam Householder in his Ford. Adam drove all the way. He said that 20 miles before Pit 2 he'd broken a brake line, so he had to stop at the pit to have it fixed. That took about 16 minutes. He said he'd driven a pre-run lap in the early morn-ing heat, so he'd know something about the course. Of the race, · he said, "It was fun." His time was 6:08:59. . Third in the Trick Trucks was Gary Weyhrich in his Ford. He drove all the way and reported two flat tires; one at Mile 20 on the third lap and one at Mile 83 on the last lap. He said they cost him a po-sition. Ryan Williams navigated for Weyhrich. Their time was 6:27: 17. In fourth it was Juan Carlos Lopez in Clyde Stacy's Ford. He said he'd had no flat tires, and "no problema." Lopez's time was 6:33:48. The fifth place finisher was Shawn Croll in a Ford. He said his day had been "fairly trouble free", and he'd started 55th. He'd had flat tires during qualifying, which explains why he started so Eric Trondle was the gold medal winner in the Class 1800 battle, Eric is seen here at high speed heading for the checkered flag and a really nice win. far toward the rear. Croll said that during the race he'd had to "pass so many cars." His time was 6:38:09. in sixth it was Josh Daniel in Cameron Steele's "old" GMC Si-erra. He drove all the way, and said he'd "never driven this many miles before." (It was 368 miles.) He reported that he'd been stuck "On one of Casey's berms." but had no flat tires. Alan. Hickerson navigated for him, and their time was 6:50: 17. The seventh place Trick Truck was the Marc Ewing Ford, with Rick Geiser helping. Ewing did laps one and two and Geiser drove to the finish. Ewing had "no issues" and Geiser had a flat on the fourth lap at Mile 60 or so. He said he lost three or four minutes with that. Their time was 6:50:44, only 27 seconds behind Daniel. Lloyd Sproule and Dale Don-del were eighth in Sproule' s Ford. Sproule started, Dondel finished. They had no problems, and com-pleted their four laps in 6:52: 14. Troy and Tim Herbst were ninth in their Ford. Tim did the first and second laps, Troy did the third and fourth. At the last Checkpoint the flagman ·told Troy to stop for some unknown reason, and when he did he sank down to his hubs. It took 15 or 20 minutes to get him moving again. No one ever knew why he was told to stop. Troy said it had been "A long day in the dust." Their time was 7: 10: 10. In tenth. it was Greg Nunley in his Geiser. He lost about a half-hour on the second lap and then · ran steadily to the finish. His time was 7:$2:23. The 11th place finisher was the Ford of Rich Voss and Craig Stew-art. It's a new truck for the team and they'd had only one day of test-ing, so they said "The truck doesn't work all that well yet." Voss started and Stewart did the last lap and a quarter. Their time was 7:42:39. In 12th it was Rick D. Johnson in his Ford. He said he'd tried,to pass another vehicle and "caught a crossways ditch" and rolled the truck, landing on his ,side. The TSCO truck stopped and pulled them back up onto their wheels. There wasn't too much damage, but he had to change a driveline. Later in the race he changed an-other driveline, and the converter was "eaten up." Then he said, he just "concentrated on getting to the finish." His time was 7:53:21. Ron Whitton finished 13th in his Geiser Ford. Whitton drove the first three laps and changed a power steering pump during his stint. Then Charles Dana got in for the final lap. Dana had driven a Trophylite relier in the day, but this was his first time in a Trick Truck., He had to add oil, but had no other problems, and they finished in 9:02:25. Steve Olliges and John and Jonathan Swift were 14th in their John Lennon had the dubious honor of finishing third in the Pro Truck Bryan Folks drove his Ford powered vehicle to a second place finish in Byron Ziegler drove his.Lothringer to a second place finish in the Class Class and he was the last officialfinisher in the race in his Ford truck. the Class 1100 fracas, he was 13 minutes in arrears at the checkers. 1/2-1600 battle, he's seen here at high speed headin' for home. Page 12 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 13

Not too bad a day for John Gould, he took the silver medal in the Class Travanon Ash drove his Ford truck to a second place finish in the Class It was a second place finish in Class 8100 for David Winner at the Mint 3000 action, he's seen here just at liftoff in his Custom buggy. 5500 action, he's seen here at high speed on his way to the checkers. 400 race, he's seen here in his Ford Pickup on his way to the checkers. Ford. on the third lap they'd been wants to get by. Gordon had to one for 30 miles." His race went each on lap one and lap two, but got a spare and used up 30 minutes eighth, but Lap 4 was their undo- catch and pass a goodly number of fairly smoothly, but on the last lap then the back end of the transmis- for repairs. After that he had wheel ing, because it lasted 4 hours and slower vehicles left over from the the car started popping out of third sion came loose, and by the time trouble, and finished in 7:41:53. 20 minutes. Their total time was first heat, and many of them, intent gear. His time was 6:36:34. he'd fixed it the starter wouldn't The 12th place finisher was Boe 9:19:45. on their drive, were slow to realize In fourth it was Pat Dean and work. It cost him about 45 minutes Bland in a DuneBuggy.com car. Ryan Poelman, who drove his that a much faster vehicle was be-Danny Anderson in a Bunderson. all together. His time was 7:21:57, He said he'd had a good day, with Geiser all the way, said he'd had hind them and needing to get past. Dean did laps one and two and An-Ninth place went to Greg Foster just "one flat, and we had to have a four flats and his hydraulic jack His navigator said, "There was a lot derson finished. Neither one had and Doug Fortin in a Racer. Foster new alternator." It was his first race somehow got bent and stuck ex-of passing today." Gordon, along any problems, but, said Anderson, starteq, Fortin finished. They lost in a buggy. He's been racing bikes tended. Not sure what that implies with Steve Sourapas, thought that "It got rough-square edged." Their about 40 minutes on the first lap and UTVs, and says he discovered exactly-butafterbeingsixthonlap the last lap was rough -Gordon's timewas6:42:08. with.a flat and some other prob- there's a "huge difference." And one, he dropped steadily as his race comment was "It hurts." Gordon's Fifth place went to Mike Chil- lem, then had a good second lap. he's not going back to bikes and degenerated, and his last lap was four-lap time was 6:05:54. dress in a Porter. He said he'd On the third lap they had to pump UTVs. He also said he " .. loved 4 hours and 34 minutes long. His In second place it was Harley tossed an alternator belt and then the brakes, and on the fourth lap the course - it's fun - liked the vari-total time was 9:53:38 and he was Letner who drove all the way in the battery was dead and he'd had they had no brakes, and the motor ety." His time was 8:03:07. the final Trick Truck finisher. his Tatum. He'd planned to drive to get a jump from a BITD official. was cutting out the last 20 miles Lucky thirteenth was Vince The biggest group at this race the Alpha, and had spent three It was, said Childress, "The rough-or so. Fortin says he hasn't raced Galewick in a DuneBuggy.com. His was Class 1500, unlimited open- days working on it, but when it est course I ever ran on in my life. desert since 2007 {he's been racing teammates were Jacob LeCompte, wheel cars, which had 36 starters. developed a motor problem he It was brutal- if we never had to pit, short course very successfully), and Ron Gibbs, and Kelly Kraiss. Some-They all managed to get the first lap went to the shop and "put the we could win." His total time was of this event he said, "This is a nas-how we missed them at the finish done, and at the front of the pack Tatum together." He had a smooth 6:45:41.Jake Johnson was sixth in ty course," Their time was 7:25:03. line. They ran a steady pace, losing it was Robby Gordon in the same day, with four consistent lap times, a Porter. He drove all the way with Tenth place was earned by Louis a few extra minutes on the last lap Geiser built car _that he's driven to gaining positions each lap. Letner Willie Clark navigating. They said Chamberland and Shelby Reid. and finished in 8:10:31. the overall win at the Parker 425. particularly thanked his grandfa- they'd had one problem at Pit 1 Chamberland did the first two laps The fourteenth finisher was Dale Dondel was second behind ther, Danny Letner and Henry, on the last lap. An alternator cable and Reid finished. They had no Scott Schovajsa in an E. S. Motors-him in a Racer, and in third it was long time supporter and Letner burnt up and "We lost all power." flats, but lost an alternator at dusk. ports chassis. He hasn't been racing Jake Johnson in a Porter. team member. His total time was The pit crew fixed it, but it dropped They ran a ways with no lights until for a while - said he had a "hurt Gordon stayed in front of the 6:33:34. them back from third to sixth. they got their new alternator, and back", but it's well now. He had pack, Dondel hung on for a couple In third behind him was yet Their time was 6:46:55". that cost them 20 or 30 minutes. two flats and a broken power steer-of laps, and then dropped out, and another second generation racer, Chuck Hovey was seventh, driv- They said the "WhooP.s" were re-ing line that cost 45 minutes to an some familiar names moved gradu- Justin Lofton, in a Jimco. Lofton ing all the way in his Jimco. He lost ally deep. Their car is a Reid with a hour. His son Tyler drove the third ally upward. The Time Trials had said he had "messed up in qualify- a limit strap and his shifter broke. '/kind of a hybrid LS7" in it. Their lap and enjoyed the experience. been, literally, a real trial for this ing" and had to start "too far back." But he's been having a dismal ..rime was 7:37:30. Their time was 8:17:55. event, and some people who usu-He'd had a flat in qualifying and string of non-finishes and said, "I In 11th it was Garrick Freitas in The 15th finisher was Jon Walk.-ally float to the top had not done decided to run on it, and the tire needed to start finishing again." a Jimco. He said it was "A rough er in his Kreger. He said "It was .well, and were struggling further fell apart, so that a~ a result he He added, "It was rough out there." day - a long, rough day." At the end epic. Might be as rough a race as back in the dust than usual. started 23rd in the lineup. There His time was 6:59:28. of lap one he lost his power steer- we've ever run." He said he'd had At the end of the fourth lap was a lot of traffic in front of him, In eighth it was Derrick Sproule ing pump and servo. So he stopped "four big flats, and the jack broke Gordon was still in front. He'd and the "most difficult part was all in a Racer. He did all the driving. at every pit for a while, then he one time, so he "stacked rocks." driven all f.our laps, and said he the mini trucks -I was stuck behind All together he had two flats, one stopped every ten miles, then he Centinuld ,n p11114 was "proud to be working with Clyde Stacy and his group." His only problem had come in the pits when a jack failed, and cost about three minutes. H said his goal had been to run the first two laps steadily, then pick it up on the third lap and "Do what I needed to win on lap four." He said it had been a flawless day. Gordon did think that a "push to pass" system similar to what's used in the Dakar events would be a good thing to have in these desert events. All vehicles have the equipment on board, and when the vehicle that wants to pass comes up and pushes a button, there is an alarm, either a bright light, or an audible noise of some sort, that lets the unaware driver know someone has caught up and Dallen Skilton was the big gold medal winner in the JeepSpeed contest, he is seen here running at high speed on his way to the finish line. In the Class 1700 battle it was Eric Helgeson taking the coveted gold medal, Eric is seen here at high speed on his way to the checkered flag. Brandon Hollander was the bronze medal winner in the Trophylite battle Lee Banning had a decent day, he took the bronze medal in the Class 1100 at the Mint 400, Brandon is seen here on his way to the ever coveted Ryan Mattox took third place honors in the Class 1/2-1600 fracas at the action, he's seen here racing his Ford powered buggy to~ in Class 1100. checkered flag. Mint, he's seen here at high speed headin' for the elusive checkered flag. Dusty Times May 2012 Page 13

Page 14

Noah Henderson took a second place finish in the Class 7100 action at Bill Bunch drove his Jeep to a third place finish in the Class 4400action, Ryan Hagy was third to finish in the Class 7100 battle, he's seen here the Mint, Noah is seen here in his Ford pickup heading for the finish line. Bill is seen here with his pedal to the metal on his way to the finish line. hustling his Ford pickup towards the sometimes elusive finish line. three laps and Shannon Powell was brutal." They reported tl\ey'd who started and Jason Ruane, who who did lap four, in their Jimco. Ja-lost two drivelines, had two flats, finished. Robert and Neal Mason cobs was hurting and they thought and got stuck and needed help get-did the navigating. They stripped he might have broken his hand ting out. Koeth drove one and two, the splines on a driveshaft at Mile on the steering wheel. Powell ran Trim did three.and four, and their 60 on the last lap. They had gone out of gas on his lap, and the folks time was 10:07:23. into ·the lap in the lead, and it cost in the #50 Trick Truck Oames The third place team was John them about an hour and a half. Horvath) brought some fuel out Lennon, Rob Martensen, Steve Their total time was 8:42:00. to them Said Powell, "Those guys Stroud and Mike Maresco in a In fourth it was Sean and Brett were awesome!" Then Powell did Ford. They ran second for the Backus, Ford. Sean drove laps one 50 miles with no power steering. first couple of laps, then lost and two and Brett Finished. A half Their time was 9:04:42. about 30 minutes, and again, mile before the finish Brett rolled In 20th it was Adam Bosch and on lap four, lost an hour ·or so, over onto his wheels into a ravine. Scott Fluharty who each drove two and fell to third with a time of He drove up out of the ravine laps in their MCM chassis. Jim 11:01:48. They were the very last and rolled again. Their time was Sparks and Steve Fluharty were the finisher of the event. 8:47:27. navigators. They said they'd had to In Class 7200 the Ford of Lalo The fifth place team was Adrian stop and grease the CVs, which cost Laguna was first to cross the finish Diaz, Sr., who drove all the way in them an hour, and they also had line, reporting only two flats and a his Ford, with Miguel Delarde, Jr. The Class 1900 winner at the Mint 400 race was Jason Murray, Jason is seen here flat tires. Their time was 9:43:26. leaky fuel regulator. Unfortunately, navigating all the way. They said at high speed on his way to the finish line, the end of a perfect race. Twenty first, and last in this the truck was DQ' d for "tampering they had one flat and three bent Otherwise, the car was perfect. His The 18th place team was Larry class, was the team of Carlos and with race vehicle while officially rims. Their time was 8:48:26. time was 8:23:49. Brown and Jason Beam. Brown Rudy Cortez. Carlos is the son, and impounded by BITD for Post Race In sixth it was Randy Merritt In 16th it was Richard Boyle, did one and two and Beam did Rudy, age 68, the dad. They shared Tech inspection." and Tracy Rubio, in a Ford. This is Tom Kirkmeyer, and Tommy three and four. They had one flat the driving in their Dunebuggy. Finishing second, but moving a brand new truck, finished just the Mathers, whom we missed at the and some power steering trouble. com car. They lost two pulleys, had up to take the win, was the team of day before the race, with zero test finish line. They lost a little time And Brown got tangled up with a one flat, lost a crank sensor and Al Hogan and Rob Reinertson in miles on it. Merritt drove the first on the first lap, and then again on couple of "wrecked cars." He said broke a rear limit strap. Their time their Ford. Hogan started, Reinert- three laps and Rubio did the last lap four, and finished with a time there was a Trick Truck on its side, was 9:49:35. son finished and said they'd had a one. Their time was 9:40:24. of 8:28:29. right next to a 7200 truck, also on The Protrucks had four entries, "good run." Their time was 7: 1:09. In seventh it was Barry Karakas, Justin Davis was 17th, with team its side, and before he realized it he and the Chevrolet of Troy Vest and There were 23 trucks in this who drove laps one and four in members Jordan Kundert ·and Troy was stuck in between them. Lu& Alan Levinson took the win. Vest class, and they ran four laps. Finish- his Toyota, and Kevin Davis, who Holes. Davis said "the day started ily, his problem lasted only about drove· lap one, two and four, and ing second it was Jason Rodriguez drove two and three. Travis Whit-off good and on lap three we were ten minutes, because another truck Levinson did lap three. They said in a Ford. He drove all the way, more navigated all the way. They pretty close (8th), then we broke a came along and pulled him out. they "got a good lead early, had awe-while Nick Townsend navigated said the engine oil was at 300 de-• rotor. We fixed that, then on lap That team really had to release him some pit stops", and no flats. Their all the way. They had one flat tire grees all day, so they couldn't push four broke an alternator wire off." from his jam, because otherwise the time was 7 :58:59. and a fuel pump failed just as they it. Their total time was 10: 18:59: That took an hour or so to fix on course was entirely blocked. In second place it was Larry came to the finish. Their time was Gavin Skilton was eighth in his course in the dark. His time was The nineteenth place finisher Trim and John Koeth in a Ford. 8:24:52. Honda Pilot. He did all the driving, 8:41:26. was Eric Jacobs, who did the first They said, "400 miles of hell - it Third went to Dave Caspino, and said, "l'dliketogetoutatsome In the Class 9000 battle it was Derek Dixon taking the coveted gold medal, Derek is seen here at high speed on his way to the checkered flag. lacrecia Beurrier took the gold medal in the Class 1900 action, lacrecia, she_ drove her Polaris hard and it paid off, seen here getti' down the trail. point today . . . " He had trouble with his power steering, his shifter, and the "rough Nevada desert." But he had no flats. His time was 10:24:18. In ninth it was Scott Zeppen-feldt, who drove laps one and two, and Larry Ingraham, who finished, in a Ford. They said they got stuck at Mile ten on the last lap, in the silt. They had three BITD trucks out there trying to help and they also got stuck. Once freed up they made it in in 10:35:10, the last to finish from this class. Class 1000 had 20 starters, and at the end of four laps the winner was Tony Smiley and Richard Ron-co, in an EcoTec Tatum. Ronco did laps one and two and Smiley finished. Ronco had a flat on the Clyde Stacy took home the silver medal for his drive in the Class 1800 A second place finish in Class 3700 went to Bob Mamer, bob is seen David Ecker was the third finisher in the Class 5500 contest, David is skirmish. Clyde is seen here with the hammer down, heading for the here in his Jeep on his way to the checkered flag, Bob was 15 minutes seen here pushing his Ford powered vehicle towards the checkered flag. checkers. _in_a_rre_ars_a_t _the_f!._ag~·----------------Page 14 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 15

Cory Sappington drove his Can-Am to a second place finish in the Clqss 1900 race, Cory is seen here with all the power on, heading for the checkered flag. Bobby Raber won the silver medal in the SR1 shootout at the Mint 400 Not too bad a day for Michael Vemak, Michael was 22 minutes in affears race, Bobby is seen here at very high speed in his Yamaha, he was 3 when he took the checkers, he's seen here while running hard and fast. minutes out of the win. second lap, and also lost fourth gear, which was then gone for the rest of the race. The GPS never worked, and the radio didn't either. This is only the third race on this car. Their time was 8:06:22. In second place it was Chip Prescott and his son, Taylor, who were both in the car all the way. It's an AlumiCraft EcoTec. They said, "It was so rough! Way rough! The last lap just beat us." This is Prescott's third race - "I've always wanted to do it." The car used to belong to John Cooley, founder of AlumiCraft. Their time was 8:17:53. The third place car was driven by Phil Heynen, who started, and Bruce Fraley, who finished. Heynen was stuck in silt for ten minutes, until some BITD folks pulled him out. Their time was 8:27: 16. In fourth place, only three sec-onds later, it was Daniel Folts and Cody Reid. A power steering line fell apart on the first lap, but they had no flats. They got hit, and Reid had a probls!m with_ night-vision. Their time was 8:27:19. In fifth it was Sean Dunn and Tim Scott in a DunnTech with an EcoJec Chevy. Sean Dunn navi-gated lap one, Bob Hill navigated laps two and three and Tim Scott qavigated lap four, but drove laps one and two, while Dunn drove laps three and four. Wwhew! They had one flat, lost two serpentines, drove twenty II).iles with no power steering or charging system, and finished in 8:44:39. The sixth place finisher was the team of Bill Young, Brandon Chrisman, Dan Martin and Zak Langley in a Racer. Young did lap one, Chrisman did lap two, Martin did lap three and Langley was the fourth driver. They were losing oil pressure, and had to weld on their shock towers. Their total time was 9:40:20. Seventh was earned by the team of Carrie Smiley, Joseph Gunning and Perry Vincent in an EcoTec Tatum. Gunning did the first lap, Smiley did laps two and four and Vincent did lap three. They had just one flat tire and finished in 10:01:20. In eighth it was brothers Parker and Colter Brown and their dad, Norris, in a Jimco Ecotec. They said they'd lost two alternators, had power steering and fuel pimp trou-bles, problems with their clutch, but no flat tires. Their time was 10:09:13. In ninth place it was Frank Baird in a Fusion chassis with an EcoTec motor. He said he'd had computer problems early, fuel prob-lems, and a flat. And they'd had to "dig out a little." Then he said, it had been "a long, long day." Their time was 10: 18:22. Robert Alatorre and Patrick Gai-ley shared the driving in the tenth place finisher. Alatorre did laps one and two and had three flats, while Gailey did three and four and he broke an axle about a half mile fr.om the finish. The splined end broke off, so he flipped it around and put it back together and nursed it in and across the finish line. Their time was 10:26:38. And in eleventh, and last in the class to finish, it was Michael LaPaglia, in a Racer. La Paglia drove the first two laps and Clint Barry finished. On the first lap at Mile 31, a rear wheel "left the vehicle" due 1:9 a failed hub. That cost them a couple of hours. They found the wheel, but then had to replace the hub. Their time was 10:30:59. There were ten Class 8000 trucks running at this event, but only three of them made it all the way around all four times. And at the front of the pack, a bit of a sur-prise, Dave Westhem. Westhem last raced about ten years ago, winning a BITD event in 2002. He says, "Now we're back." And, with a new Chevy truck that he spent h>.'o-and-a-half years building. He put about 100 miles of testing on it, and then he got old friend and co-driver, Randy Salmont to help with the driving here. Westhem drove laps one, two and three and Salmont did the last one. They said the mo-tor got hot so they had to slow, but they had no flats. The truck even had graphics that were very reminis-cent of the beautiful stylized desert that used to be on his old truck. Their time was 8:03:24. Macrae Glass was second in a Ford. He drove laps one, two and part of lap three, and Curt LeDuc, who used to own the truck, did the last lap and a half. He bent the tie rod. They also had one front flat. Their time was 8:23:31. In third it was Mike Szlauko in a Chevy. His navigator was Dominic Marchetti. They had flat tires, two bent drive shafts and since the first lap, only third gear. Their time was 8:24:50. , A ~ice surprise at this event was seeing nine Class 5000 cars - Baja Bugs. Finishing first it was Cody Kellogg, who drove laps one and two, and Rick Wilcoxon, who did three and four. Kellogg reported that he hit a "B.F. R." in the first six or eight miles and bent up the ro-" ~ "' "'$ ' ---~ The 5/1600 Class win went to Tom Bird, Tom was the only finisher in the class, Tom is seen here with the power on, heading for the checkered flag. Richard Ratto drove his Yamaha to a first place finish in the SR1 race, Richard had three minutes and change on his nearest competitor at the checkers.nly finisher in the class tor. Still, they drove four consistent laps and took the win in 9: 19:50. In second it was Ann and Jim anderson, who shared the driving, and said they'd had no brakes off and on all day. They bled the brakes, but got little improvement. They also broke a limit strap, and their floor pan was peeling away. In addition to that, they said someone hit them. Their time was 10:00:00. ; Third place went to Wendell and Laura Mortensen, Richard Hooper and Dan Higgenbotham. They didn't stick around to talk about their day. Apparently, they had a serious problem costing nearly an hour on the third lap, but still finished in 10:07. While a lot of contestants moaned and groaned about the way the course degraded - the ruts got deep, the silt beds grew and grew, and rocks came up to the surface, they still seemed to enjoy it. Or maybe it was because they had finished, and were pleased and proud (with good reason) to have managed to get to the finish. Old timers who'd experienced the previous incarnations of the Mint personally, didn't find this event much like those historic ones. But it had a certain horrible attrac-tion of its own, and will surely be remembered, either with fear and loathing, or pride by this year's entrants. ~m::n~ ~a....,A.~N Adam Householder flew his Ford pickup to a third place overall, he was the second Trick Truck to finish, he's seen here in level flight. Jason Fraser took the bronze medal in the Class 1900 battle, Jason Brandon Berge piloted his Jeep to a third place finish in the ClaS$ 3700 was 17 minutes in arrears when he too the checkers, he's seen here action at the Mint 400, he's seen here with the hammer down, headin' Todd Jackson raced his really good looking Jeep to a third place finish in at high speed. for home. the Class 1700 battle, he's seen h(!re on his way to the checkered flag. Dusty Times May 2012 Page 15

Page 16

l.l\Jcl:!C:: 46™ VODAFONE RALLY OF PORTUGAL Ostberg/ Andersson/ Ford Fiesta RS Win By Martin Holmes Photos: Maurice Selden Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia drove their Skoda Fabia to the class win in Portugal, they're seen here before an admiring audience. if he would start. There was one new Fiesta WRC driver lined up, however, this was the former Mini WRC driver Daniel Oliveira. The Brazilian had already covered over 200km in testing in Austria, with-out problem. "It is a big improve-ment compared to the last WRC car I drove", he said. On this occa-sion, Mads Ostberg's Adapta team competed without eligibility for the manufacturers' championship. Both VW team Skoda drivers Se-bastien Ogier and Kevin Abbring drove this time without Priority status, giving a more equal oppor-tunity to compare performances. Mads Ostberg and Jonas Andersson dove their Ford Fiesta RS to the gold medal in Portugal, seen here throwing a bit of muc and water. Entries closed with 57 crews listed, four of them competing This was the rally where all the experts got it wrong. Alone of the top crews, Citroen's number two driver Mikko Hirvonen kept his car out of trouble on a wet, slip-pery and often foggy Rally of Por-tugal, cruising his way to apparent victory on an event which went completely contrary to form. The experts had long been busy read-ing all the signs, and interpreting the indicators, deciding what would happen, especially on the controversial night gravel stages on the first day if the weather would be dry. But it was just the beginning. All through the rally the experts were defeated by the unexpected. The predicted dusty chaos never happened as the first rain storms came to the area after three months of drought, just in time. But that was only the start to an extraordinary few days in the holiday regions of Algarve. The unexpected continued through the four-day event and then well into the night with the exclusion of Hirvonen it was most surpris-ing win for Mads Ostberg. Vodafone Rally of Portugal, round four of the 2012 World Rally Championship, saw the series on its first gravel event in Europe. At the top end of the sport, 19 World Rally Cars had been entered, at the other end this was the opening round for ,t -.~ as part of the novel Rally Class the WRC Academy, which cur-the official event. project. These were Andis Neik-rently numbered 11 crews. The The excitement began: even sans from Latvia, Ricardo Trivino event was based once again in before the rally started, on the from Mexico, Yuriy Protasov from Algarve, the event's home since Saturday of the previous week, Ukraine and Rifat Sungkar from 2005. Immediately the long term when the leading crews contested Indonesia. This competition fine weather forecasts were the a promotional event on the old is run by the Symtech company cause of anxiety on account of traditional Lameirinha stage near in Belgium in which identical the prospect of dusty conditions, Fafe in the north of the country. Subaru Group N cars are leased especially during the three nigqt This stage was famous for its jump at a fixed cost to contest six WRC stages scheduled to run on the and spectacularly large crowds in rounds in Europe, with the best first day. The format of the event the days the event passed that way. performing driver winning a spon-was unusual as it was to last seven The extended format of this year's sored drive on five WRC events in days in all, with recce on the Mon- rally meant that the automatic a Subaru R4 car in 2013. Five of day and Tuesday, then 43km of reverse running order system ap-the six Rally Class events coincide stages of the Thursday, followed plied on three days, Friday, Sat-with the schedule for the Acad-by three full days. If the condi- urday and Sunday. It also meant emy, except that Academy does tions remained dry and dusty, the that the Academy drivers finished Finland, Rally Class does Italy. race for making fastest time on the their activities in the middle of the Once again a weekend charged Qualifying Stage on the Wednes- Saturday, rather than on the Sat-with excitement was promised, day morning, would be critically urday evening. On the Saturday not the least being the emotive important. The driver who chose there was also a national cham- memories that it was 30 years ago, to run first car on the road on pionship event in which 31 com-when Michele Mouton, now the dry night stages would gain an petitors covered the loop of three FIA's WRC Manager, won the ral-almost insuperable advantage for stages between the first and the ly in an Audi Quattro, the second the full event. Like last year the second runs of the WRC drivers. of her four momentous victories. official start of the event was held News from the teams centered There was an undercurrent of in Lisbon, with a three-lap stage on Mini, following recent ho-tension and discontent in the round a course in the Placa Impe- mologation of a raft of technical service park concerning the night rio, before moving southwards for changes to the cars. Only Dani stages, a sense of foreboding that the rest of the event. The Head- Sordo's car had the full specifica- a splendid rally was going to the quarters was again at the Algarve tion "0lB" car, Armindo Araujo, prejudiced unnecessarily. Mouton stadium, just to the north of Faro. the Prodrive number two driver could not understand the prob-For the extra entertainment of Patrik Sandell and Paulo Nobre lem, "Drivers shoul<l drive accord-the crowds there was also a spe-had cars in earlier specification. ingly" was her considered -or was cial event for classic cars over the Over at the customer division of it the FIA's party-line - response. opening stage in Lisbon which 24 Ford, Matthew Wilson was still "We are heading for a complete crews will drive before the world unfit and his Go Fast teammate catastrophe" was the comment of ch_ampionship competitors start Henning Solberg was uncertain a world champion codriver. The -------------------------, latest position of the organisers was that the first 3km of the first 10km gravel stage and all 11km of the third stage, would be watered. The organisers looked to the sky and saw a cloudless and windy day, and wondered if the heavens would save them, but it seemed unlikely. Nil natural precipitation was expected on the Thursday, and the wind traditionally dies away in the evening. Not a happy prospect. On this occasion Shakedown, Free Practice and the Qualify-ing Stage all took place on the Wednesday, not the usual Thurs-day. Unlike Mexico, all the teams had the chance of private prior testing on the roads in the country so Free Practice was more a matter of preparation for the Qualifying Stage, rather than for any set-up purposes. Teams swung into full tactic mode, all drivers wanting to make their two permitted runs as late in Free Practice as possible, so tli:ey encountered roads which would be as close to conditions on the QS. Drivers were in no hurry to head down the road to the Shakedown course, with only' a half hour to go only four of t;he 18 drivers had completed their second runs, but interestingly these included both Loeb and Hirvonen. In the end the ·fastest driver in Free Practice was Latvala at 3m04.ls ahead of Solberg at 3m05.2s. One driver that did not make it through Shakedown was Kevin Abbring in the second VW Motorsport Skoda. On his second run through the test he hit a rock. There did not appear to be any problem so he continued, but a lit-tle further down the road the car suddenly left the road, overturned and hit a rock and pulled a wheel off. Then the Scrutineers looked at the car and said the rollcage was damaged so he could not start . . Then came the real thing, Qualifying Stage. 18 drivers start-ed the test at two minute intervals, headed by "the championship lead-ing Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen, and the quickest were It was a third place overall finish for Petter Solberg and Chris Patterson Dani Sardo and Carlos Del Barrio finished the rally in the 11th spot, Nasser Al Attiyah and Giovanni Bemacchini finished first off the podium at Portugal, seen here in their Ford Fiesta at high speed. they're seen here in their John Cooper Mini, a bit besmirched with mud. in Portugal, seen here in their Citroen DS3. Page 16 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 17

Evgeniy Novikov and Denis Giraudet took the silver medal at the Portugal Rally, seen here in their Ford Fiesta RS. the two Fords, Jari-Matti Latvala 1. 7 seconds faster than Petter Sol-berg, with the two Citroens more than two seconds slower than Lat-vala. "The secret of my speed was one jump. That jump is followed by a series of tricky bends, and if you approach the bends slowly you can accelerate through the bends and get a high terminal speed to the end of the stage. So, we went slowly over the jump -and gained all the time!" 17 drivers reached the finish, with the luckless Paulo Nobre going off the road and roll-ing near the finish of the 4.96km section. Nasser Al Attiyah slid wide at a bend and dropped to 17th position. Ninety minutes remained be-fore the Selection was to be held. and in that time the starting order decisions had to be taken, with once again Latvala the first to announce his plan. Ford chose a high-risk strategy, like in Mexico, Citroen wanted to play safe. Lat-vala declared that he would start 17th. Latvala "The organisers have promised there will be no dust problem, and we are count-ing on that!" Mikko Hirvonen: "•Wet or dry I myself am happy to be first car on the road. For me it is the safest choice. We had made that strategy before the selection process, we did not wait to see what Jari-Matti decided." The starting lists were duly promised. Among the missing cars were the Mini WRC of Nobre (damaged rollcage), the Fiesta WRC of Henning Solberg (the days of the mythical sponsorship from Go-Fast seem to be com-pletely over) and the Fiesta S2000s of Karl Kruuda, Marius Assen and the VW Skoda of Kevin Abbring. Day 1 (Thursday) 3 Stages -Gravel - 35.58kms Only four stages run today and the month long uncertainties would be resolved. The Super-special stage at Lisbon was fun, warm, hugely popular with the crowds. In the morning the driv-ers made their recce -in electric golf carts, and when the stage was actually held in the afternoon Pet-ter Solberg stole a 0.1 second lead over Sebastien Loeb. The three remaining stages for the day were the centre of everything. It was not the threat of dust, or rain, or wind - it was also question of spare tyre choices as well. Most of the top cars took just five hard tyres, but the Prodrive Minis took four hard and two of the permitted ten softs - just in case it was wet. With over three quarters of an hour be-tween the front running Citroens and the last priority Fords, with cars running at three minute gaps, conditions could easily be differ-ent for the teams. After weeks of Dusty Times dry conditions, there was extraor-dinarily drizzle in the afternoon over the three night stages. Loeb reported it was humid and slip-pery, and that the soft suspension on the cars meant that the lights were often pointing into the sky, not on to the road! Then came di-saster among the Minis. Dani Sor-do had an electrical problem and finished with only one headlight working and held up Jari Keto-maa, who interestingly said - there wasn't any dust problem! Then came news that the local favourite Armindo Araujo had stopped and was stuck for five minutes in a ditch after a pacenote confusion. Life was going well for the leading Ford drivers. Solberg made fastest time again and Jari-Matti Latvala was second. Mikko Hirvonen was upset with himself with his lack of self confidence. Martin Prokop however, in a Ford, lost nearly two minutes with a lack of power due to coil failure forcing the car to run on three cylinders through the evening. Prokop incurred a 20 second penalty for being late away from the start of stage 3, having to change the spark plugs in an attempt to cure, in vain, the misfiring. A little more rain fell on the second gravel stage and then came the news that Loeb had gone off, a long way from the road. The dam-age was to the top right bodywork and had damaged the rollcage. Go home time for the champion. Dani Sordo had a problem on a road section when an electrical connection to the alternator broke and it was impossible to re-connect and was forced to stop after stage 2. Ott Tanak had problems with his lights. Mads Ostberg drove nearly all stage 3 on a flat tyre, "We do not know why, we did not hit anything." Latvala made fast-est time on stage 3 and edged 0.5 seconds ahead of Solberg but de-spite his problems Hirvonen was lying third but only 10 seconds behind tpe leader. On stage 4 Tanak was fastest and Solberg had a half-spin and lost 4 seconds, and in the end that meant that Latvala was the overnight leader by 2.6 seconds from his teammate.. Sol-berg admitted he had earlier eased his speed when he saw Loeb's car was off the road. Ketomaa was unhappy, the DMack sponsored driver was in fact using Michelin tyres, "We changed the setup after the Qualifying Stage. Unfortu-nately it made things worse!" It was his first rally at night for two years. Thierry Neuville was still getting used to WRC driving, "All our notes are based on S2000 speed. The corners keep coming up too quickly!" This was Daniel Oliveira's first rally in darkness. Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen were excluded by the rally committee in their Citroen DS3, they're seen here at high speed. The rain started to get heavier on to lose more time. Reeves was stage 4 after the early cars had gone h appy. Evans was baulked on through and some 20 minutes be- stage 2, but otherwise was going fore the Fords were due, maybe an fine. Fisher overshot on stage 2 unexpected twist to the selection and had to reverse. Silva had gear process? "If we had driven the last selection failure. MacCrone went stage 20 minutes earlier, it would off the road. have been dry and we would have D ay 2 (Friday)-3 Stag-had a big lead tonight. The rain es -Gravel -66.34kms came too late!" said Latvala. "But, A wet rally seemed assured, we are not complaining. It means even if it was actually dry when that tomorrow we will be able to the cars headed off in the morn-control the rally from behind". ing. Soft tyres were chosen by Five seconds separating the top all with the options lying in the three drivers. Why was there all back of the car. Hirvonen, Ogier the fuss about dust? General feel-and Sordo had one spare soft, the ing when the cars arrived back at other Citroens and Araujo had Faro, it was an amazing relief for two spare softs. All the Fords the organisers that the conditions had two spare hards. Ford were worked well and the threatened lying 1-2 at the start of the day, disaster never happened. Ford Latvala leading Solberg by 2.6sec. got their selections right, Citroen Calm weather in Faro, hell in the got them wrong, but because of hills. Reports came through of the rain, it really didn't matter at very bad conditions, treacherous· all. Now comes the big question. mud, heavy rain, patches of very Rain is confidently forecast for all low cloud and fog and a series of the rest of the event, so what to disasters. Ott Tanak slid into a do about tyres? Each champion-ditch, Thierry Neuville's engine ship driver has just ten soft tyres. •ingested water, and the fan dam-Michelin experts recommended it aged the water radiator. Hirvonen was better to re-fit worn soft tyres slid off and lost some seconds than risk fitting new hard tyres in at the start of the stage. Solberg the wet roads. slid off a lost 10 seconds or so, In SWRC Breen's car was and then but the Latvala's hopes down on power, running on just of victory ended in poor visibility three cylinders, after ingesting 1.4km from the finish of the open-water in a crossing in stage 2, ing 25.01km Tavira stage where then had an intercom problem he hit a rock which launched the on stage 4. Paddon chose soft car into a ditch. "I turned into a tyres, which was a mistake, "The left corner and saw a rock on the soft tyres were going off after only driving line;" explained Latvala. "I 3km or so. I thought it would be didn't have it marked in my pace a good idea but it wasn't. Par- notes and I tried to avoid it, but ticularly serious on stage 3, which couldn't." The car touched the started with 3km on asphalt!" In rock with the front left and the im-the non-Championship S2000 pact damaged the suspension. The Ogier had a bad time. Hydraulic front wheel bent into the wheel failure of the clutch and the driv- arch and the car spun backwards er found his sitting position was off the road and down a small too low for the night stages so he -bank on the right. One stage later borrowed some padding from his his teammate Solberg had slid codriver Julien Ingrassia in order irretrievably into a ditch. Ford to give him a better view. In ad-had lost the lead twice in just two dition the red dashboard warning stages. Sordo, running first car on light shone brightly into his eyes. the road, was the only driver who In the Rally Class competition, seemed to make progress, making both Protasov and Neiksans had fastest times on all three stages of problems with their lamppods, the morning loop. Sordo, "Let's Protasov droving the three stages wait until the afternoon to know only on standard headlamps. if it was the car or the running Neiksans battery was flattened position that was good", he joked. at the Ouque regrouping and he Minis were in fact running 1-2 incurred road penalties.' Sungkar on the road. Araujo was not so had an electrical problem when a happy, knowing that the ploy of lose jack shorted the fuel pump running soft tyres on Shakedown terminals. Ricardo Moura broke was now going to cause him the the water radiator on his Mitsubi- risk of running out of soft tyres shi, "We thought the level of wa-in the afternoon, although he ter in a crossing was minimal, but was now up to 11th. Fifth placed the earlier passage of World Rally Martin Prokop's car was now Cars had made the crossing much running well again while Jari Ke-deeper than expected." tomaa's was now running on three Among the Academy drivers, cylinders. After the disasters for Ahlin changed the set-up on his fellow Ford drivers, Mads Ostberg car to be more aggressive which was now second overall but then was a mistake, he was lucky not he punctured on stage 7 which let May 2012 Evgeniy Novikov get ahead of him by 5.5 seconds. Patrik Sandell, in the second Prodrive Mini, was bemused how he was placed so high up (fourth) after going so slowly. M-Sport chief Malcolm Wilson was really upset "It is a hugely disappointing. The drivers knew what they had to do, we had discussed this beforehand. Both of them had a lot of experience, I don't understand it." Daniel Oliveira slid into a ditch on a liai-son section between stages 6 and 7 at 20kph and broke the clutch trying to escape. In the Rally Class category Ri-fat Sungkar had brake problems, Ricardo Trivino steering failure and was driving slowly when the loose wheel pulled the car off the edge of the road and down an embankment. After i;wo very slow rolls the car came to a stop. Among the SWRC runners, stage 5 was just as damaging for these cars. Hayden Paddon stop-ping with an electrical problem shortly after the start of stage the stage. On the way to stage 7 the rally passed through a swol-len water crossing on the way to a fuel zone and Yazeed Al Rajhi stopped in a water crossing and he broke the gearbox trying to re-verse out. The crew then waded through metre high water back to dry land and waited for an or-ganisers' 4x4 to pull them clear. There was no way the following cars could continue to by-pass the problem without attending the refuel zone and after Ogier, the last of 12 cars that passed through stage 7, the rally came to a halt. The second loop of stages was cancelled because of the con-ditions, Hirvonen ending the day a surprised leader ahead by 36.3 seconds over Novikov. Two days had now been held with o_nly six and a half stages covered, and two whole days remained. The attention now focused on the cars stuck in the hills unable to reach the refueling area. The organizers transported 250 litre of fuel up to the hills to refuel the stranded cars, and thus enable them to get back to the service park. The first driver to be stuck in the hills was SWRC driver Maciej Oleksowicz, interruption times were duly issued to those who were stranded, stages 8, 9 and 10 were not run· at all. Pass-ing unnoticed at the time was the situation with Sordo, who was running first car on the road, got through stage 6 before the condi-tions suddenly deteriorated, and was no less than 48.2 seconds faster than the next fastest driver the third running Prokop, and lm25s faster than the rally leader Hirvonen, who was running 12th car, towards a half hour later! More tales unfolded about the crews that went missing. Lat-vala reported the only mechanical damage was a suspension bolt broken, Solberg's car was out-wardly undamaged but the clutch was damaged trying to get out of the ditch where the car ended up. ~oura decided not to do the Friday stages, "I was worried the water temperature gauge was not working after we -changed the radi-ator, and anyway the Friday stages did-not count for the Portuguese championship. Day 3 (Saturd·ay)- 6 Stag-es - -Gravel -148.16kms All restarting were Latvala, Sol-berg, Tanak and Neuville. Besides Continued on page 18 Page 17

Page 18

Craig Breen and Gareth Roberts had engine problems and were listed Martin Prokop and Zdenek Hruza drove their Ford Fiesta RS to fifth Jari-Matti latvala and Miikka Anttila finished in 13th place in Portugal, as a dnf, they're seen here nicely airborne in their Ford Fiesta RS. overall in the Portugal Rally,they're seen here in their F-Ord Fiesta RS. they're seen here in their Ford Fiesta RS at high speed. Sordo another driver to find un- used · a set of soft tyres in shake-seemed to be the preferred op- was as expected." Solberg had the suspension failed close to the expected consolation from the down, now wishing he had known tion. Drivers started saying they climbed up to ninth. Oliveira start of stage 14. He reported previous day's events was Petter how the conditions were about to wanted the rain! Hirvonen, "the had bad windscreen misting, "I there had been no impact and he Solberg. He had missed two stages change. Ogier' s non-champion-car is moving around on the soft had to open the door to see where had not been off the road. Araujo (5 minutes penalty each stage) and ship S2000 Skoda was running tyres too much." His front tyres the road was." Ketomaa found damaged his suspension on stage his penalty was added to the time to the same 10-tyre rule. FIA of- were badly worn. Novikov: "We his bad handling was caused by a 14, carried on and then the sus-of Sordo who was fastest on the ficials confirmed that there was want the rain, rallying is about set-up error. Hirvonen was now pension failed on stage 15. stages and not to the time of the no rule against using a mixture driving not about pacenotes." well on his own, pulling steadily The speed of the process of rally leader Hirvonen. This meant of hard and soft tyres at the same Ostberg would have been happier away from the pursuing Fiestas. the surface drying continued to that instead of running around time on the cars. The overnight in the rain as well. Sordo made Sordo had a drama in stage 14, confuse competitors, several of ten minutes behind the leader Sol-rain in the coastal region of Al-the best time on stage 11 proving the first stage of the second loop, whom believed there would still berg started just 7m35.9s behind garve proved to be much heavier his success the day before was not when smoke invaded the cockpit be enough muddy patches which Hirvonen. The pressing question than in the hills, and the organis-just a matter of missing the rain at the rear of the car and he lost would demand soft compound was now tyres. The rules state that ers were cautiously optimistic that and fog! Sordo, "Sure, we also five minutes. One of the exhaust tyres. By stage 15 the surface was the teams are limited to ten softs the stages would run smoothly. had rain and fog." Mini project pipes broke and exhaust gasses as completely dry and the sun was for the whole rally, and their al-Rally leader Hirvonen started manager Dave Wilcock said that well a burning bodywork caused out in the service park! The ex-locations were being used up fast! 16th car on the road under reverse Sordo was motivated, "He has the crew to stop. Then Latvala tent of the weather forecast error Teams analysed their options, Lat-seeding rules. Neuville was the been like this from the first min-lost another 12 minutes a fuel was remarkable. Al Attiyah and vala: "Having only driven 20km of first car on the road ahead of ute he drove the OlB. He had a problem. "The car just stopped. van Merksteijn had strips of their stages yesterday our problem is not Tanak, Latvala, Sordo (still disbe- good feeling immediately he got We changed the ECU, then the tyres worn down to nothing. Pro-immediately critical, but it will be lieving that he had won all three here in Portugal." Ostberg pulled team told us to disconnect the kop's engine problem were inter-for Sunday." Solberg: "Big prob- stages the day before) and Solberg. ahead of Novikov up in to second sensor and reinstall them all ex-mittent. Novikov was improving lem. You absolutely cannot run But Tanak then dropped back sev-place when Novikov was slowed cept one. The car started again. but his pace was still disappoint-hard compound tyres in these wet en minutes at the early morning by a misfire. 13th placed Sol- They told us then to re-install the ing though he had a four minute conditions." Al Attiyah: "We will service replacing a damaged prop- berg meanwhile was on a charge. remaining one -and the engine buffer to fourth placed Al Attiyah. simply have to recycle the worn shaft. 46 of the original 49 cars M-Sport chief Malcolm Wilson just would not stop!" Solberg Of the Rally Class competitors soft tyres." Ostberg: "We must made the restart, official retire-reckoned he had the capability however continued to be on a mis- Neiksans said he ran dangerously continue to use soft." Novikov: ments were Loeb, Breen and the to rise up to fourth by the end sion, making a series of four fast- low on fuel and also had complete "Actually the tyre wear yesterday privateer Bertelli. The weather of the rally while Latvala had the est times in a row, climbing up to brake failure. was not so bad but using hard was far drier than anyone had ex- chance of finishing in the top ten. fourth but on the run to stage 16 In the SWRC Al Rajhi con-tyres is not an option." Hirvonen: pected and the stages even starte.d After the first loop Hirvonen was the powersteering failed, he lost a tinued without technical problem "Honestly we have not decided to be dusty - so what was the fus~ 47.3 seconds ahead of Ostberg, minute on stage 16 and dropped but he had only six soft tyres and what we are going to do!" Alone about tyres all about? With every "We never expected stage 11 to back behind Al Attiyah to fifth. his heart was in his mouth as he of the top drivers, Araujo had minute of the stages, hard tyres be so dry, otherwise the morning It had been a ~eteoric afternoon. wonder just how hard and dry the From lying ninth at the midday stages had become. Paddon tried. Page 18 Checkout Our Website For Stvles & Sizes May 2012 halt, he was up to fourth two stag- fitting hard tyres on the front and es later! Ketomaa was struggling softs on the rear, for the drier with a broken rear brake disc, and stage 12, but it was not a happy Sandell's run came to a halt when combination. Oleksowicz's car DllliJlillHI You Know Dusty Times Is THE Complete ~Newspaper on Everything That's Happening In Off Road Racing And Rallying, So Why Not Nave It Dellvered To Your Nome or Business Every Month? use The SubsCl'lptlOn Form on Page ll or VISlt us At -.dustvttmes.com Dusty Times

Page 19

I.· .. . . . was handling badly turning in to corners. By the end of the day Al Rajhi was over eight minutes ahead of Oleksowicz, who had lost a half minute stuck off the road. Paddon who had been ly-ing fourth and last in the category midway through the day strug-gling on with the wrong tyres had passed the R4 car of Pedro Meire-les and was now third. The Academy competitors' rally finished at stage 13, with Alastair Fisher ahead of Brendan Reeves and Pontus Tidemand. Nine of the ten starters qualified as finishers, the American Chris Duplessis the only retirement on the road section back to the fin-ish. The only driver to miss stages was Fredrik Ahlin who damaged his suspension on the previous day when he hit a bank. Day 4 (Sunday) - 6 Stages -Gravel - 115.08kms 35 cars started for the final day. Missing were the Academy cars and also Ricardo Moura, whose main objective had been the Portuguese championship event which ran on just the one day. Conditions were essentially dry but with some damp patches, tyre choices were not automatic. All manner of combinations of hard and soft, front and back, crossover using ryres of one com-pound in opposite corners on the cars. Most drivers reckoned soft was best, and all were worried about the conflicting weather fore-casts. Running order for the final day, was headed by Latvala. Dan-iel Oliveira and Nasser Al Attiyah punctured, Ott Tanak had a rear hub problem which then made the brakes fail and he lost about four minutes, dropping down to 14th place. Thierry Neuville had an amazing off road escape when the car slid down an embankment into a field and he drove out back to the road - all shown live on tele-vision, and there was absolutely no damage to be seen afterwards on the car! Ostberg reported his car was now running on three cylinders. He switched the engine onto road mode in order to drive through the third stage and back to ser.vice where the problem was cured. Hirvonen was in "Sunday" driving mode, just making sure he kept out of trouble. Then on the second lap of the final loop of stages Novikov had a throttle pedal break . The weather was uncertain. Sandell went off the road, when heavy rain created a sudden and complete change of grip, retiring wnen he rolled. Araujo and Sordo both had punc-tures and had to stop and change the wheel. Ogier, Neuville and Al Attiyah were among the other drivers which had punctures late on in the event. The weather had not finished. The final stage however got progressively wetter and more slippery as the drivers tackled the Power Stage in reverse order. Fourth running Sordo made best time in his Mini, ahead of third running Latvala, with Tanak taking the remaining bonus point. Van Merksteijn jr had a driveshaft break giving tenth place to Jari Ketomaa after the Finn's disastrous rally. Al Attiyah drove flat out to pip Martin Prokop for fifth overall. Shock of the morning was re-tirement for SWRC leader Yazeed Al Rajhi, who lost a lead of nearly nine minutes, Al Rajhi: "In the second stage the cross-member broke going into a slow left-hand Dusty Times corner. It was very bumpy, but I think it may have been cracked before - maybe when I hit the wa-ter splash on Day 2 - because we didn't hit anything. I tried to drive another five kilometres or so, but then the wheel came off complete-ly and our event was over. In the meantime Hayden Paddon, had continued his charge and passed Oleksowicz -suddenly found he held the lead and had won the category by over five minutes, despite incurring three "Rally2" (SupeRally) penalties. Nobody had won a support championship category without completing the route before. In the Rally Class all four competitors eventually finished. Protasov came through with no more problems to win not only the class but was the highest placed Group N driver with Neik-sans second followed by Trivino and finally Sungkar who had a bad delay on the penultimate stage. Seven hours after the finish the rally had its final twist. Mikko Hirvonen had done everything that Citroen expected of him but the team let him down. Scruti-neers found the clutch assembly system was illegal. The Offi-cial Final Classification showed a clean sweep for Ford on the podium with the best finishing Citroen being that of Nasser Al Attiyah in fourth place. Although everyone moved up a place in the overall classification the SWRC were unaffected by the changes. Following Hirvonen's exclusion the recalculation of points meant Citroen's 38 point lead over Ford after Mexico had been reduced to 12. In the Drivers' series Se-bastien Loeb was back in the lead but greatly diminished to just four points over Petter Solberg with Mads Ostberg nine points further back and three points ahead of Mikko Hirvonen. Craig Breen retained his lead in the SWRC series but it was all change behind him with Paddon lying second ahead of Oleksowicz and then PG Andersson. At the beginning of the year Malcolm Wilson had indicated that the position of Ford's driver status between Latvala and Sol-berg would be reviewed during the season to maximise the best chances of securing the Drivers' title for the company. With Petter now leading Jari-Matti by 21 points after four rallies the decision appears at this time to be going in favour of the 2003 World Champion, so are mo~e _su~ises in store? ~C: 46th Vodafone Rally de Portugal (Pl Lisbon-Faro 28.03/1.04.2012 WCR round 4, SWRC round 3 WCR points . WCR WCD SC 1 (10) Mads Ostberg/Jonas Andersson N/S Ford Fiesta RS (Ml WRC PX60AUV {GB) 4h.21m.16.1 s. 25 2 {6) Evgeniy NOVIKOV/Denis Giraudet RUS/F Ford Fiesta RS {Ml WRC RU55ALM {GB) 4h.22m.49.3s. 25 18 3 {4) Petter SOLBERG/Chris Patterson N/GB Ford Fiesta RS (Ml WRC PX61AWU 1GB) 4h.23m.11.7s.{2) 18 15 4 {7) Nasser AL A TTIYAH/Giovanni Bernacchini QA/I Citroen DS3 {Ml WRC BK391DW {Fl 4h.27m.21.9s. 15 12 5 {21) Martin Prokop/Zdenek Hruza• CZ Ford Fiesta RS {Ml WRC 06R0030 (CZ) 4h.27m.25.3s. 10 6 (18) Dennis Kuipers/Robin Buysmans NUB Ford Fiesta RS (Ml WRC PX11AWN {GB) 4h.28m.03.4s. 8 7 (15) Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia F Skoda Fabia S2000 {Ml 2 H-VM135 {D) 4h.28m.25.1 s. 6 8 (81 Thierry NEUVILLE/Nicolas Gilsoul B Citroen DS3 (Ml WRC BF082XC (Fl 4h.29m.54.0s.(3I 12 4 9 (16) Jari Ketomaa/Mika Stenberg FIN Ford Fiesta RS (M"I WRC PX60AVG {GB) 4h.31m.08.9s. 2 10 (17) Peter van Merksteijn jr/Eddy C~evallier NUB Citroen DS3 (Ml WRC BH482BM {Fl 4h.31m.27.1s. 1 11 (37) Dani Sordo/Carlos Del Barrio E Mini John Cooper Works (Ml WRC 4WRC 1GB) 4h.33m.39.8s.(2) +3 12 (91 Daniel OLIVEIRA/Carlos Magalhaes BR/P Ford Fiesta RS (Ml WRC PX61AXV {GB) 4h.36m.18.4s. 10 13 (3) Jari-Matti LATVALA/Miikka Anttila FIN Ford Fiesta RS (Ml WRC PX61AWR (GB) 4h.38m.18.7s.(3) 8 +2 14 (51 Ott TANAK/Kuldar Sikk EE Ford Fiesta RS {Ml WRC PXl 1 AMV {GB) 4h.38m.31.2s.{3) 6 +1 15 {12) Armindo Araujo/Miguel Ramalho p Mini John Cooper Works {Ml WRC OU12CZF {GB) 4h.42m.20.0s.(2I 16 {31) Hayden Paddon/John Kennard NZ Skoda Fabia S2000 {Ml SWRC 9091HJW {El 4h.49m.41.2s.{3I 25 17 {35) Maciej Oleksowicz/Andrzej Obrebowski PL Ford Fiesta S2000 {Ml SWRC WD99991 {PL) 4h.54m.43.5s. 18 18 (49) Pedro Meireles/Mario Castro p Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X R4 (Ml SWRC 6394GYH {Pl 4h.58m.31.5s. 15 19 {60) Yuriy Protasov/Kyrylo Nesvit UA Subaru lmpreza N 14 {DJ 3 OU60ECE {GB) 5h.03m.26.8s.# 20 {58) Andis Neiksans/Peteris Dzirkals LV Subaru lmpreza N 14 {D) 3 OU60ECJ {GB) 5h.09m.56.8s. 26 {59) Ricardo Trivino/Alex Haro MEX/E Subaru lmpreza N14 (DI 3 OU60ECF {GB) 5h.42m.26.7s.{2I 29 {61) Rifat Sungkar/Scott Beckwith RI/AUS Subaru lmpreza N 14 {D) 3 OU60ECT {GB) 6h.37m.27 .6s.(2) 49 (5 SWRC) starters. 30{3 SWRC) finishers. MANUFACTURERS' DRIVER. D-DMack tyres; M-Michelin tyres. M" -despite DMack logos. {Missed stages or road sections) Winner's average speed over stages 84.61kph {85.22kph based on Hirvonen's time 4h19m24.3s). + -Power stage points. #-Rally Class/Group N winner. LEADING RETIREMENTS {1) Sebastien LOEB/Daniel Elena F/MC Citroen DS3 {Ml WRC {2) Mikko HIRVONEN/Jarmo LehtinenFIN Citroen DS3 (M) WRC {14) Paulo Nobre/Edu Paula BR Mini John Cooper Works {Ml WRC {32) Craig Breen/Gareth Roberts IRL/GB Ford Fiesta S2000 {Ml ·• SWRC {36) Yazeed Al Rajhi/Michael Orr SA/GB Ford Fiesta 1.6 S2000 {Ml SWRC (52) Patrik Sandell/Maria Andersson s Mini John Cooper Works {Ml WRC {54) Kevin Abbring/Frederic Miclotte NUB , Skoda Fabia S2000 {Ml 2 RALLY LEADERS Solberg stages 1 +2, Latvala 3+4, Solberg 5, Hirvonen 6-22. Ostberg after event. SWRC LEADERS Breen stage 1, Paddon 2-4, Al Rajhi 5-17, Paddon 18-22. • CLASS 2 LEADERS Ogier stage 1, Paddon 2-4, Ogier 5-22. The Route Special Stages Total Distance Crews Restarting Day 1 Lisbon {Thursday 1455) • 3 gravel-35.58km 350.38km {1-4) ' Ourique • 1 asphalt-3.27km Algarve Stadium {Thursday 2315) Day 2 Algarve Stadium {Friday 1100) • 3 gravel-66.34km 159.27km 48 {5-7) Algarve Stadium • Algarve Stadium {Friday 1905) Day 3 Algarve Stadium {Saturday 08301 • 6 gravel-148.16km 454.74km 46 {11-16) Algarve Stadium • Algarve Stadium {Saturday 18251 Day 4 Algarve Stadium (Sunday 0655) • 6 gravel-115.08km 440.60km 35 {17-22) Algarve Stadium • Algarve Stadium {Sunday 1530) 19 stages-368.43km 1404.99km 3 stages cancelled-weather. Weather: very mixed. 3 stages in darkness. Leading Special Stages positions 1 2 3 4 5 6 P.Solberg 8 4 2 2 Sordo 6 4 1 2 Latvala 4 5 4 1 1 Tanak 1 2 5 1 2 Prokop 2 1 1 Neuville 1 5 2 2 Hirvonen 1 4 2 7 3 Loeb 1 1 Novikov 1 1 5 SWRC Paddon won 14 stages, Al Rajhi & Breen 2 each. CLASS 2 Ogier won 16 stages, Breen, Paddon & Al Rajhi 1 each. LAST STAGE COMPLETED BK317DW {F) accident BK359DW (F) EK068KX {GB) accident on OS PX59AVF (GB) engift"e 9GLG999 (Bl suspension 2WRC {GB) accident {2) H-VM136 {DJ accident on Shakedown 2 excluded 22 0 5 17 20 0 Positions in World Championship for Rallies (WCR): Citroen Total 108 points, Ford 96, M-Sport Ford 69, Qatar 31, Mini WRC 26, Citroen Junior 18, Adapta 12, Brazil 10, etc. Positions in World Championship for Drivers: Loeb 66 points, Solberg 62, Ostberg 53, Hirvonen 50, Novikov 39, Latvala 28, Sordo 21, Al Attiyah 20, Tanak 15, Prokop 14, etc. Leading positions in Super 2000 WRC {Round 3/7){six events to count): Breen 43 points, Paddon 37, Oleksowicz 26, Andersson {SI 25, Tidemand & Meireles 15, etc. May. 2012 Page 19 \

Page 20

,~!:f_ei,a1 IMPERIAL 2so Knuckles Takes The Gold By Steve Ruddick Photos: Trackside Photo Jimmy Nuckels had a really good race, he flew his pickup to the Open Truck Class win and he was the overall race winner as well. Hello Race Fans. I'm on assign-ment here in beautiful El Centro CA to bring you the race news and action from the HORA Impe-rial 250 at Plaster City OHV. Yes--HORA is back. High Desert Racing Association was founded by Walt Lott in the mid-1970's, and soon became one of the premier off-road sanctioning bodies in the sport. Walt died suddenly, and the organi-zation underwent several transitions and faded from the desert racing scene in the 90' s. The new and improved HORA was re-introduced in late 2011 by long time desert racing e·nthusiasts Roger Norman, Robert Gross and Ken Flippin. HORA is based in Las Vegas, NV. Their 2012 schedule includes five races - ranging from 10-12 mile multi-lap DesertCross courses all the way to a 500-mile long cro~ountry desert race. The Imperial 250 at Plaster City OHV is the second competition in HDRA's 2012 race schedule. The HORA Rulebook includes 31 Classes of vehicles; just about every kind of race ride imaginable. The Imperial 250 is a 2-heat event: a morning race (Race # 1) and an afternoon race (Race #2). Race #l includes Classes: 5/16, 7s, 9, 1400, 1500, Wide Open, 2000, 1300, Full Stock, Stock Beetle and 1900-UTV. Race #2 includes Classes: Open Truck, 1, 4400, 10, 12, 1600, 8, 7, Trophy Lite and 5. The Imperial 250 includes 99 racers entered in 19 Classes. HORA has 4 Entry Fee Levels -ranging from $500 to $ 1100, which includes: Insurance $50; Land Use Fee $ 135; Admin $180 -subtotal: $365 per entry. $35 goes to support payback. I tallied it up and the grand Entry Fee total is: $73,700. That's a chunk of change no matter how you divide it up. Tell me again that open desert racing doesn't generate revenue. I don't know the economic multiplier factor for desert racing -but just think of all the race gas that is used, and the price of beer co sumed by 99 racers and the1r entourage of support. Cha-Ching! How much do you think the av-erage entry sp(;!nds on just prepping their ride to race? That is money and sales tax revenues spent in your local community that supports your local economy. I used to figure spending at least 3-4 times the amount of the entry fee on prep and actually rac-ing, and that didn't include beer, or bail money. If you tally up the $73,700 in entry fees by an econom-ic multiplier factor of 3-4X - it gener-ates between $221,100 -$294,800 in money that people spent to race. I filled up my gas tank twice at $4.15 a gallon. I spent anoth,er $35 on food for ,the day and liqY.id refreshment. If you run the m1th backwards - I figure each racer 'pent about $2300 each to do it. f My point is -off road racing does generate money that gets spent mostly in your local community. The Entry Fee people pay to race is the proverbial tip-of-the-iceberg, and BLM benefits from that too. I figure BLM took in a quick $15,120 for "-the Imperial 250: 112 entries X $135 each for Land Use Fee. Let's assume they had 15 BLM Rangers on duty to monitor and enforce on race day. That's $1000 per ranger for one day. The proverbial Golden Goose. It aiN't pocket change. Plaster City has seen desert off road racing before. There was the old Fud races back in the early 1980's. Fud started FRT, or Fudrucker Rac-ing Team, and the Superstition des-ert race Series. The races were held in Plaster City and the Superstition Mountains. The Superstition Series got big turnouts early on but that fad-ed towards the end. The Dunaway Dash was always the biggest race of the year with big turnouts and some big name racers. Fud's courses were fun, but demanding. Fud was a posi-tive force in the early off.road racing community; a lot of racers got their start with him. Fud died suddenly of a heart attack and the series died with him until it became the MOR Superstition Series; and then MOR faded from the scene too. SNORE did a race here in 2011, · and now HORA returns for the Im-perial 250. WooHoo! Attracting 112 entries in a 'new' race series in these economic times ain't so easy to do. It is an indicator of pent-up demand for such events in a region of3 .3 mil-lion inhabitants. HORA estimates 10,000 people will be here. The total entry fee's for this race amounted to $73,700. That's economic revenue, Race Fans. Compare that to the Barstow Factory Outlet Mall which doesn't host off road racing venues Joey Westhoff was the big winner in the Class 112-1600 scuffle, Joey had three minutes in hand when he finished his five lap race. anymore. Those are economic rev-enues lost. Go figure. The Plaster City OHV area is 41,000 acres (64 square miles) of open desert with a variety of terrain. It's the bottom of what is left of many old ancient lake beds formed by the intermitant inflow of the Colorado River into the Salton ba-sin. Geologic evidence indicates this cycle occured about every 100 to 150 years, taking up to 20 years to fill the basin and 60 years to recede; over eons of time. The last breach was in 1905 and resulted in the Salton Sea we know today. Before that it was Lake Cahuilla and it covered vast parts of the Coachella, Impe-rial and Mexicali valleys, over eons of time. If Lake Cahuilla formed today, many towns in the area would be submerged including El Centro, Mexicali, part oflnterstate 8 and 10, and as far north as Indio, too. That's a lot of water. Plaster City today is one of the biggest open-pit gypsum mines in the country; calcium sulfate. It is used in canned vegetables (potatoes, carrots, peppers), flour, white bread, ice cream, blue cheese and tofu:The same stuff that chalk and plaster of Paris are made of. The same stuff that 'wall board' is made from. The stuff that silt comes from. Thick and zesty silt -in mass quantities. Fine powdered sandy particulates. It's like talcum powder. It sticks to everything. Into your intake it goes. It will clog up any air filter made, quick. It will turn the inside of your motor into muck. Try mixing some with a little water or oil. Yuck. Breathe deep - inside your lungs it will creep. Mix it with moisture in your lungs and it turns into plaster. In some individuals it can cause irritation of eyes, skin, upper respiratory system, conjunctivitis, rhinitis, and epistaxis (nosebleed). I'm wearing a surgical face mask just because. I run my air filter inside the cab in the race truck now via a plenum box; cleaner air inside the cab than inside the engine compart-ment. That is from experience when I toasted a motor clogged with silt. It wasn't a pretty sight. The course for the HORA Impe-rial 250 is 42 miles long, with one remote pit set up at about MM20. There are 7 Check Points and five manned Road Crossings. It twists and turns and zigs and zags and winds its way through all manner of desert terrain. It's layed out like a dog-legged figure 8 with lots of GPS way-points to keep track of to stay on course. This is a technical course with many turns and angles and curves, especially for those racers who don't use a GPS. That boils down to course markers, Mile Markers, and driving by the seat of your pants; having a good co-dawg who can read a map and a compass helps too. Not many GPS devices are ac-curate to less than a few meters. And even if you plug in the designated race course coordinates and way-points doesn't necessarily mean it is the 'best line' to follow. GPS also doesn't read variations in terrain like whoops and g-outs and silt beds and other miscellaneous got' chas. That's why they invented 'tulip' maps and course markers. I can also guarantee• that course conditions will deteriorate and change every lap with 112 race cars going over the same patch of dirt. Finding the best line under these conditions will be a challenge for both man and machine. •·"' Plaster City is known for its silt and G-out ditches. It's tough on cars and human bodies. The 8-mile sec-tion along Gypsum Road is brutal; it destroys cars. And this is desert dirt that hasn't been 'raced' on for several years. WooHoo! The Green Flag for Race # 1 started flying at 6:45 AM. The field of competitors for Race # 1 raced for four laps of fun (168 miles) and included 60 entries in 11 cliff Classes. Race #2 started at 1:00 PM and included 52 entries in ten cliff Classes. Race #2 got to do • five laps of fun. The morning race began early, and a bit on the chilly side, around sunrise. HORA stepped up the fun factor and that meant four full laps for all the classes; more real race · miles for everyone. WooHoo! That Brady Turner took second place honors in the Open Truck Division at Chris Ramey was the second place finisher in the Sportsman Limited Lucas Knecht gave it all he had but had to settle for second place in El Centro, he was over an hour in arrears when he finished. Truck Class, Chris was 40 minutes in arrears at the checkers. the Class 1600 melee, he was 3 minutes in arrears at the checkers. Page 20 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 21

l ........ . ' •••• f • ' •• . . . . '.,.' .. Carlos Fonseca was the big winner in the Class 1400 fracas, Carlos had just under seven minutes in hand at the checkers. also translated into attrition as the race went on. I listened over the main race radio channel and the course was taking it's toll with bro-ken parts, mechanical problems and a couple of wrinkled roof rollovers. Sixty racers saw the green flag fly. Thirty-one Racers got to the finish line to see the checkered flag. Plaster City is tough on cars. The 42-mile race course had it all -fast sections, technical turns, big holes and G-outs, sand washes, and of course the infamous Plaster City silt. And they all had to run about 8 miles on one of the roughest roads ever; Gypsum Rd breaks cars. Those who's race rides held up under the rigors of Plaster City made it into the winner's circle and atop the HDRA Podium, where the bubbly flew and flowed. HDRA knows how to celebrate Victory. After all the silt had settled and the Official times were tallied - Carlos Fonseca won First Overall and First in Class for the morning race in Open Sports-man truck #1436 in 3:27:25 at 46.5 mph. Here's how the morning race went down, in starting order by Class. ClASS 5/16 -Level 3: F o u r laps; 168 miles. Nine starters; .7 Finishers. Charles Guy got the pole start at the green flag in car #558. Mario Ledezma Jr. was next in line in car #572 and was off like a rocket at 44.2 mph to take the early lead and win Fast Lap honors on Lap 1, and then #572 DNFd after that. · That put Guy in the lead in car #558 by 37s ahead of Jorge Guttierrez in car #577 after Lap 1 was done. Guy picked up the pace on Lap 2, and so did Guttierrez but #577 did it a little faster and was out in front of Guy by lm:48s at the end of Lap 2. Gutierrez in car #577. Herrera actu-ally drove faster than Gutierrez on the last lap but it was too little too late and too much time to make up. Jorge Gutierrez finished all the laps in 4:32:01 at an average speed of 37.1 mph to win First Place in Class 5/16 in car #577 and by a 6m:35s margin-of-victory. David Herrera got all the laps done in 4:38:36 at 36.3 mph to win Second Place in Class in car #581. Eric Garcia won Third Place in Class in car #551 with an elapsed time 4:56:39 at 34.1 mph. That was a lm:30s margin of win ahead of Charles Guy in car #558. Guy finished in Fifth Place in an elapsed time of 4:58:09 at 33.8 mph. Sean Hogland finished in Fifth Place in car #567 in 5:11:16 at 32.4 mph. It took Stephanie Lozano 5:45:57 to complete all the required laps to finish in Sixth Plcae in car #566. Frank Cortez took a little lon-ger to finish in Seventh Place in car #570 in 5:50: 17 at 28.8 mph. CIASS 7s-Level 3: Four laps; 168 miles. Two starters; 2 Finishers. Kyle Milligan got the front start at the green flag in truck #7130 and jumped out to an early 30-minute lead by the end of Lap 1 ahead of Ralph Pickering in truck #7105. Milligan slowed down on Lap 2 and Pickering went slower too and #7130 increased his lead to 54-minutes. Pickering picked up Scott Rasmussen took the gold medal in the Class 15 battle, Scott was the only finisher in the class, seen here near touchdown. the pace and narrowed the gap on #7130 to 36-minutes at the end of Lap 3. Pickering gave it the gas on Lap 4 but it wasn't enough and Kyle Milligan pulled into the winner's cir-cle in 5:48:30 at 29 mph to win First Place in Class 7s in truck #7130 by a 32m:4ls margin of victory. Ralph Pickering won Second Place in truck #7105 in 6:21:11 at 26.5 mph. ClASS 9 -Level 3: F o u r laps; 168 miles. Four starters; 3 Fin-ishers. Tom McAdams was first off the line at the green flag in car #910. Derek Eugenio was at the front of the line in car #979 at the end of Lap 1 by lm:3ls ahead of Adam Sarver in car #969. McAdams was running IS-seconds behind Sarver. McAdmas upped the pace on Lap 2 and got the pass on Sarver and was running in second spot. Eugenio picked up the pace and took the fast lap honors on Lap 2 and increased his lead to IO-minutes ahead of car #910. Eugenio was still out in front of Sarver by IO-minutes after Lap 3 was done, and McAdams was run-ning about about 4-minutes ~hind Sarver. It ain't over until the checkered flag flies, Race Fans. Eugenio caught a case of the slows on Lap 4 and that allowed Sarver to get the pass. Car #969 got all four laps done in 5:41:59 at 29.6 mph to win First Place in Class 900 by a 5m:3ls margin of victory. Derek Eugenio finished all the laps in 5:47:22 at 29 mph to win Second Place in car #979 by 11-minutes. Tom McAdams won Third Place in Class in car #910 in an elapsed time of 5:58: 13 at 28.2 mph. CIASS 1400 Open Sportsman Truck-Level 4: Four laps; 168 miles. Twenty-two starters; 10 Fin-ishers. Wow! This was the class with the most racers in it and what a show it was. Carnage everywhere. Chris Bennet started in the pole position in truck #1440. Bennet DNF'd after lap 1, as did #1408 (Perrymon), #1476 (Attig), #1459 (Reynolds), and #1405 (Isenhouer). Ouch! That's twenty percent of the competition. Plaster City is tough on vehicles. Meanwhile - Kevin McMurray started in the number eight gate at the green flag in truck #1418 and was in the lead by lm:26s at the end of lap 1. Sal Gomez started in third spot at the Go Line in truck #1413 and was running in second spot by nine seconds in front of Carlos Fon-seca in truck #1436. McMurray fell off the pace on lap 2 and Conseca was now in the lead in truck #1436. Gomez fell back into third spot and Brandon Arthur moved into second spot in truck # 1456. Gregg Zumwalt had moved up into fourth spot in truck #1412. Kevin McMurray DNF'd after lap 2 in truck #1418. Sal Gomez had a tough lap 3 and #1413 retired for the day after that. That DNF allowed a shuffle in posi-tions in the race pack order going into the last lap. Zumwalt moved into third spot and Chris lsenhouer was now running in fourth position in truck #1454. Arthur gave it the gas on lap 4 and won the Fast Lap honors in truck #1456. It wasn't fast enough to catch the leader. Carlos Conseca cruised into First Place by a 6m:37s margin of victory in 3:37:25 at 46.5 mph in truck # 1436. "What a weekend! Thanks to HDRA, the entire crew at 30 Crew! Thanks to my wife, mom and dad, useless prep! Gra-cias a mis dos carnales, Franky and Bobby", Fonseca said. Also want to give a special thanks to my parmer, Jorge Ortega, you are becoming one bad a** driver. You're already there champ! See you guys at the 500!" Brandon Arther made it a race and won Second Place in truck #1456 in 3:44:02 at 45 mph. It took 3:54:28 for Gregg Zumwalt to win Third Place in truck #1412. Chris Isen-houer drove some very consistent lap times to win Fourth Place in truck #1405 in 3:58:10 at 42.4 mph. Ramin Bagheri got all the required laps done in 4: 18:23 to finish in Fifth Place in truck #1410. CIASS 1500 Unlimited Sports-man Buggies -Level 4: F o u r laps; 168 miles. Four starters; 1 Finisher. Robert Wagner jumped out front to take the early lead in car #1580 by 2m:39s in front of Eddie Zeller in car #1513 at the end oflap 1. Both Wagner and Zeller DNF' d after lap 1 was done. That left Paul Santos in car #1577 and Scott Ras-mussen in car #1565 to duke it out in the desert in Plaster City. Santos made a go at it and lasted through lap 3 before car #1577 DNFd too. That left Rasmussen to beat the desert by himself. Rasmussen saved the best for last and took the Fast Lap honors on Lap 4. Rasmussen was the sole finisher to complete all the required laps needed to win First Place in Class 1500 in 4:05: 10 C1ntinut~ IR ,111 22 Guy fell off the pace on Lap 3 in car #558 and that let David Herrera get the pass in car #581 to take over second position. Gutierrez slowed his pace too but car #577 was still in the lead by over 11-minutes in front of Herrera at the end of Lap 3. Guy slowed some more on Lap 4 and that let Eric Garcia get by in car #551. Herrera gave chase on Lap 4 in car #581 to close the gap on Jeremy Henderson took the win in the Sportsman Limited Truck Class, Jeremy It was a nice Class 10 win for Michael Deardoff at El Centro, he had five minutes on his competition when he took the checkered flag. had 30 minutes in hand when he took the coveted checkered flag. David Norris hits some soft stuff on his way to a silver medal finish Todd Stemmerman was 11 minutes behind the Class 12 winner at Sean Cook didn't have too bad a day, he finished in second place in in Class 10, he was five minutes in arrears at the finish. El Centro, he's seen here at high speed on his way to the finish line. Class 1900 and he was less than three minutes out of the class win. Dusty Times May 2012 Page 21

Page 22

,. . ~ . at 4;1.l_mph.m Car4tl5'$. -CJASS Wide Open CaFs fLe.vel 4: -. Four laps; f 68 miles. "'Four'-starters; 3 Finishers. Jay Primm got the pole position start.in car WO-4, followed by Craig Hanriot in car · WO-2. Cameron Thieriot was at t;he front of'the line in car WO,55_ at the end oflap 1 with_ a. lm: 11s lead·-• ahead-of Prim_m. Banriot DNF'd after his lap 1 was done. Primm pushed the pace on lap 2 and got the pass ori Thieriot with a 6-minute time advantage going into lap 3. Primm increased his lead to 6m:4 3s ahe~d of Thieriot going into the last lap. Thieriot must have been.driving 0 to save enough car for the last lap because he stomped on the gas on lap 4 and.took the Fast Lap honors. He also smoked past Primm to win First Place in Class Wide Open by a 6m:20s margin-of-victory in 4:00:52 at 42 mph in car WO-55. Jay Primm won Second Place in 4:06:12 at 41 mph in car WO-04. Roger Primm won Third Place in car WO-3 in 5:19:47 at 31.6 mph. CIASS 2000 Sportsman Limited Truck-Level 4: Four laps; 168 miles. Seven starters; 2 Finishers. These vehicles are like the Class 1400 trucks but equipped with rear leaf springs. Jeremy Hendersen got the hole shot at the green fl_ag in.car #2048. Brian Groves started at the back of the line and was out in front with 3m:05s of clean air in truck #2090 at the end oflap l. J~cob Nie-der was running in second position in truck #2089, about 40-seconds in front of Hendersen. Truck #2048 gave it more gas and got the pass on truck #2089 to take over second spot on lap 2. Groves stepped on the gas on lap 2 to win the Fast Lap honors and increased his lead to 6-minutes. And then - Groves caught a case of the dreaded DNF after lap 2; did-not-function. Nieder did too in truck #2089 after lap 3. Plaster City takes it's toll. Those and other DNFs left Jeremy Hendersen in truck #2049 and Chris Ramey in truck #2001 to duel it out for the win. Hendersen had a sizable 35-minute lead in front of Ramey going into lap 3. Ramey gave it more gas.on lap 3 and narrowed the gap on Hender-sen to 29-minutes going into the last Mike Malloy took the win in the Class 12 contest at El Centro, he had 11 minutes Bill Morris was the head guy in the'Class 1900 UTV action, Bill had about th;ee on his competition at the flag, seen here going for the sky. · minutes on his competition when he took the clieckers. lap. That's a lot of dirt to overcome three laps of fun before both DNF' d and second place an.cl it was "Bill Place· in Class 10, and Mike Malloy in one lap. It proved to be enough after Lap 3. Reyes had a tough lap 1 Morris who got there first to claim won First Place in Class 12. time for Jeremy Hendersen to win and was sidelined for over 2-hours. FirstPlaceincar#l908in5:10:40at CLASS Open Truck-Level 1: First Place in the Class 2000 Sports-That put Binggeli way out front 32.5 mph. Sean Cook took Second Five laps; 210 miles. Seven starte.rs; man Limited division by' a healthy with a 29-minute lead at the end of Place in car #1930, and also got 2 Finishers. I·love the smell of race · 29-minute margin-of-victory in truck lap 1. Binggeli thinks #1143 is done dinged with a 2-minute time penalty gas coming from raw horsepower #2048 in 5: 11:48 at 32.4 mph. Ra-for the day and slows his pace on for "Failed to stop and speeding at engines. The ground rumbles under meywon Second Place in 5:41:54 at the second lap. Meanwhile -Reyes S/F''. That's the Rules. my feet. The field of corripeti_tois. 29.6 mph in truck #2001. gets #1143 fixed and turns in the Race #2 -The afternoon race got in the OT Class got real tl\in te'al CLASS 1300 Sportsman Limited Fast Lap of the day on Lap 2. That underway about 1 P.M. It was beau- fast when four trucks DNF' d before Buggy-Level 4: Four laps; 168 puts Reyes about 25-minutes behind tiful weather - sunny and clea,r blue completing the first lap. Ouch!Joih-• miles. One starter; 1 Finisher. Den- Benggeli. Reyes stayed on the gas skies, temps in the· upper 80F, and ing team DNF were #22 (Billansky), nis Trogus was, th.e ~ole~entry_ and on lap 3 and g<?t the. pass -on Bepg-_,~ t;r;iough breeze to keep the course #11 (Eugenio), #27 (Giannini), and the sole wino.er iii Class 1300 in. geh. And.then - bug #\143 and Bug clear· of du~t and, silt.-I _hung out #5-l (Edgmon). Ruben Ledezman car #1348. It just goes to show that· "# 1108 b.oth DNF' d after Lap 3. around the HDRA Podium at S/F, got two -laps of fun done in OT #67 your only real competition ts the Yoikes! Reyes had a six-minute time h,aq some pizza and liquid refresh- before he joined team DNF too. I desert. J"rogus defeated Plaster City _ advantage at that point. Plaster City ment in the shade of the Monster talked "Yi,th Bill Belansky the DoR in an elapsed tiine of 5: 13:44 at 32.2 . claims two more victories. · Energy tent, and' even got to chat fot Open Truck #22, who got in mph. #1348 took home the Fast lap CLASS 1900 UTV_ - Level 3: with Iron Man Stewart for a bit. four miles of fun before the tranny honors on Lap 3 too. Four laps; 168 miles. Four starters; Race #2 was for th~ raw power blew; for the second race in a row. CIASS Stock Truck-Level 3: 2 Finishers. Russell Stebar in UTV and big toy Classes: Open Truck Ouch. Belansky said: [expletives Four laps; 168 miles. One starter; #1997 and Jacob Shaw in UTV (trophy trucks), 1, 4400, 10, 12, deleted]. ' 0 Finishers. Robert Roglin was the .#\956 didn't even gei: in one full lap -1600, 8, 7, Heavy Metal, 3000 (tro- Meanwhile-Jimmy Nuckles from sole entry in the. Stock Truck Class of fun before they both recorded a phy lites), and 5-unlimited. They all Brawley CA gave it the gas from in truck #8115. Roglin won the Fast DNF for the day. Meanwhile - Sean raced for five full laps; 210 miles. the Go Line in OT #48 and never Lap honors on Lap 1 at a blistering Cook in l/TV #1930 and Bill Mor- Fifty.three racers started in eleven looked back; clean air. The need 13.4 mph. Roglin completed Lap 1 ris in UTV,#1908 dueled it out and Classes; 21 racers got to the check-for speed. Nuckles set the race pace in 3:08:55, and that. was the end of were wi,th one-second of each other ered flag. Jimmy Nu~kles lead the when he blistered lap 1 at XX mph #8115 race day. FYI: Dusty Times at the end<)f l~p 1, with Cook in the whole field the·whole race in his to win Fast Lap honors. Nuckles set has a "no unpaid advertising" Policy, lead. Cook we~t faster on lap 2 ~nd #48 trophy _truck and won Hrs in ¢le ra~e pace when he averaged 54.8 so we don't name sponser's in our #1930 was out in front by 4m:47s Open Truck Class and First Overall mpn to win First Place in Class and articles. But - I will ·make an excep-after lap_ 1 was done. Cook slowed with a ·huge margin of win. Cam- First Overall in 3:50:37. Nuckles " tion in this case and extend a hearty down on lap 3 and Mortis got the eron Thieriot drove in the'morning bested 'the rest of the competition WooHoo! to #8115 sole sponser: pass and was out in front by lm:22s · race in a Wid~ Open Class car, and _,when he finished by a 26m:33s mar-"tfom". You go gid! going into the last lap. ' then hopped in his #118 car for the ·gin of victory ahead of the Second CIASS 11 Stock Beatie -Level 3: Cook picked up the pace on aftento.o~· race and finished First Overall winner. Nuckles lead the Four laps; 168 miles. Two starters; 0 lap 4 and took home the Fast Lap in Class 1 Unlimited and Second whole race with a huge lead. Then Finishers. Well, Race Fans -at least honors for the effort. When· the · Overall - giving Thieriot two First · about 20:miles from the finish Qust Daniel Reyes in bug #1143 and Neil checkered flag flew there was only Places in.'different Classes in ·one after·Gypsum Rd.) he lost all powet Binggeli iJl bug #l_108 each got in a 50-second· interval between tirst day. Michael_ Deard_orf won ·First --------------...-.-------.... We 'are sure David Herrera doesn't laniJ this way~ o often,•David Ralph Pickering was well off the winning pace in the Class 7S contesr, took the silver medal in Class 5/1600.at Ef Centro. · · · . • h~ took second spot, he's seen here in his really good looking Kia. , Ya·can't say t;)~reff Eugenio doesn-'rknow how"to' fly, l)e wa~ second in· the .Class 9 contest, he's seen her-e flying tow~rds tlfe ch~ckers: Jay Primm does a real nose dive as he hurries towards the checkered Brandon Arthur had a decent time at El Centro, he drove his truck to a It was a third place finish for Kevin Graves in the Class ½-1600 battle, flag at El Centro, Jay finished second in the Wide Open Car category. second place finish in the Class 1400 competition, here just at landing. Kevin could be giving flying lessons in his spare time. Page 22 May 2012 -Dusty Times T

Page 23

Page 24

. ,. , . . . . . . . . . . ' . . ' ' . ~ . . . . . . . . . . . ~ . ... ...A. ... ·-~ ....... ····-1-. . . ' .. Chad Dohrman had a very long first lap, buthecarriedonandwhen the Vic Bruckmann's very long first lap didn't help, but, he did manage It was a third place finish in Class 5/1600 for Eric Garcia at El Centro, checkers flew he had secured a third place finish in the Class 10 action. to save the race by finishing in third place in the Class 12 action. Eric is seen here taking to the air on his way home. steering and had to fight with his silt was thick and zesty. Just imagine honors. That put #1260 90-seconds with Mac Marmon giving chase in another DNF for Plaster City. Josh own truck just to get it to the finish trying to drive through several feet ahead of Todd Stemmerman in car car #1695. That duel lasted through Quintero got all the required laps line. deep of powdery chalk. It's like dry #1201. Malloy stayed on the gas on lap 3 when both racers DNF'd. Rob done in 4:44:31 at 44.4 mph to take "We had a great time," Knuckles quick sand. It just sucks up and laps 2 and 3 and increased his lead Archibald DNF'd in car #1606 after the First Place and solo win in Class said. "I just hope we hit all those ar-tries to bury whatever it encounters. to over 12-minutes. Soren Megling lap 4. 7 in truck #7248. rows. The course was marked great Check out the pies at TrackSide was running in third spot in car All those DNF's left Joey CLASS3000TrophyLites-Level but it's just so hard to see when the Photo. Through it all emerged Cam- #1215 about 27-minutes behind Westhoff in car #1691 dueling it out 2: Five laps; 210 miles. Two starters; dust got bad. I had my power steer- eron Thietriot and Kash Vessels to Stemmerman but 6-minutes ahead with Lucas Knecht in car #1666 for 0 Finishers. Erik Reynolds didn't ing go out on the last lap right at the win First Place Class l Unlimited of Vic Bruckmann in car #1299. the win. Knecht was out in front of even get one lap of fun done before top of Gypsum Rd. So I just fought and Second Overall driving their Bruckman was 80-seconds ahead of Westoff by 3-minutes at the end of #3056 DNF'd for the day. Ross Mat-it in the rest of the way. But it was a Jimco car #118. Thieriot got all 210 Charlie Townsley in car# 1277. lap 3. Westhoff narrowed that gap tox set the Fast Lap pace on Lap l in good day, when we don't have any miles done in 4:17:10 at 49 mph to Things got re-arranged on laps 4 to 37-seconds going into the lastlap. #3007, and DNF'd after lap 2. No problems we can run with the best win by a ten-minute margin of vie-and 5. Megling caught a case of the Westhoff stayed on the gas and got fun at all. of them. I really have to thank Roger tory. "I have to thank Cam, he ran slows and fell off the race pace in the pass on lap 5. Westhoff got to CLASS 5 Unlimited -Level 2: [Norman) for doing this. I really the first two laps and I filled in the car #1215. That allowed both Bruck- the finish line 3m: 16s faster than Five laps; 210 miles. Two starters; l want to thank HDRA for putting last three", said Kash. "My co-dog man and Townsley to get the pass, Knecht did to take the First Place Finisher. Steven Hall took the early on a race here for us. It's nice to Nick helped me all day. Knuckles and the race to the finish line was win in car # 1691. Knecht did it in lead on lap l in car #534 by 15m:35s have racing back here in Plaster City was gone so I didn't even try to catch on. Bruckman was broke down for 5:56:49 to win Second Place in car ahead of Richard Garavito in car and not have to drive to Nevada him - he was really wheelin' that over 90-minutes in car #1299 on lap #1666. #505, and won the Fast Lap honors just so we can race. Thanks!" Brady thing. HDRA put on a great race, l. He got it fixed and was now back CLASS 8 -Level 2: F i v e for doing so. Hall took a beating on Turner was the only other competi- great race course, great organization. in the race and pushing the pace ev-laps; 210 miles. Three starters; 0 lap 2 and was sidelined for almost tor in Class OT to complete all the I'm very impressed." ery lap. It was a close race all the way Finishers. Plaster City didn't bode 3-hours doing repairs. That allowed required laps to win Second Place in Victor Gruber motored car #148 to the finish line. Both Bruckman well for any of the racers in Class Garavito to get the pass and com-OT #82 in 5: 10:07. to the checkered flag in 4:27:40 at and Townsley each averaged 40.3 8. Rick Harrah was sidelined for plete his third lap before Hall got CLASS l Unlimited -Level l: 47.2 mph to win Second Place in mph, and when the checkered flag almost three hours on lap l in truck Car #534 fixed and back underway. Five laps; 210 miles. Six starters; Class l and Third Overall. Rick did fly - there was only 17-seconds #8006. Harrah got it fixed and set Hall got his lap 3 done before #534 6 Finishers. No DNF's. I don't re-Geisner put car #125 to the test on seperating third and fourth place. the Fast Lap of the day on lap 3, and DNF'd for the day. Garavito mo-member a race where all the starters laps 4 and five and came away with The Third Place win went to Victor then #8006 DNF' d. Chris Shive tored on and took the First Place in Class l also finished. Amazing. the Third Place win in 4:34:06 at Bruckman in car #1299 in 5:13:33 got in three laps of fun in truck win in car #505. Here's how it happened: 46 mph. Crate it up and ship it to by a 17-second margin. Charlie #8088 before he joined team DNF Wow! I'm impressed. The new Cameron Thieriot got the front Australia. The land downunder is Townsley did it in 5: 13:50 in car too. That left David Bryan in truck and improved HDRA series is for start in car # 118 and was still in gonna rumble. Rob Figlioli got it all #1277 to win Fourth Place. #8024 as the sole competitor. Just real. This is a new format and ven-front by 29-seconds at the end of done in 5:01:49 at 41.9 mph to fin-Both Mike Malloy and Todd finish. Alas -It wasn't to be. Bryan ue for promoting off road racing the first lap. Victor Gruber was run- ish in Fourth Place for the day in car Stemmerman averaged in the made it through lap 4 before #8024 events. All the race winner's w.ere ning in second spot in car #148 after #108. Brian Salmon ran into a case SO-minute per lap range for five was done for the day too. treated to a champaigne toast aruf' starting third in line. Rick Geisner of the slows on lap 4 but managed a full laps. That's a testament to the CLASS 7 -Level 2: F i v e shower atop the podium with 'Live' was running in third spot in car Fifth Place finish in 5:08:07 at 40.9 fortitude of both man and machine. laps; 210 miles. Three starters; l tv coverage. They had a tv-cam #125 about 25-seconds behind Gru- mph in car #111. Mike Mitchell was I mean - the stretch of race course Finisher. Jamie Galles got the early equipped helicopter covering the her. This was the shake-down run down for over two hours on lap l in along Gypsum Road is just brutal. jump start and recorded the Fast race action too. HDRA is taking it for # 125, a right-hand drive ride the car # 107. Mitchell got it fixed and It breaks race cars apart and tears Lap time of the day and was out in t.o the next level. This is the new Big Geisner Bros. built for a couple of turned in the three fastest lap times them up into broken pieces. Ouch. front at the end of lap l in truck Time - off road race coverage in the blokes from Australia. Mike Mitch-of the day in class. Mitchell finished Malloy averaged 1.8 mph faster than #7299, with Chris Taylor in truck 21st century. ell was sidelined for over 2-hours on in 5:26: 15 at 38. 7 mph to take home Stemmerman did, and that translat- #7206 8-seconds off his rear bum- These are Events - not just races. lap l in car #107, but got it fixed and the Sixth Place trophy. That's called ed into a margin of win of llm:24s per. Josh Quintero was running The first HDRA Stateline race will was back on track after that. true grit, Race Fans. at the checkered flag. Mike Malloy in third spot in truck #7248 about be televised on FOX Sports on May Thieriot and Gruber stuck to- CLASS 4400 Unlimited Rock won First Place in Class 12 in car 60-seconds behind Taylor. Taylor 10th at 5 p.m. and the Imperial 250 gether like glue and were only seper- Crawler -Level 2: Five laps; 210 # 1260 in 4:31: 16 at 46.5 mph. Todd fell off the pace on lap 2 and #7206 race will be on the following week. ated by 1.6 seconds at the end of miles. One starter; 0 Finishers. Greg Stemmerman won Second Place in DNF'd after that. Galles stayed on Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart will be shar-lap 2. Geisner slowed on lap 2 in McNair was the sole}ntry in Class 4:42:40 at 44.7 mph in car #1201. the gas and increased his lead to ing the co-host duties. It's all about car #125 and that allowed Brian in #4418. McNair s t the Fast Lap CLASS 1/2,1600-Level 2: 1-minute at the end oflap 2. how many viewers tum on their TV Salmon in car # 111 to get the pass. pace on lap l. McNair was down for Five laps; 210 miles. Thirteen start- Galles got the slows on lap 3 and to watch, so be sure to tune in, Race That put Salmon about 3-minutes over three hours o,n lap 2 and #4418 ers; 3 Finishers. 75% of the cars that that allowed Quintero to get the Fans. You can help make it a success behind the race leaders. Gruber was done for the day after that. started - Did-Not-Finish. That's a lot pass in truck #7248 with a 26-min- if you send FOX Sports a '2,thumbs fell off the pace on lap 3 and that CLASS 12 -Level 2: of carnage, Race Fans. Ouch. Joe ute lead after lap 3. Galles called up' e-maiVtxt: "I Like It! I want to allowed Thieriot to increase his lead Five laps; 210 miles. Six starters; 5 Laff clocked in the Fast Lap of the it quits after lap 3 in truck #7299, see more". TIA for your support. to six minutes. Meanwhile, Mike Finishers. Mike Malloy and Rick day on Lap 1 in car #1644. Mario after being dinged with a 4-minute The next HDRA happening is Mitchell set the Fast Lap pace of the Poole drove their Old Skool single- Gastelum was 68-seconds behind, time penalty for Failed to Stop and in Reno NV and will cover an en-day on his lap 3 in car #107. seater car #1260 to the front of the but one lap of fun was all car #1607 excessive speeding at S/F. Score tire week of fun. There is an extra The competition was fierce. The line on Lap 1 and won the Fast Lap got done. That put Laff in the lead tll UlDUSll\l'S BEil lEPl IECI\El Engine Oil Gear Oil Motorcycle Oil Greases Cooling & Marine products www.neosynthetlcoll.com Page 24 May 2012 Jorge Gutierrez was the Class 5/1600 winner at El Centro, he had six minu.tes on his competition when he took the checkered flag. Dusty Times

Page 25

r A long second and fourth lap didn't help Roger Primm too much, he Gregg Zumwalt took third place honors in the Class 1400 Open Chris lsenhouer finished first off the podium in the Class 1400 fracas, did manage to save a bronze medal finish in the WideOpen Car Class. Sportsman Truck Class, seen here saving a bit of tire wear. he's seen here in his really good looking truck headin' for home. $25,000 in purse money for the golden goose no matter what you regulations say. It's the "enforce" Somebody has to watch the watch- conditions spelled out in the Spe-Reno race, so that should attract call it otherwise. The way BLM tells part that I have an 'issue' with, and ers to ensure they are doing their job cial Use Permit. Traffic cop means more racers to compete. The Reno it - they are there to "monitor and what and how BLM does it. It's and earning every red cent they get; enforcing the speed limit at Check race will also be held on private enforce"; to keep spectators out of when I see over zealous BLM enforc- $1000 per day per BLM on duty. Is Points, Road Crossings, remote pits, property that just happens to be harms way lest there is another trag- ing traffic violations for $1000 per it money well spent? Their job is to and S/F; not rousting spectators. 80,000 acres in size; that's 125 ic incident. That is what their own day each that I take issue with. enforce the safety requirements and Continued an page 26 square miles, Race Fans. That's a lot of dirt. That is twice as big as Plaster City OHV is. That's twice as big than the City of Reno. Just imagine having your own private off road rancho with that mucho land; the possibilities are staggering. From what I saw, the Imperial 250 was done in top-of-the-line professional form. Nonetheless, I overheard the BLM lady say they "had a couple of issues". I didn't O'llerhear what BLM's 'issues' were. From what I observed - I saw BLM Rangers rousting people. I saw 4 BLM Rangers roust 4 young guys in a truck for 15 minutes, and then they stood around for another 10 minutes con-fabing with each other. They were on the hunt for any per-ceived violation. It looked like bra-vado enforcement to me; in my own opinion, of course. BLM can't get too heavy-handed in issuing, regulating and enforcing Spedal Use Permits or they will kill the proverbial 'golden goose' of revenue that open desert rac-ing generates for their coffers too. BLM charges a chunk of money for monitoring and enforcing safety that racers pay in their entry fee, so somebody has to watch the watchers to ensure they are doing their job. My job is to observe and report what I see, and I have 'issues' with how BLM does their job. My 'issue' with BLM is the price they charge. You can call it a Land Use Fee or a Cost Recovery Fee or the price you pay to play -but when it tallies up to $ 1000 a day for each BLM on duty ... translates into mucho expen6ive BLM traffic cops in my book. What I saw was a herd of BLM on traffic cop duty roust-ing people. Just so you know - it is the CA Vehicle Code that regu-lates vehicle use and operations in OHVs on BLM land: Division 16.5 - Off-Highway Vehicles (Sections 38000 - 38506). I carry a copy in my glove box. My experience to critique their job perfomance comes from years of doing medical rescue for off road races down in Baja - where there wasn't any BLM-types except for the Federales. We knew we were it when it came to rescue and safety. We wrote the rulebook and set the standards for doing it without any government oversight or bra-vado enforcement; people's lives depended on it. Be vigilant and fair in your duties BLM. Just because you are monitoring the race in an official government capacity doesn't mean somebody isn't watching you, because I am there to see and report too. !HA Seriously, Race Fans. $ 1000 a day for each BLM on duty? That's a Dusty Times - -. HJC MOTORSPORTS G FORCE' RACINe-ry Break ower • 100 Gallon Capacity • Sl.ngle or Double Dry Break • EZSetUp • Affordable IndyCar Fl Technology lccusorlea • Dump Cans •Hose • Reducers • Filler Necks & Caps Bebuts • Snell SA 2005 Forced Air Helmets • Wired for Communication & Ear Bud Ready • Racing Optics Tear Offs • Universal and Custom Molded Bar Buds • Helmet Skirts • Shields l:otl llrni Blower Sy1tea1 • Highest Flowing Systems I • 105, 135, 150, 235 and 250 CFM Ratings • High Flow Filters & Custom Hoses • Trophy Kart Kits for Driver & Clutch Cooler VI • oa8y.ste • Vertex 5 to llO Watt Radio Systems • Hi·Fl Intercom Systems • Chase & Race Packages • Base Station Packages • Crew Chief & Kart Packages Ill Car Cul.era Syatea • EZ 1 Button Operation • Exoluslve Racer X M'otorsports Package • 5.7 hours of High Resolution recording time • Up to 12 hours of operation on 4AA Lithium Ion Batteries • Can be Interfaced to Intercom for full audio experience 1c,11111 • 411/2 Gallon Capacity • SCORE I BITD / FIA Approved • Tapered Design Provides Increased Ground Clearance & M'axim.lzes Usable Fuel • Fuel Level Sending Units Available • Caps. Necks, Hose, Filters and Pumps Available YOUB SOUBCE FOB PBOFESSIONAL BACE PRODUCTS 10815 Wheatlands Avenue, Suite K • Santee, CA 92071 619-258-RACE (7223) • Fax 619-258-0883 • www.RacerXms.com May 2012 Page 25

Page 26

How m~ny BLM were assjgned to · monitor the race course compared to those on traffic cop duty? Get your priorities right. I can only encourage course worker volunteers (who don't get paid $ 1000 a day) to monitor and report what you observe BLM doing; where & when and what they do to earn $ 1000 per day. The· accbunting is in the details of the spreadsheet. All I'm sug-gesting is that BLM be transparent and account for how every red cent they get from each Special Use Per-mit they issue actually gets spent. $15,000 in Land Use Fees ain't cheap. At that price -I want to know who is doing what to "monitor and enforce" the Conditions of the Spe-cial Use Permit. If BLMs definition of "enforce" includes being traffic cops out rousting people in atten-dance - I have an issue with that; not for $ 1000 per BLM. That is a matter of misguided and misplaced priorities and resources. I'd like to see all the incident reports so we know just what that Land Use Fee is spent on. I mean seriously, Race Fans - would you write a $15,000 check to BLM for Land Use Fee 'services rendered' and not expect a detailed accounting of who did what, for your money? BLM doesn't. That's my issue with BLM. Please 'splain to me just why it costs so mucho. If my math is wrong - let's see your numbers. My hunch is that the Land Use Fee sic Cost Recovery Fee is a cash cow for BLM. It's a siz-able amount of money. I just can't fathom why it costs so much for BLM to "monitor and enforce" the safety conditions of a Special USe Permit? It's the race promoter who installs the orange safety netting and sets up safe Spectator Viewing Areas and enlists a platoon of volunteers to comply with the conditions that BLM imposes on the SUP. BLM is supposed to monitor the race and ensure the Conditions of the SUP are enforced. And they get $15,000 in Land Use Fees sic Cost Recovery Fees to do that, per race. Not bad money for a hard days work. I can only wish I got paid that much. The tragedy of 200? was due to too many spectators gathered too close to the race course in an unsafe area and nobody was there to control the crowd. It's everyone's fault; equal blame of BLM, MDR, spectators in the landing zone, and driving too fast under the conditions. The Rockpile has henceforth been totally eliminat-ed from the course geometry. Specta-tors are now relegated to designated Viewing Areas. BLM has imposed strict course setback requirements for safety that apply to everybody; even this Ace Reporter. My 'issue; with BLM is that they have handed the responsibility and financial burden of race safety to the race promoter, and BLM then charges a big fee for their people to "monitor and enforce" what and how it gets done. Getting paid Josh Quintero was the only finisher in the Class 7 contest, Josh averaged 44mph for the very rough course, seen here at takeoff. $ 1000 a day to be a traffic cop at off road races is not my idea of fair. Meanwhile - kudos to the medi-cos on-scene who treated 2 seriously injured racers when they flipped their car and only had their lap belts on without any shoulder straps latched up. They were air-evacted out with a broken sternum and cer-vical neck trauma, and kudos to the Reach helicopter life rescue crew, too. Good work! All I can say from what I saw is that HDRA is on track to becoming one of the premier off-road sanc-tioning bodies in the sport, once again. I'm sure Walt Lott is smiling. I saw a lot of smiles from the racers who finished and their entourages of supporters. Race Fans got to see it up close and personal. That's called the real deal. I get to turn it into print media for our readers. The fact is, Race Fans - there are only so many OHVs in southern CA that have Permited open desert racing style courses: Barstow, Lu-cerne Vally, Johnson Valley (King of the Hammers), Ridgecrest, and Plaster City. They used to have desert races at California City and the Superstition Mountains, too. The tradgedy of 2009 changed that formula forever. It will change even more if the Marines take over John-son Valley to practice Live Fire! tank exercises with Live ammo rounds. Duck and cover. If that happens, we will see more people using less OHV area more often. The demand for off road recreational areas and activities isn't going to diminish in popularity. The other alternative is to apply for Special Use Permits to race in the other BLM OHVs here in soCal: El Mirage out past Adel-anto; Superstition Mountain; Rasor OHV out by Baker; Hungry Valley at Tajon Pass; etc. On the other hand - how much demand for open desert tank war-fare can you think of? The only place with a lot of desert to attack is Iran, and Johnson Valley OHV. The US MIL already owns about ten percent of the entire state of CA. They need JV OHV too? Will those tanks and soldiers generate as much local economic revenue as off road-ing does· now? They will for the 29 Palms community. How about BLM establishing a 29 Palms OHV area of equal size to that of JV as mitigation for the Marines? All those Marines, and off roaders that use JV now, will be looking for places to recreate and spend money. At this point I will Note that the Wounded Soldier's Project collected an est. $10,000-20,000 in donations at the HDRA Imperial 250 race. It was a pile of cash. It's a worthy cause. There were some Navy Seals on scene and we could proudly print their names and post their pictures, but then we'd have to kill ya' and bury your body in the desert for na-tional security purposes. !HA Let's just say that the folks at HDRA have a proven record of suc-cess - both on and off the track, and they are putting that experience to the test. It's part of the evolution of open desert racing in the southwest USA. Media is a huge priority and HDRA has no qualms about get-ting sponsers names and products into the lime light and the public eye, like other forms of racing do. It's called advertising and exposure of your product "Brand". It's what sponsers do. It's part of the payback they get. And yes -we encourage you to advertise your product or service in Dusty Times because that is what we do: we cover the world of competition in the dirt and you get exposure in ink. And yes - you too can win the highly coveted Dusty Times contingency prize, but you need to run Dusty Times stickers on the panels of your race ride to qualify. !HA Yes indeed-HDRA is back! Wel-come to The Big Time, Race Fans. The challenge for off road racing has always been exposure -in a format that appeals to the masses. Open desert racing is not an easy event to bring to television. Not many specta-tors go out and gather alongside a 40-mile long chrt course winding it's way through the desert. And that has been the weak link in bringing open desert racing to a mass view-ing audience. It's a lot oflength and Cam Thieriot took the win in the Wide Open Car Class, Cam had five minutes and change on his competition when he took the checkers. logistics to cover and race action can happen any place at any time, so be-ing in the right spot at the right time is the key to getting the good shots. We've all seen the mass quantities of spectators at the Baja SCORE races, and the BITD events stateside. HDRA is poised to fill that viewer ·gap and tap into a bigger market. Desert race photographers know where to be, so setting up a TV or video camera in the same spots seems like a good idea. Those would also be good spots to set up viewing areas so spectators can get in on the race action too; safely, of course. That's one way I could always tell that 'something' lie in hiding on the course ahead was when a pho-togra p her or horde of spectators appeared out in the middle of no-where. They were usually gathered there to see some got' cha race action that wasn't marked on the official Course map. WooHoo! We're gon-na have a fun ride. You can buy DVD race videos that show bits of racers and action at such and such event, but they don't have any commentary or editing to put the race in context. HDRA wants to change that and produce real TV shows, hosted by real racers like Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart. HDRA has their own helicopter and Cine-flex Camera at each race and will be producing live broadcast tv and viral videos. Lots of racers competing in big events - that's what I'm talkin' about, Race Fans. WooHoo! That's the stuff that sponsers and racers dream of. Meanwhile - Dusty Times maga-zine has 29 years of experience bringing you real race action up close in print - how it happened and who won what that covers the race {tom start to finish with all the action in between too. I'm here to bring you the story. I know where I turn to first when I'm looking for a race-proven product or service - the ads in Dusty Times. If you look close at the HDRA Podium for the Impe-rial 250 race you will see the Dusty Times logo. The thing is -Where else can you find all the recent race news and action in each issue? Dusty Times covers it all. See ya at the next race. ATTENTION M.O.R.E. RAC-ERs!! - Dusty Times readers want to hear about it from the driver's seat - "your" race story goes *here* But If you don't stop at S/ F and give me an interview - or send me an e-mail of your race story - I don't have anything to write about except your name, number, and time. That'' translates into - No ink! There is only one of me and many of you. If you don't - No ink. It's that simple. Send me your M.O.R.E. story: baja-racr@verizon.net l:Jl~RJ:!I Victor Gruber had a pretty good day, he took second place honors in the Class 1 battle, he's seen here in beautiful, level flight. Ramin Bagheri was the fifth place finisher in the Open Sportsman Dave Niccum makes a hard landing in his truck as he hurries to a Truck competition, Ramin averaged 39.1mph for his four hour run. sixth place finish in the Open Sportsman Truck Class. Sean Hoglund was a bit off the winning pace in the Class 5/1600 fracas, Sean finished fifth in the class, he's seen here just at takeoff. Page 26 May 2012 Dusty Times 7

Page 27

Page 28

AT FIREBIRD Kyle LeDuc Takes Pro4 By]. Preston Bradshaw Photos: Trackside Photo Kyle LeDuc took the Pro 4 Unlimited win both days at Firebird Raceway, he beat a bunch of good racers, he's seen here in a high speed drift. The Lucas Oil season opener at Firebird Raceway was a real barn burner, 149 vehicles were there to race and they all raced hard, some not so hard as others but race they did and rear all about it here. · The Pro 2 Unlimited Group had 14 entrants for the Saturday race and nine of them completed the 20 required laps. When the dust cleared from the stadium it was Marty Hart taking a really nice win, Rob MacCachren was less than a second in arrears for second place, Robby Woods came in a few seconds later for third place, Jeff Geiser was the fourth truck to fin-ish and Jeremy McGrath took fifth place honors. Rodrigo Ampudia took sixth place, he was another second in arrears, Patrick Clark was seventh in, he was another seven seconds in arrears, Jeremy Stenberg was the eighth finisher and Nick Tyree was the ninth and final 20 lap finisher. Greg Adler only got 17 laps completed, Carl Renezeder only finished 14 laps, Brian Deegan finished 13 laps, Justin Davis only completed seven laps and Derrick Sproule did not complete a lap. The Sunday Pro 2 Unlimited was a completely different ball game. Here, we saw Greg Adler taking the checkered flag for a great first place finish, Brian Deegan was less than a second behind in second place, Rodrigo Ampudia was an-other second back in the third spot, Jeff Geiser finished first off the podium and Marty Hart took fifth place honors. Sixth place went to Rob Naughton, Patrick Clark was seventh in, Derrick Sproule was the eighth place finisher, Nick Tyree was the ninth vehicle in, Jeremy McGrath took the 10th place finish and Jeremy Stenberg was the 11th and final 19 lap finisher. Rob Mac-Cachren had to call it quits one lap short of a finish, Carl Renezeder only had 11 laps completed and Justin Davis called it quits after only one lap. The Pro 4 Unlimited Class had 12 entrants, they had 20 laps to race and in the Saturday event there were only seven finishers. Kyle LeDuc was the man to beat in the Saturday event, he motored around at an average speed of 94 miles per hour and took the gold medal for the class, Adrian Cenni Steven Greinke took the Pro Buggy Unlimited win on Saturday, took the silver medal on Sunday, seen here saving a bit of tire wear. The Umited Buggy win on Saturday went to John Fitzgerald, John had to settle for a third place finish in the Sunday action. was the second place finisher, he was four seconds in arrears, Todd LeDuc finished six seconds behir{d his brother in third place, the father of the two boys, Curt LeDuc finished first off the po-dium and Josh Merrell took fifth place honors, another five seconds back. Carl Renezeder was the sixth truck to finish and Jerry Daugherty was the seventh and final 20 lap finisher. Greg Adler only finished 18 laps, Travis Coyne got 12 laps completed, Corry Weller finished seven laps, Ryan Beat only had two laps completed and Eric Barron only completed one lap. The Sunday Pro 4 Unlimited race was a re-run of the Saturday affair, it was Kyle LeDuc taking the class win, Adrian Cenni took sec-ond place honors, again and Todd LeDuc was the bronze medal win-ner, just like Saturday. Josh Merrell was the fourth place finisher and Curt LeDuc rounded out the first five. Jerry Daugherty took the sixth place finish, Carl Renezeder, well off the pace was seventh to finish, Travis Coyne was eighth in and' Corry Weller was ninth and the last of the 20 lap trucks. Ryan Beat got 18 laps completed, as did Greg Adler and Eric Barron finished five laps before calling it a day. The Pro Buggy Unlimited troops were 25 strong and in the Saturday race fully 16 of them fin-Doug Fortin flew his car to a second place finish in the Saturday Pro Kevin McCullough took the silver medal in Umited Buggy in the Saturday Chris Brandt flew his Toyota to a second place finish in Pro Lite Unlimited Buggy Unlimited contest, he was a long 10th place finisher on Sunday. race, Kevin was a long ninth place finisher in the Sunday event. on Saturday, Chris finished second once again in the Sunday race. Robby Woods took third place honors in the Saturday Pro 2 Unlimited Mike Porter flew his buggy to the bronze medal on Saturday in the Pro Jordan Poole took third place honors in the Limited Buggy race on race, Robby did not appear on the finishing list for the Sunday race. Buggy Unlimited race, Mike was a dnf in the Sunday race. Saturday, unfortunately, Jordan was a dnf in the Sunday race. Page 28 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 29

Doug Mittag won thf! bronze medal on Saturday in the Pro Lite Unlimited Trenton Briley took third place honors on Sunday in the Super Ute Greg Adler finished 10th in the Saturday Pro 2 Unlimited race, however, fracas on Saturday, Doug finished 14th in the Sunday race. contest, Trent finished in the sixth spot in the Saturday contest. Greg took the gold medal in the Sunday event. ished all 18 required laps. Steven Greinke was the big winner on Saturday, he averaged 87 miles per hour for the race, Doug Fortin was a second and a half in arrears in sec-ond place, Mike Porter took a third place finish, Jerry Whelchel owned the fourth spot and Jeff Cooley took fifth place honors. John Hol-mes was sixth to finish, he was 10 seconds behind the winner, Pat Dean was lucky, or unlucky seventh place finisher, Larry Job came along two seconds later in eighth place, Rich Ronco finished in ninth place and Dave Mason rounded out the top 10. 11th place went to Mitchell Dejong, Todd Fitch made it an even dozen finishers, Robb Harvey finished in the 13th spot, Lonny Hart was 14th to finish and Ryan Hancock was 15th to finish. 16th place went to Andy Zipperer, he was the last of the required lap fi-ishers. Garrett George was 17th in, with 16 laps complete, Ken Stout took 18th place, he too completed 16 laps, Rino Navera was 19th with 15 laps completed and Patrick Pendley finished in 20th place with 14 laps under his belt. Cameron Steele only finished 11 laps, Joe Masek finished 10 laps and was shown 22nd, Mark Dyer also com-pleted 10 laps and was shown 23rd, Eddie Tafoya only completed three laps and was shown 24th and Wade Wyman only completed one lap and was shown as 25th and last in the race. The Sunday Pro Buggy Unlim-ited had the same 25 contestants. They had 18 laps to run and all were looking for the win. Today it went to Jerry Whelchel with less than a second in hand at the checkers, Steven Greinke took the silver medal and Jeff cooley was the bronze medal winner, Larry Continued on page 30 Rodrigo Ampudia had a fairly good weekend, he finished sixth in the RJ Anderson finished first off the podium in the Saturday Pro Lite Pro 2 Unlimited race on Saturday and finished third in the Sunday affair. Unlimited race, RJ took the gold medal in the Sunday action. Dillon Ayers finished in fourth place in the Saturday Limited Buggy race, he finished a great second place in the Sunday fracas. . . Brand ~Piz11: w, Enter tor a chance to WIN a fuf/y t1utfitted 2008 Wrangler JK, featuring BJLSTEIN 5100 Series Shocks & SteeriliJ/ Stabillizer plus products from these leading itJermarket compa!'les: ,an.--M Also WIN an all-expenses paid trip to Jhe exclusive 2912 SEMA Shaw! ' 'ifnUl:ifmg BILSTEIN 5160 Series Shocks ~00])~ BILSTEIN 5100 Serles Shocks ENTER NOW AT: Bilstein Gas Presstue Shock Absorbers ThyssenKrupp Bilstein of America Sales & Tech Info: 1-800-537-1085 • bilsteinUS~com Dusty Times May 2012 46DIJ Serles 51/JDSeries CJ 51611 Selies i 1100Series B1DO Serles BILSTEIN Shockt can turn any picl<IJP,SllV or specialty off-road vehicle Into a winner. BLACK HAWK" 9300Series , Visit our website to see the tu/I selectian of Bil.STEIN shocks, or call toll free tar the BILSTEIN retailer nearest you. Page 29 -

Page 30

Austin Kimbrell took the Pro Lite Unlimited win on Saturday, he finished first off the podium in the Sunday action. The Pro 2 Unlimited win on Saturday went to Marty Hart, Marty was relegated to a fifth place finish in the Sunday action. Job finished first off the podium and Mitchell Dejong finished in the fifth spot. John Holmes took sixth place honors, Andy Zipperer was seventh car in, Garrett George was the eighth place finisher, Pat Dean finished in the ninth spot and Doug Fortin rounded out the top ten. The 11th place finish went to Lonny Hart, Rino Navera made it and even dozen, Mark Dyer finished in 13th place and Rich Ronco was set down a spot for a rule infraction. Todd Fitch was 14th with 17 laps complete and Joe Masek was shown 16th, he too with 17 laps done. Ryan Hancock was shown in 17th place, he too with 17 laps done, Dave Mason was 18th and Robb Harvey finished in 19th place with 17 laps completed. Ken Stout was shown 20th with 16 laps done, Patrick Pendley was shown 21st with 13 laps completed, Eddie Tafoya was shown 22nd with 11 laps done, Wade Wyman finished 10 laps, shown 23rd, Cameron Steele won't even talk about his five lap journey and Mike Porter only finished 2 laps and was shown in 25th place. The Limited Buggy main on Saturday had 13 entrants, they had 16 laps to run for their race and all but one made it all the way. When the checkers flew it was John Fitzgerald taking a really nice win, Kevin McCullough was second to In the Super Lite action it was Sheldon Creed taking the win both days, he certainly is off to a good start for the Lucas season. finish, he was less than a second in arrears, Jordan Poole took third place honors, Dillon Ayers finished first off the podium and Bruce Fraley rounded out the first five. Lindsay Geiser was the sixth car to finish, Jeff Richards finished in seventh place, Tatum Ronco was the eighth car to finish, Jim Price was the ninth car to finish and Chad Graham was the 10th car to finish. Greg Crew finished in the 11th spot, Keaton Swane made it an even dozen and Bradley Morris was only able to complete eight of the required 16 laps. Making up for lost time on Sat-urday, it was Bradley Morris taking the Limited Buggy main event win on Sunday. This race was a 16 lap event and fully 11 cars made it to the checkered flag. Dillon Ayers took second place honors, John Fitzgerald was the third car to fin-ish, Lindsay Geiser was the fourth car to finish and Tatum Ronco came in for the fifth place finish. Jim Price finished in the sixth spot, Chad Graham was the seventh place finisher, Keaton Swane was eighth to finish, Kevin McCullough was ninth in and Greg Crew was the 10th car to finish the required laps. Mike Major, who did not race on Saturday was the 11th place fin-isher and the last of the 16 lap fin-ishers. Jeff Richards only got in 12 laps, Jordan Poole finished six laps and Bruce Fraley never completed his initial lap. The Pro Lite Unlimited race was next up, there were 26 of them: they had 21 laps to run for their race and 14 of them made it all the way. The win went to Austin Kimbrell at a speed of just over 85mph, Chris Brandt came in second, he was four seconds in arrears at the flag, Doug Mittag was third to finish, he was another two seconds in arrears, RJ Anderson was the fourth plac;e finisher and Sheldon Creed was the fifth to finish. Adam Wik just missed the top five finishers, Noah Fouch was seventh to finish, Shan-non Campbell was eighth in, Aaron Daugherty took the ninth spot and Kyle Lucas was the 10th place finisher. 11th place went to Ron Duncombe, Brian Deegan made it an even dozen, Chad George was unlucky 13th and Bubba Gray was the 14th and final 21 lap finisher. Jason McNeal finished 19 laps and was shown 15th, Justin Smith was shown 16th, with 19 laps com-pleted and Ryan Beat was 17th, he too with 19 laps under his belt. Jimmy Stephensen finished 17 laps and was shown 18th, Curt Geer was shown 19th, he completed 16 laps and Matt Cook was shown 20th with 15 laps completed. Jerett Brooks was shown 21st with 15 laps in, John Dempsey was shown 22nd with 14 laps completed, Todd Cunningham was shown 23rd with 14 laps in, Casey Currie was shown 24th, he finished 12 laps, Bradley Morris was 25th with 10 laps com-pleted and Jacob Person was shown 26th with 6 laps complete. The Sunday Pro Lite Unlimited fracas had 26 entrants and they had to complete 18 laps for a finish. When the dust cleared it was RJ Anderson taking a really nice win, Chris Brandt took second place honors, again, just like Saturday, Casey Currie was third to finish, Austin Kimbrell took fourth place honors and Chad George rounded out the top five finishers. Ryan Beat came in sixth, Jerett Brooks was seventh in, Sheldon Creed finished in the eighth spot, Jacob Person was ninth and Noah Fouch was the 10th car in. Todd Cunningham was 11th to finish, Shannon Campbell made it an even dozen, Kyle Lucas finished in 13th place, Doug Mittag finished in the 14th spot and Adam Wik rounded out the top 15 finish-ers. Justin Smith only finished 17 laps and was shown 16th, Aaron Daugherty was 17th with 17 laps done, Curt Geer was shown 18th, ditto on the laps, Jason McNeal also finished 17 laps and was shown 19th and Brian Deegan was shown in 20th place with 17 laps complet-ed. Ron Duncombe was the last of the 17 lap finishers, shown in 21st place. Jimmy Stephensen finished 16 laps and was shown 22nd and Matt Cook was shown 23rd with 16 laps completed. Bubba Gray only finished 13 laps and was shown 24th, Bradley Morris only had 8 laps completed, he was shown in 25th andJohn"Dempseywas shown 26th with only 2 laps completed. The Super Lite Main Event on Saturday had 10 cars entered, they had 15 laps to go for a finish and fully eight of them made it all the way. Sheldon Creed was the big winner in the race, but it was close, Drew Britt was second in, he was a scant few seconds in arrears, Ryan Hagy came in third, Cody Rahders finished first off the podium and Brent Fouch took fifth place hon- " ors. Trenton Briley was the sixth place finisher, Garrett Poelman was lucky seventh and John Gable was the eight place finisher and last of the 15 lap finishers. Wyatt Kirchner and Larry Linkogle failed to complete a lap. The Sunday Super Lite Main Bradley Morris only completed eight laps in the Saturday Limited Buggy Jeff Cooley finished fifth in the Saturday Pro Buggy Unlimited race, Jeff Casey Currie was a dnf in the Pro Lite Unlimited on Saturday but he affair, he ran again on Sunday and he took the gold medal win! took a third place finish in the Sunday event. rallied on Sunday and finished in the third spot. f: Brian Deegan raced his Ford pickup to a dnf in the Saturday race but came Carl Renezeder had a terrible weekend, he was only able to grab a 6th Todd LeDuc finished in the Saturday Pro 4 Unlimited race, Todd took a back strong for a second place finish in the Sunday Pro 2 Unlimited race. place finish on Saturday and a 7th place in the Sunday race. third place finish in the Sunday affair, here nicely airborne. Page 30 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 31

Event ran for 15 laps and seven of the entrants completed all the required laps. Sheldon Creed was able to take the class win again this day, Drew Britt took second place honors, again, Trenton Briley took the third place trophy, Brent Fouch finished first off the podium and Garrett Poleman was fifth to finish. Cody Rahders was the sixth car in and John Gable finished in the sev-enth position, he was the last of the 15 lap finishers. Wyatt Kirchner only was able to complete 12 laps and was shown eighth, Ryan Hagy got six laps in before retiring and Larry Linkogle failed to complete his first lap. Next to race were the Kart Jr. 1 folks, they had 10 laps to go for their race and fully 10 of the 15 karts entered finished the required laps. Taking the big win was Darren Hardesty, Conner McMullen took second spot, he was 1.1 seconds in arrears, Broe Dickerson was third to finish, Ricky Gutierrez finished first off the podium and Rayce Geiser was the fifth place finisher. Matt Crowell was sixth to finish, Parker Darland took seventh place honors, eighth place went to Blaze Nunley, Kamrin Dickerson was ninth in and Lauren Knupp was the 10th place finisher and last to finish 10 laps. Trisha Wright fin-ished nine laps and was shown in 11th place, Jaydn Winbury made it an even dozen, also finishing nine laps and Travis Pecoy also finished nine laps and was shown in 13th place. Bear Nunley got eight laps in and was shown•in 14th place and Nick Redding finished two laps and was shown in 15th place. The Sunday Kart Jr. 1 race was sort of a repeat in the top three positions, they had to run 10 laps for their race and it was Conner McMullen taking the gold medal, he finished second on Saturday, Broe Dickerson was second to fin-ish, he finished third on Saturday, Darren Hardesty finished in the third spot, he was the Saturday win-ner of the race, Parker Darland was fourth to finish and Bear Nunley took fifth place honors. A sixth place finish went to Travis Pecoy, Matt Crowell took seventh place honors, Jaydn Winbury was the eighth place finisher Blaze Nunley was ninth to finish and Trisha Wright rounded out the top 10. Lauren Knupp was 11th to finish, Kamrin Dickerson was 12th to fin-ish and Nick Redding was the 13th and final finisher. Rayce Geiser and Ricky Gutierrez finished the race were both disqualified for a techni-cal violation. Kart Jr. 2 was next up, there were 18 of them and they had 10 laps to run for their race. The gold medal went to Dylan Winbury, Travis Pecoy was second to finish, Jeremy Davis tqok third place hon-ors, Darren Hardesty finished in fourth place and Shelby Anderson took fifth place. Broe Dickerson was the sixth place finisher, Parker Porter was lucky? Seventh, Eliot Watson took eighth place honors, Hailie Deegan was ninth to finish and Parker Steele rounded out the top 10. 11th place went to Sammy Gutierrez, Ronnie Anderson came in 12th, Trevor Briska was 13th to finish, Weston Schuck finished in 14th place, Bryce McDaniel was 15th to take the checkers and Jack Yeiser was the 16th and final finisher of the 10 laps required. Hayden Cling was shown 17th with 9 laps completed and Alyssa Fortin only got two laps in before retiring. The Sunday Kart Jr. 2 event also Dusty Times Miles Cheek took the Kart Modified win in the Saturday contest, Miles had to settle for a second place finish in the Sunday affair. had 18 entrants and they too had to run 12 laps for a finish. When all the dust had cleared it was Travis Pecoy taking the gold medal, up a spot from Saturdays finish, Shelby Anderson was second in, not even a second in arrears, Darren Hardesty was third to finish, Eliott Watson took the fourth spot and Broe Dick-erson was the fifth place finisher. Jeremy Davis took sixth place hon-ors, Parker Porter was the seventh place finisher, Sammy Gutierrez finished the race in eighth place, Weston Schuck finished ninth and Dylan Winbury was 10th to take the checkered flag. Hailie Deegan was the 11th kart in, Jack Yeiser was 12th to take the flag, Ronnie Anderson finished in the unlucky 13th position, Bryce McDaniel took 14th place and Trevor Briska took the 15th finishing spot. Alyssa Fortin came in 16th and Hayden Cling was the 17th and final 12 lap finisher. Parker Steele only got in 11 laps and is shown in the 18th and final position, Last, but certainly not least were the Modified Karts. There were 16 of them and they had 13 laps to run for their race. When the checkers flew it was Myles Cheek right there to receive them, Kyle Hart was right there to take second place honors, Brock Heger took home a third place finish, Scotty Steele finished first out of the money and Sheldon Creed was the fifth place finisher. Greer Marshal finished in the sixth spot, Eliott Watson took whatever honors there are for seventh place, Bradley Morris finished in eighth place, Brooke Kawell was ninth to finish, Corey Geiser finished in the 10th spot and Blake Lenk finished in 11th place and ·was the last of the 12 lap finishers. Isabella Naughton finished 11 laps and was shown 12th while Gavin Harlien also finished 11 laps and was shown 13th. Cole Mamer only completed nine laps, shown 14th, Jeff Hoff-man only finished five laps and was shown 15th and Sterling Cling only had two laps completed and was shown in 16th position. The Sunday Modified Kart main -event was 14 laps in length and we saw Cole Mamer coming back from a dnf on Saturday to take the win in the Sunday contest, Myles Cheek was right on his tail for a second place finish, Myles took the win in the Saturday race, Blake Lenk took third place honors, Bradley Morris was first off the podium and Sheldon Creed was the fifth place Pie #9 Adrian Genni had a second place finish in Pro 4 Unlimited on Saturday, he repeated his second place finish in the Sunday race. Jerry Whelchel had·a fairly good weekend, he finished fourth in the Saturday Pro Buggy Unlimited race and he took the win in the Sunday action. May 2012 The Pro 2 Unlimited win on Saturday went to Rob MacCachren, unfortunately Rob was a dnf in the Sunday action, here nicely airborne. finisher. Sixth place went to Brock Harlien finished five laps, he was Heger, Jeff Hoffman was lucky shown 14th, Isabella Naughton fin-seventh, Brooke Cawell took eighth ished four laps, she was shown 15th place honors, Scotty Steele finished and Cory Geiser was only able to in ninth place and Greer Marshall complete 2 laps and he was shown was 10th to finish. Kyle Hart was in 16th place. only able to complete 13 laps, he So, the first weekend of racing was shown 11th, Eliott Watson in the Lucas Oil Season opener was shown 12th, also with 13 laps was over. It's a long season, so ev-completed, Sterling Cling got nine eryone get set for lots more ra ing laps in, he was shown 13th, Gavin in 2012. Page 31

Page 32

~ AT RIDGECREST voudouris overall By ] Preston Bradslu;tw Photos: Trackside Photo Michael Voudouris raced his good looking Ford pickup to the Unlimited Truck win at Ridgecrest, Michael was 11lso 1st overall in the race. Well, if you were out there on Friday it couldn't have gotten much worse. The temperature was very low, the rain was coming down like there was no tomorrow, there was some snow in the air and the wind was a good 15 miles per hour. All in all, it was a lousy day weather wise but 59 brave souls showed up for contingen-cy. Fortunately, everything changed for the better on Saturday and al-though it certainly was chilly there was no precipitation and the racers were happy with the conditions. There were only two trucks en-tered in the Unlimited Truck category and it really wasn't much of a race. Michael Voudouris led the first lap and each lap thereafter, he was the only finisher. Steve Olliges was the other entrant but he only got in one lap and he was done for the day. So, Voudouris took the gold medal for the class and he was 1st overall for the race. There were eight cars entered in the Class 1 contest, two of them were dnfs and one did not start. At the end of the first lap it was Richard Boyle in the class lead, Kelly Mather was in second place, Brian Byfield ran third, Rick Boyer was in fourth spot and Patrick McCarthy was in fifth place. Adam Householder ran in sixth place and C J Hutchins was in seventh place. After lap 2 it was Brian Byfield holding the lead, Kelly Mather re-mained in the second spot, Rick Boyer was up a spot into third place, Adam Householder was up two places into fourth, Richard Boyle fell to fifth place and CJ Hutchins was in the sixth spot. Patrick McCarthy was on his trailer. At the end of the third lap it was Kelly Mather leading the class, Adam Householder was two minutes back in second place, Richard Boyle was up into third place, CJ Hutchins was up into fourth place and Rick Boyer was now running fifth. Brian Byfield was out of the race. On the fourth lap Adam House-holder was now leading the class, Kelly Mather was now two minutes in arrears, Richard Boyle remained in the third spot, C J Hutchins held on in the fourth spot and Rick Boyer remained in the fifth spot. Fifth lap, final lap and Kelly Mather was first to take the checkered flag, she was second overall in the Kelly Mather took the big win in the Class 1 contest, but it was close, only has a minute and change in hand at the finish, she was second overall for the race. Roger Starkey was the winner in the Class 10 contest at Ridgecrest, he had almost two hours in hand when he took the checkered flag. race, Adam Householder took sec-ond place honors, he was a minute and change behind the class leader, CJ Hutchins took the bronze medal, Richard Boyle was the fourth place finisher and Rick Boyer was the fifth and final finisher in the class. The class 10 troops had five laps to run for their race, there were six of them in the race but only two made all the required laps. Roger Starkey led the first lap, Mike McGee was running in second place, Blain Mc-Donald was running third, Jim Kalp was in the fourth spot, Jason Griffin ran fifth and Hunter Buettner was running sixth. Second lap and Roger Starkey continued to lead, Mike McGee remained in second place, Blain Mc-Donald held on in third place and Jason Griffin was in fourth place. Jim Kalp and Hunter Buettner were out of the race. Third lap ended and Roger Star-key was still in the lead, Mike McGee remained in the second spot and" Blain McDonald continued to run third. Jason Griffin was out of th~ race. Fourth lap and Roger Starkey was well on his way to the class win, Blain McDonald was now in the second spot and Mike McGee was retired. Fifth lap, checkered flag flew and Roger Starkey _was right there to col-lect it, Blain McDonald took second place honors, he was an hour and long change in arrears. There were eight entrants in the Class 12 battle, they too had five laps to run for their race. When their first lap ended it was Paul Keller leading the pack, Kevin Martin was the sec-ond car, he was a minute and change in arrears, Jeff Farshier was in third place, Gteg Crew was in fourth place, Michael Benedict was in fifth place and Randy Jones was in the sixth spot. Ryann Ross and Jeff Farshler did not start. Paul Keller took the gold medal in the Class 12 contest at Ridgecrest, he had about 40 minutes on the field at the checkers. It was a good day for Jordan Poole, he took top honors in the Class 13 contest, he's seen here on his way to the checkers. Second lap ended and Paul Keller continued to lead the class, Kevin It took Brian Caudell two laps to get to the front of the pack but he did Adam Householder had to settle for the silver medal in the Class 1 Blain McDonald took second place honors in the Class 10 contest, he's it and went on to take the Class 9 win with ease. contest, he led the fourth lap and finished 78 seconds in a"ears. seen here at one of many landings performed during the race. Page 32 May 2012 Dusty Times I

Page 33

In the Class 1450 contest it was Daffen Parsons all the way, he led the class from start to finish and he was the only finisher. Blaine Conrad took the gold medal in the Class 1600 contest, he led the class all the way and he had nine minutes in hand at the flag. Martin held on in second place, Jeff Crew held on in fourth, Randy Jones Farshier remained in third spot, Greg remained in fifth and Michael Bene-Frank Hines had a great race, he had three fast laps and saw his competition drop out early on, he's seen here at high speed on the course. · John Pellissier ran in second place for the first two laps, took the Class 18 /ead for the next two laps and took home the gold medal for his efforts. diet was in the sixth spot. the man to beat, Kevin Martin had Third lap, Paul Keller was still second place locked up, Jeff Farshier remained in the third spot, Greg Crew was still fourth, Randy Jones remained in fifth place and Michael Benedict was still running in the sixth spot. Their fourth lap ended and Kevin Martin was the new class leader, Paul Keller now ran in second place, Greg Crew was now running in third place, Jeff Farshier was fourth and Michael Benedict was in the fifth spot. Randy Jones was out of the race. Fifth lap, final lap and it was Paul Keller taking a really nice win, Greg Crew was second car to finish, Jeff Farshier collected the bronze medal and Michael Benedict finished first off the podium. The Class 13 troops were up next, there were five of them entered, they had three laps to run for their race and three of them made it all the way. When the first lap ended it was Evan Dixon leading the class, Mike Montez was in the second spot, Jordan Poole was running third and Billy Shapley was in the fourth spot. Bree Cloud was unable to finish the first lap. When the second lap ended it was Jordan Poole leading the class, Billy Shapley was running second, he was less than a minute in arrears and Evan Dixon was in third place and Mike Montez was out of the race. Third lap, final lap and when the checkers flew it was Jordan Poole taking the gold medal, Billy Shapley was the silver medal winner and Evan Dixon was the bronze medal winner. The Class 1450 racers, there were five of them entered had threre laps to run for their race but, alas, only one of them made it all the way. When the Continued on p111 34 Greg Crew gives lessons on level flight, Greg finished in second place Billy Shapley and dad Bill drove to a second place finish in the Class It was a second place finish for Andy Grider in the Class 1600 contest, in the Class 12 contest, he was 39 minutes in arrears at the checkers. 13 fracas, they were six minutes in arrears at the checkers. Andy was nine minutes in affears when he took the checkered flag. Brandon Wright had a long second lap but he still managed a second CJ Hutchins went from seventh place to take third place honors in the Jeff Farshier won the bronze medal in the Class 12 contest, Jeff was place finish in Class 9, here at speed on the course. Class 1 contest, seen here in his really good looking machine. a mere four minutes out of a second place finish. Evan Dixon had a horrendously long second lap but he still managed Steven Achey had a couple of longer lap times in his Class 1600 battle, Giti Gow/and had a really long fourth lap in the Class 9 fracas, but he to take a third place finish in the Class 13 contest. but he still managed a third place, podium finish. still managed a third place finish at the Ridgecrest race. Dusty Times May 2012 Page 33 -

Page 34

Michael Benedict was a bit off the winning pace in the Class 12 conflict, Michael finished first off the podium at the Ridgecrest event. Jason Coleman had a terribly long first lap in the Class 1600 battle, Harley Young had two extremely long laps in the Class 9 contest, Harley he ended up in the fourth finishing position, here at speed. is seen here just at touchdown on his way to a fourth place finish. dust cleared after the first lap it was Darren Parsons in the lead, Jeremy Smeltzer was second car in and James Fuhs was the third to finish. Serge Bombard faile to complete his first lap and Andrew Leavitt did not start the race. Their second lap ended and Dar-ren Parsons still led the pack, Jeremy Smeltzer held on in the second spot and James Fuhs remained in the third spot. Third lap, final lap and Darren Parsons came in for the gold medal. Jeremy Smeltzer and James Fuhs were unable to complete their final lap. There were only three entered in the Class 1500 action, they too had three laps to run for their race and here too, only one of them made the three required laps. Frnk Hines led the first lap, Dean Defreze was in second place he was four minutes in arrears and Eric Trondie finished in the third spot, he was 44 minutes behind the leader. Frank Hines was first to finish on the second lap, in fact, he was the only finisher in the class, Dean Defreze and Eric T rondie failed to appear. The one finisher, the only finisher was Frank Hines. He took the gold medal happily. There were eight cars entered in the 1600 race, fully six of them made John Gould was the only entry in Class 3000 but he ran his five required laps in good time and went home with a first place trophy in his hand. all the required laps. Blaine Conrad was first to complete the first lap, Matt Gumz was right there in the second spot, Andy Grider slid in for third place, Steven Achey was the fourth place finisher and Todd Winslow took fifth place honors. Jason Cole-man was sixth car in and Jeff Bruner was the seventh and final finisher. Andrew Neal did not start Their second lap ended and Blaine Conrad continued to lead the 1600 class, Matt Gumz held on in the second spot, Steven Achey moved up a spot into third, Andy Grider dropped to fourth place and Todd Winslow held on to his fifth place. Jeff Bruner ran sixth and Jason Cole-man now ran in the seventh spot. They completed their third lap and Blaine Conrad still held onto the class lead, Andy Grider was up a few spots into second place, Steven Achey remained in third place, Todd Winslow was up a spot into fourth, Jason Coleman was in fifth place and Jeff Bruner was in the sixth spot. Matt Gumz was out of the race. l'll'fld 0, It 11111 vacation rentals available in the exclusive Indian Wells country Club in the sunny Palm Springs area of southern California. Two or three bedrooms, furnished for your complete relaxation, and, if you are a glutton for punishment, play golf on either of two beautiful courses. FYI, wireless internet and long distance phones calls (USA) included. starting at S4,500 in season (January thru "pril) or $2,300 per month out of season. Call (760) 345-6124 Page 34 May 2012 It was a good day for Cronus Dillard as he took the gold medal in the Class 7 contest, he's seen here at speed on the course. Fourth lap complete and Blaine Conrad continued to lead the class, Andy Grider remained in the second spot, Steven Achey held on in third place, Jason coleman was in the fourth spot, Todd Winslow dropped to fifth place and Jeff Bruner re-mained in sixth place. Fifth lap complete and the gold medal went to Blaine Conrad, Andy Grider took the silver medal, Steven Achey was the bronze medal recipi-ent, Jason Coleman finished first off the podium, Jeff Bruner finished in the fifth spot and Todd Winslow finished in the sixth position. There were only two entered in the Class 18 battle and only one of them would see the checkered flag. Craig Williams led the first lap, he had 11 minutes on John Pellissier. Craig Williams continued to lead on the second lapbut he was down to a four minute lead as Pellessier gave chase. Third lap and Pellissier was the only one running in the class, Craig Williams was out of the race and it was all Pellissier from here on! John motored around on the fourth lap and was there to take the checkered flag. Good show! Class 3000 only had one entrant. It was John Gould, he had five laps to run for his race and he did exactly that. He completed h~ five laps in a touch over seven hours and was de-clared the Class 3000 winner. There was only one entrant in the Class 5/1600 fracas, Tom Bird. Tom didn't have a good day, he was un-able to complete his first lap and was shown as a dnf. There were only two Class 7 troops entered this race, they too had five laps to run and only one of them would see the checkered flag this day. Cronus Dillard was the class leader on the first lap, Steven Albrecht ran in second place, he was less than five minutes behind ther leader. On the second lap it was Cronus Dillard still leading, now by less than four minutes over Steven Albrecht. At the conclusion of the third lap it was Cronus Dillard still leading but his competition had disappeared, Ste-ven Albrecht had disappeared. Dillard continued on his merry way, completing the required laps and taking the Class 7 win. The Class 9 cars were next up, they had four laps to run for their race and fully four of them eompleted their required laps. At the end of their first lap it was Harley Young leading the pack, Brandon Wright was less than two minutes in arrears in second place, Brandon Holly came in third, less than another minute back, Brian Caudill ran in the fourth spot and Giti Gowland was the fifth place fin-,, isher. Kenny Ham did not start. -Their second lap had Brandon Holly now leading the class, Harley Young dropped to second place, Bri-an Caudill moved up into third place, Giti Gowland was up a spot into fourth place and Brandon Wright had dropped into fifth place. Third lap ended and now Bri-an Caudill was leading the Class 9 troops, Giti Gowland moved up two spots into second place, Brandon Holly dropped into third place, Bran-don Wright was up a spot into fourth and Harley Young dropped from second to fifth place. Fourth lap, final lap and it was Brian Caudill taking the coveted checkered flag, Brandon Wright claimed the second place spot, Giti Gowland took third place honors and Harley Young finished first off the podium. Brandon Holly was unable to complete the fourth lap. The NAPA Chassis 7S Challenge Class only had one entry, it was Ste-ven Marsee and he was only able to complete one lap before retiring. Last, but certainly not lease were the StockBug contestants. There were two of them and they had to complete three laps for their race. At the end of the first lap it was Robert Johnson in the lead and, surprise! Michael Brenner was nowhere to be seen. Robert Johnson continued on his merry way for the next two laps and was the big winner of the StockBug Class. And so it ended, another Ridgecrest race in the record books. Next' for SNORE is the Caliente, Nevada race early in June. See va all there! '· Dusty Times

Page 35

Page 36

.LAKE ELSINORE Deegan Takes Both Pro 2 Races By Homer Eubaanks .Photos: Trackside Photo Brian Deegan gets our award for highest flyer, he took the gold medal on Saturday in the Pro 2 Unlimited action, he fini!ihed fifth in the Sunday race. April 21-22 20i2, Rounds three and four of the 2012 Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, titled the Rockstar So-Cal Shootout presented by E3 Spark Plugs·and Gieco, debuted at the all new racing facility at Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park in Lake Elsinore, CA. Bruce Fraley took the win.on Saturday in the Limited Buggy main event, unfortunately, Bruce was a dnf in the Sunday event. The Lucas Qi! people did a fantastic job of building a 1.1 mile track that proved to be both demanding for the driv-ers and enjoyable to the fans. Track elevation rises away from · the grandstands in multiple tiers providing 100% visibility. It is a fast track with turn one being a left hand sweeper lead-ing into a step up onto a table top jump. Dropping off the ta-ble top enters a hard left hand turn (a lot of action here). A short climb up hill got the vehi-cles airborne again before drop-ping into turn three (another good passing point) which is a right hand switch back. The drivers are then faced with a whoop section before entering the left hand turri four (yet an-other point of action). Another elevation change puts the race vehicles in the air in front of the grandstands just before the finish line. A lot of planning went into the racetrack but someone over looked the parking lot. Park-ing itself ·is massive (and that is the problem) and there is only a single lane in and out of the facility. Sunday's exit with teams and fans funneling into a single file was a bit frustrat-ing. Future improvements were promised and hopefully traf-fic is the top issue. One thing about short course fans is they are a hardy group. On Saturday the ambient temperature was best described as African Hot. The shinning new grandstands reflected up enough heat to fry eggs and yet the seats were packed and others lined the fence to catch all the racing action. When it comes to change sometimes it is good and some-times -- well, you decide. This' year the officials eliminated the UTV class in favor of add- • ing time for a mandatory pit stop for the Pro 2 Unlimited, Pro 4 Unlimited and the Pro Lite Unlimited classes. ,At ttie mid-race caution aUt'eams head into the pits· for a two minute pit stop. Good for anyone need-ing assistance but frustrating for those drivers emotionally Drew Britt was the ninth place finisher in the Saturday Super Lite conflict, Drew took It was a good weekend for. Broe Dickerson, he took the Kart Jr. 1 gold medal both wound up and having to set still the silver medal in the Sunday race. days at Lake Elsinore, he's seen here at speed. · for two minutes. For the fans ·Performance Proven for Desert & Off-Road Use ~ 150 Heavy Duty Sizes to Choose from Detail & Pressure Wash Tanks Marine Holding_&Water Tanks Bulk Storage & Waste Tanks R.V.· Tanks · Quality Products & Friendly Service RONCO PLASTICS, INC. • 714-259-1385 • FAX 714-259-0759 • www.ronco-plastics.net 15022 Parkway Loop, Suite B • Tustin, CA 92780 • CALL, WRITE or FAX us to Receive a Free Catalog VISA ~-------------------------------------------------------~ Page 36 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 37

Jessie Johnson took third place honors on Saturday in the Super lite contest, Jessie took home the gold medal for his efforts in the Sunday race. the schedule now has the Pro the following lap Hart managed Buggy Unlimited and Super to steal the lead from Ampudia Lite Unlimited events after the and a lap later Ampudia was in· Pro 2 Unlimited. Fans coming third as Deegan made his way to see just the big guns left early past. At the mid-race caution which did help with the exiting it was Hart leading and Rene-traffic situation. zeder second and Ampudia had Pro 2 Unlimited moved back to third. On the When the Pro 2 Unlimited restart Deegan tried the inside class· consisting of 18 trucks line again in turn one and this went out to qualify it was the time managed to grab second. #38 of Brian Deegan setting Shortly after Evan Evans had quick time with a 50.357 time mechanical woes and stalled besting #2 Jeremy McGrath's on track causing another yel-50.578. With a gap of only low as he had to be pulled off. 0.221 seconds between quali-When racing got going again fiers the event was sure to pro• Har.t quickly put some distance vide some close competition. between himself and Rene• Due to the inversion Rodri-zeder who was fighting off the go Ampudia and Marty Hart sat advances of Deegan. With two on the front row for Saturday's laps to go Deegan managed to round of racing. When the get ahead of Renezeder for se·c, green flag came out Ampudia ond. On the last 'lap Hart was took the lead with Hart and trying-to avoid slower traffic in Carl Renezeder third. Begin-turn three and Deegan was able ning of lap two the home town to throw his Rockstar/ Makita favorite Deegan cut inside of Ford down inside of the turn turn one in an attempt for the and steal the lead. At the finish lead but the outside faster line line it was Brain Deegan cross-put him back to fifth. Just as ing over first with Marty Hart the pack was getting the speed second and Carl Renezeder up a roll over in turn one and third. safety crews dealing with a fire Sunday's weather was much in Ryan Hancock's truck in nicer than the day before but tum,Jhree brought things to a the Pro 2 Unlimited drivers halt. On the, restart Ampudia brought there own kind of heat had some serious pressure from to the racetrack. On the start Hart while back in the pack Mc-Marty Hart took control with Grath and Deegan bounced off Rob MacCachren second and one another in turn one. On Rodrigo Ampudia third. Back in turn one Jeremy McGrath and Rob Naughton got tangled up but both were able to go after the pack cleared. On lap two Nick Tyree caused a yel-low -condition as his truck had to be towed off. When racing resumed Hart held the lead and actually pulled away from MacCachren who had his hands full with Ampudia challeng-ing his every move. But then the mid-race yellow came out and they all headed into the pits. After the restart it didn't take long befo're MacCachren started applying pressure to Hart. The pressure was applied for a couple of laps before Mac-Cachren really plowed his way over the whoops, putting him in a position to get around Hart in turn four. However, Hart was able to come back and retake the lead the next lap in turn two. Things really heated up then as these two started lean• ing on each other and swapping paint as the two went back and forth arguing over the lead. Behind them the action was just as intense. Brian Deegan had moved to third with Robby Wood and Renezeder both chal-lenging his position. As these three battled Rodrigo Ampudia closed up to join them. Woods and Renezeder got together in turn one sending Woods up the embankment and Renezeder sideways on track. About that time Deegan's motor blew with enough smoke to kill mosqui-to's a mile a way. Up front Mac-Cachren, Rockstar, was able to hold off Hart and Ampudia was able to take third. Deegan continued his mosquito fumig_a-tion long enough to finish fifth behind Greg Adler. Pro 4 Unlimited So far this season the Pro 4 _ Unlimited could be called the Kyle LeDuc show. Other than . Carl Renezeder setting fast time on Saturday LeDuc has set fast time and won all four of the Pro 4 Unlimited events. In Saturday's event Kyle quickly established himself the leader with last year's champ Carl Renezeder second and Todd LeDuc third. On the third lap Corry Weller brought out a yellow flag· as she rolled over in turn one. When racing resumed Kyle LeDuc distanced himself from Renezeder who was busy holding off Todd LeDuc trying to steal his position. The pack had to regroup mid-race during the pit stop and afterwards it took a couple of restarts before the action really got back to speed. But no one could match the speed of Kyle LeDuc so the event ended in a follow the leader to the finish line. Kyle LeDuc, Rockstar / Makita Ford, won it with Greg Adler moving through the pack to earn sec-ond and Josh Merrell was third. At the awards presentation Kyle apologized to the fans for check~ ing out on the competition but said he was there to win. For Sunday's round Carl Renezeder pitted during the pa-rade lap with mechanical prob-lems. Once it was determined he was not able to join the race the event got underway. Due to the inversion fast qualifier Kyle LeDuc was on row thre·e with Josh Merrell and Greg Adler sharing the front row. Merrdl was able to grab the early lead and held the position for several laps before he got wide in turn four and Kyle LeDuc was there to grab the lead. A couple of laps later Todd LeDuc, who had been trailing Merrell, was able to make his pass around turn one. Eric Barron then started pressing Mer.rell for third and. the two provided most of the action for the remainder of the race as Kyle LeDuc, Rockstar / Makita Ford, won easily with Todd LeDuc second. On the last lap in turn three Barron spun out and Merrell got up on two wheels but was able to hold on for third. Renezeder was able to rejoin the race but several laps down. Pro Lite Unlimited A total of 24 entries in the Pro Lite Unlimited division meant plenty of action through-out the race. Chris Brandt and Justin Smith shared the front row-with fast qualifier RJ An-derson on row two with Austin Kimbrell. Brandt was able to take the early lead but it was cut short when the yellow flag came out due to someone's metal bumper on track. The restart once again saw Brandt the leader with Casey Currie slipping from his third row starting spot into second. J us-tin Smith was third. That is until Smith lost an argument with the turn one barrier. With Smith trying to get straightened out Anderson jumped into the third slot ahead of Kimbrell. Soon after another yellow came out as Smith and Adam Wik had to be removed from the track. One with a blown motor. Once racing again Anderson made his way to the front with Brian Deegan and Brandt trail-ing. These three pulled away from the pack that was being led by Matt Cook in fourth. Anderson held off Deegan for the remaining laps until the last lap when he made a mistake and Deegan capitalized on it. Driving under the checkers first was Brian Deegan, Rockstar / Makita Ford, with RJ Anderson second and Chris Brandt third. On the podium Deegan, the hometown favorite, thanked all his fans but later should have also thanked the officials as his team forgot to take the winning truck to tech inspection. What• ever the reason the officials did not penalize him for the infraction. Sunday's line up had Bri-an Deegan on the pole with Matt Cook alongside. Fast time qualifier RJ Anderson sat be-hind Deegan and Chris Brandt shared row two. When the gre~n flag came out Deegan lead the pack with Anderson following and Brandt third. Af-ter a few laps the front two were able to pull some breathing room from Brandt but Deegan didn't have any breathing room as Anderson wanted his po-sition. Just before the mid-Continued an page 38 Robby Woods was the 10th place finisher in the Saturday Pro 2 Unlimited Brent Fouch was the lucky seventh place finisher in the Super Lite Doug Fortin was the bronze medal winner in the Pro Buggy Unlimited fracas, Robby finished in the seventh spot in the Sunday affair. contest on Saturday, Brent finished in fourth spot in the Sunday race. race on Saturday, Doug finished in the second spot in the Sunday affair. It was a third place finish on Saturday for Chris Brandt in Pro Lite Trenton Briley was the sixth place finisher in the Saturday Super Lite Geoffrey Cooley finished fifth in Pro Buggy Unlimited on Saturday, Unlimited, Chris finished in the second spot in the Sunday race. contest, he.finished well back in 11th place in the Sunday contest. Geoffrey took third place honors in the Sunday battle. Dusty Times May 2012 Page 37 -

Page 38

John Fitzgerald finished in third place in the Saturday limited Buggy bash, John collected the gold medal on Sunday for his class win. race yellow Anderson made holding off Doug Fortin, but his move to capture the lead Steele had little room between from Deegan. After the restart himself and Harvey. The pack things heated up as Deegan was brought under control af, cut inside in turn one and he ter Rino Navera stalled in turn and Anderson were side by side three causing a yellow condi-going into turn two. Anderson tion. On the restart Steele was looked to have the edge but clear but back in the pack things Deegan then took back the got all fussed up as the pack lead on turn three. Anderson behind him had its troubles get-was able to come back the next _ting around turn two. Whelchel turn and again take the lead and a few others shook loose back. Soon after Noah Fouch but then Whelchel got hung up came up to battle but ended up on the barriers in turn three. If bouncing off Deegan -in turn that wasn't enough Harvey then four. Brandt moved to second couldn't negotiate turn four. while Deegan held third. A lap All this caused another restart. later Fouch who had been black The lap after the restart Larry flagged pitted for. his penalty. Job tried to double the uphill With two laps to go Deegan jump, smacked into the face of faded back away from the front the ramp and bounced sideways two. By the last lap Deegan was and stalled on top of the table limping around the track before top. Yet another yellow caution. stalling out in the whoop sec, .Just as with all the other restarts tion. Winning the event was RJ Steele was able to maintain Anderson, Monster Energy/Po, his lead but this time he had laris Dodge, with Chris Brandt Mike Porter second aad Steven taking second and third was Greinke third. On the last lap Bradley Morris. Greinke was very determined Pro Buggy Unlimited as he over-shot the jump before The Pro Buggy class drew 21 turn three resulting in a tempo-contestants to Lake Elsinore rarily lead. Steele came back to and again provided plenty of retake the lead down the whoop action. Cameron Steele busted section and managed tQ hold on out from his front row advan-for the win with Greinke second tage with Robb Harvey trailing and Doug Fortin third. and Jerry Whelchel a close Sunday's event started with third. By lap three the front a clean start around turn one. two had pulled some breathing Out front Mike Porter had room from Whelchel, who was Gar_rett George pressuring and Shelby Anderson finished in third place in the Kart Jr. 2 event on Saturday, Shelby took a real big win in the Sunday contest. Doug Fortin was a close third. Racing was straight forward for four laps before Garrett George had issues and had to be pulled from the track. When racing resumed Porter still held the lead with Fortin second and fast qualifier Geoffrey Cooley moved to third. Mike Porter was beginning to distance him-self from Fortin when another yellow slowed things down for John Holmes to be removed from turn one. Before the yel, low came out Cooley had stole second from Fortin. When the green came out Porter had the hard charging Cooley on his tail until turn three when Cool-ey appeared to miss a gear and Fortin was able to mount an effort on Porter. With one lap to go Porter had Fortin pressur, ing but the two had pulled away from Cooley. At the checkers it was Mike Porter, Doug Fortin and Geoffrey Cooley finishing out the podium. Limited Buggy On Saturday the Limited Buggy class was dominated by Bruce Fraley. Fraley came out early to set quick time over Bradley Morris. When the 19 contestants came out for round three Zachery Hunt became the early leader with Dillon Ayers second and third was Fraley. • Hunt led for most of the first half but just before the mid-race yellow came out he headed into · the pits which handed the lead to Fraley. On the restart Fraley took the lead with Ayers second and Jordan Poole third. Fraley and Ayers pulled away from the pack. A couple of laps later turn three proved to much for Ayers and he dropped back to fifth. Now in se.cond was Kevin Mc, Cullough. Fraley then put the hammer down the remafning laps to pull off a comfortable win with McCullough second and John Fitzgerald third. When racing got underway Sunday it was Jordan Poole tak, ing the lead with Bradley Mor, ris second and John Fitzgerald third. Morris grabbed the lead on lap three and a couple of laps later Fitzgerald moved into second. Soon after that Ayer's the day's fast qualifier moved into third. The front three re, mained tight throughout the race with the last lap being the most important. Ayers got sideways in turn three as he was challenging for the lead. Then as Fitzgerald and Morris went through the whoop section Fitzgerald was able to pull ahead enough to take the lead in turn four. Crossing under the check, ers first was John Fitzgerald with Bradley Morris a close sec-ond. Zachery Hunt was third. Super Lite_ A cool breeze was beginning to -chill the sun baked crowd when the 11 Super Lite con, tenders came out for the final event of Saturday's show. When the race went green front row setter Garrett Poelman led the pack around turn one but got sideways in turn two handing the lead to Code Rahders. Rah, ders' lead was short lived as he -spun the next lap in turn one giving the lead to Ryan Hagy. Drew Britt was a close second and pressured Hagy all the way to the mid-race caution. While most of the attention was on the two leaders Rahders regrouped and was charging through the pack. When they were brought back in line for the restart Rahders was fourth behind Poelman. Once racing again, Rahders quickly moved to third. In the following lap Rahders put the pedal down through the whoop section to take second. Rahders then found himself focusing on Hagy and the lead. Rahders pulled alongside Hagy up the hill be-fore turn two and having the inside line was able to take the lead in turn two. With one lap to go it was Rahders, Britt had moved to second, and Hagy was third. Rahders made it through turn three just before a three car pile up took out Hagy and Britt. Rahders apparent victory was cut short as he had a flai: and his suspension let go just before the final turn causing his truck to bounce into, and lodge itself, against the safety barriers. Where he ended his race. The turn three mayhem and Rahders' bad luck gave the le-ad to Jessie Johnson with John Gable second and Shel-don Creed crossing over third\ However, after official review Johnson was dropped to third,._, giving Gable the win and fasJ qualifi_er Sheldon Creed se!, ond. Guess all one can say is, "That's racing." ~ Sunday's Super Lite event was a bit more subdued. Ryan Hagy used his pole position to take control of the event Continued on page 40 .. Aaron Daugherty was the 14th place finisher in the Saturday Pro lite Bradley Mo"is finished eighth on Saturday in the Pro lite Unlimited Travis Pecoy was the fourth place finisher in the Saturday Kart Jr. 1 Unlimited fracas, Aaron finished in the 10th spot in the Sunday event. fracas on Saturday, he was the third place finisher in the Sunday battle. event, Travis took third place honors in the Sunday fracas. Da"en Hardesty took the silver medal in the Kart Jr. 1 contest on Bradley Morris didn't have a good Saturday he finished 18th in the limited Zachary Hunt had a te"ible Saturday, he was shown 16th in the limited Saturday, Da"en only had eight laps completed in the Sunday bash. Buggy bash, Brad was the second place finisher in the Sunday rac~ Buggy event, Zach managed a third place finish in the Sunday happening. Page 38 May 2012 Dusty Times

Page 39

Page 40

from the start. Hagy was able to distance himself from Gar-rett Poelman as Poelman had to contend with a persistent Jessie Johnson. Johnson managed to take Poelman's second place on lap three. Back in the pack Code Rahders and Larry Link-ogle tangled in turn one with Linkogle spinning out. Rahders somehow held on to fourth be-hind Drew Britt. Just before the mandatory caution came out Johnson slipped past Hagy for the lead. Third place was still Britt with Rahders in fourth. Another yellow came out when Sheldon Creed caught Rahders rear bumper rolling Rahders over in turn three -where he came to rest on his passenger's side. On the restart Johnson held the lead with Hagy second and Trenton Briley third. Hagy went wide in turn one dropping him from second to sixth. A lap later Briley couldn't maneuver around turn three and bounced off the retainer barriers. With one lap to go Britt closed up on Johnson but couldn't find a way around having to settle for sec-ond. Creed crossed over third. Modified Karts Modified Karts had 15 com-petitors on course with Bradley Morris being the one who quali-fied fastest. For his effort Mor-ris endured a third row inver-sion. Sharing the front row were Page 40 Blake Lenk and Shel-Second was Jer-don Creed. Once the emy Davis and green flag waved it was ...,,.,.s.,,..,L Darren Hard-Creed taking the early esty held third. lead with Myles Cheek On the podium making his way from ,_-11!11_ when asked the fourth row starting ·--, about her win spot into second. Short-Anderson said, ly after Cheek was able "you got to do to take the lead with what you got to Creed in second. Af-do. Girls got to ter the mid-race restart get up here too." Creed muscled his way Kart Jr 1 around Cheek in turn There were 14 two. Cheek held the L---=--.:i-. ____ _.;.::::::::zS:E==::::.a:.::::=-=..:...:,.,::'"'7":""':r:2:""3-:t Kart Jr 1 trucks spot for a couple of laps taking course for before Bradley Morris Kevin McCull~ugh was th~ second place fini~her in Limited buggy on Saturdays round appeared and took over Saturday,KevmonlygotnvelapscompletedmtheSundayrace. three of these-leader Parker Darland. On the following lap the current champ Dickerson made his move to take over the race. Hardesty came back the next lap and was able to hold off Dickerson until the last lap. Broe Dick-erson took the checkers with Darren Hardesty second and third was Conner McMullen. On Sunday Darren Hardesty set quick time but got shuffled back in pack on the start. Tak-ing charge early was Broe Dick-erson with Conner McMullen second. These two pulled away from the pack and remained there throughout the event. At the finish line it was Broe Dick-erson again taking the win and Darren Hardesty was second ahead of Conner McMullen the lead. Bradley Morris held Anderson then lost the lead in ries. Broe Dickerson had come the lead to the finish line with the s-turn to Hardesty who later out earlier to set fast time. Myles Cheek second and Cole on had his own troubles allow-Taking the lead on lap two was Mamer crossing over third. In ing Dylan Winbury to take over Darren Hardesty from early round four it was all Bradley the pack with a couple of laps _______ ..;... ____ ....;.. ____________ ..... ~ Morris. Morris looked like an to go. Dylan Winbury went on More Happenings ... easy winner after leading almost the win and Darren Hardesty all of the laps until Kyle Hart crossed over second and Shelby took over with just three laps Anderson was third. left. But on the lap the mattered Sundays round four of the most Morris retook the lead and series saw Travis Pe Coy the held on to win. Kyle Hart was early leader with Jeremy Davis second and Myles Cheek fin-trailing and Shelby Anderson ished third. behind him. Just before the Kart Jr 2 mid-race caution Anderson A total of 18 Kart Jr 2 trucks moved into second. On the took the course. A turn one restart the front fou.r Davis, An-roll over caused the event to be derson, Dylan Winbury and El-restarted. On the restart it was liott Watson pulled away from Shelby Anderson jumping out the pack. The following lap saw front with Darren Hardesty sec-Anderson take· over and hold ond. Elliott Watson was third. the position to the checkers. 'I~ KENWOOD !ti':: May 2012 July 13-14, 2012 Round 7-8 Charlotte Motor Speedway (PRO only) Charlotte, NC July 19-20, 2012 Round 9-10 Route 66 Raceway (PRO only) Joliet, IL August 11-12, 2012 Round 11-12 Bark River International Raceway Bark River, MI September 1-2, 2012 Round 13-14 Crandon International Raceway Crandon, WI CUP RACE Schedule September 2, 2012 AMSOILCup Crandon International Raceway Crandon, WI September 2, 2012 Traxxas PRO-Light CUP Crandon International Raceway Crandon, WI TOYS FOR TOTS (619) 252-1197 /(619) 252-3093 UNADILLA VALLEY SPORTS CENTER P.O. Box 5119 EDMESTON, NY 13335 (606) 965-8784/FAX: (606) 905-8784 <www.unadillamx.com> VORRA VALLEY OFF RoAD RACING ASSOCIATION 1970 EAsr 2ND STREET RENO, NV 89502 775-287-0615 <www.vorra.net> May 26-28, 2012 USA 500 Desert Race Reno/ Sparks, NV July 14-15, 2012 250 Mile Night Race Fallon, NV September 1-3, 2012 Yerington 300 Desert Race Yerington, NV October 6-7, 2012 Short Course Prairie City OHV Park, Folsom, CA October 27-28, 2012 Short Course ·Prairie City OHV Park~Folsom, CA VICENTE GUERRERO OFFROADCUJB PROFO. CENOVIO GAMBOA 011-52-616-6-21-91 (2-6 p.m.) from page 7 LARRY HENDERSON (604) 538-0692 WORRA P.O.Box 3241 SUMAS WA 98295 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA WHEEL To WHEEL OFF RoAD RACING PATRICK McGUIRE P.O: Box 376 ADAMSBURG, PA (412) 527-6556 WmPLASH MOTORSPORTS 2939 E; Grovers Ave. PHOENIX, AZ 85032 (602) 971-3730 <www.whiplashracing.com> WILD WEST OFF ROAD RACE SERIES 406-321-4644/ 406-6704647/ 406-698-9536 May 26-28,2012 Big Sky 250 Broadview, MT July 28-29, 2012 High Desert 100 Powell, WY September 22-23, 2012 Wil West 100 Columbus, MT WISCONSIN MOTORSPORTS SHOW (414) 747-1711 WISCONSIN OFF ROAD FESTIVAL TERRY OR BEV FRIDAY 5913 so. U.S. HWY 45 0sHKOSH, WL 54901 (414) 688-5509 WORLD SERIES OF OFF ROAD RACING FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSmP P.O. Box99 CRANDON, WISCONSIN 54520 303-880-7221 <www.WRC.COM> XTREME INTERNATIONAL 1863 COMMANDER DRIVE LAKE HAvASu Cm, AZ 86403 (520) 855-RACE/(520) 855-2208 BAJA OFFICE: 0U-526-6225 ZR PROMOTIONS LUIS RENE' MONTANO C. CALZADA INDEPENDENCIA 200 -5 COL. lNSURGENTES EsrE 21280 MEXICALI, BC, MX (686) 564 6653 info@zrpromo.com Dusty Times

Page 41

Page 42

Page 43

Page 44

POJtER E STEERING THOMAS£LEE LEE MFG. CO. 11641 P£NOI..ETON.&T'REET SUN~.CA1t13G2 FAX (818) 7U-2917 (818) 788-0371 A l\dl llneol PowerSl...-iftOo-n-, pumps and ~ kif ~ tyPlt of racing. Magna11ux and Zyglo ta&:11 Ii• aYailable. ·c»ttom Chluis "Racl,P19p •Afuminum Wolk 'Weldint Engineering ~• FABRICATION/RACE PREPARATION 1320 ARROW HWY LA VERNE, CA 91750 (909) 596•4076 (909) 596-5497 FAX KENT LOTHRINGER www.McKenzies.com OFFROAD IS OUR BUSINESS 807 E. OrangethorpeAve. Ste. A ph 714-441-1212 Anaheim CA, 92801 · fx 714-441-1622 r,1tJTlJRtr 1'/EIIOEOLl'f R,lftJE RElNIILfJ.f" tJERTlrlEtJ ,1fJ/OtJ #l'f(/l/,1rL#X@ tJERTlrlEO .f"/ltJT PEEi/iii(/ • 1695 CACTUS RD. T. (619) 710-8800 SAN DIEGO, CA 92154 F. (619) 710-1640 619-562-5533 Ml Phone (330)928-9092 ...... (800)222-9092 www.mickeythompsontires.com SD •t..J ,,, Jr.,'* •1,-;11 , •• ,.,, • VDUR COMPLETE IONfTtON SOURCE •. ,;., , ' , ' • ' ' , c •' , • .. I', • ,:'\ • • • ti ' ,· • , ?, t AUTOTAONIC CONTAQL& CORPOR.AT,ON 14•··0 t-1(.- NJ:'.-v BRENNAN OH .• L ,::,,A~•u. ·r><. 79f;33l'.3 19151 9:,7.5;,m • nm l (!!l!il 005 112.'.l • VISIT OtJI> Wf6 SUE ........ 01$4""""°".c""' Get The word ·Out About Your Business, ess card Ad In The Good stuff Directory B1B-BB2-DDD4 JOE HENGEVELD 1400 E. BUllER Wl. ..... K.wt;,$.Mi#HO.NDA MmCUS POL..SIRIS. FL-\GSl'NF, ,\Z 86001 PH: (928) 526--7959 FA\: (928) 526-8613 $SUZUKI lilii,O.YAMAHA&Bn-am www.northlandmotorsports.com We can Bea .. dlock .,.. .... -. - ... ~ YOUR RIMS~! '-._~ u S~es lo fit .oat A TV .. ,-~~., l AllTONOTIVE application• POLISHED & COLORED FINISHES SCALLOPED OR CONVENTIONAL Reinforcing Ringt Also Available Phone - {961) 354-8272 www .OMfPERFQRMANCE. coe 9SIJ60.S906 m.160.0~36 f u 500.100.USO 3834 W1cbr Drivf Mira lo1111, (A 911S2 www.parbrp pu.cam Costom flxlts = Torsion Bars = SWay Bars & firm~ = Spllnlng = GINlr catting = Costom Machining= Phone: (909) 923-3011 fax: (909} 923-3211 llinlng I StfflGlt Z 115 S. Hellman Ave. #D Ontado.-Ca. 917 61 'ENHRL 1660 Babcock, Building. B Costa Mesa, CA 92627 TEL (949] 650-3035 FAX (949) 65G4721 www.penhallfab.com penhallfab@aol.com Jerry Penhall Snell SA2010 Pro Airflow Helmets • Light weight construction • Top a.nd Side-forced Air models • C;arbuu/Ke"her Tri~\\''en e or JOO•;. C•rbon • Interior~ removable for cle1rni11g or replacing SFI Apprnved • Drivin& Su.its I & 2 Layrr • Sho'ts • Gloves • ~ttk Bract1 • S.albell< Call or email for your closes, d~ler at (800) 669·2355 or !!!!P.J2!lrf(<1;pvrmcc1.com I iltJ • • • • fj • www.pyrotect.com

Page 45

Hi•Petformat'!C8 Equipmenr Suspension • Safety• Drive/ins • Accessories {619) 691-9171 {819} 691-9174 (619) 691--0803 (FAX) 103 Press Lane, Suite 14 . Chuta V,sta, CA 91910 e-mail: rprodt Oaol..com CraigSt-t Phone:6~ i:..,., 61-9-')t.711 Celli 619-T.26-889) fabrication & Race Preparation 94l~ Abraham We,;; Sant ... CA920n •: .. •.!,-•.!,!.tt,.,/J'l!!rtt.r-::K~!..~' ~ c~~rtu.<c>m ~ --Sales& Service PH: 714.680.6731 • Fl: 714.680.3110 T II free: 800.304.8126 10 I 5 E. Elm Avenue, Fullerton, CA 9 2 8 3 1 IU5Ullltll#i lH ~Ill, Nm* HtU s11•• •111: ..sw111■1t -111112 .. 1-IH -111111111 .. e lllllla -AalH lo I.UI 191 lJIU 221-IJU . fiiil SANDERS SERVICE, INC. L~ METAL PROCESSING 5921 W~oo A\'e., Los ~Its, CA 90001 (323} 583-2404 FAX {323) 583-3965 SANOBl.A 1'-Gl,ASSBEAD·MAGNF.TIC PARTICLE FLOURfSCENT INSPECTION MARKSMlTH ,..,., SUSPENSION INNOVATION MOTORSPORTS INC. LARRY MITH Tom McKenzie TIM CECIL 849 Lambert • Brea, CA 92821-(714) 447-3581 Fax (114) 612-9246 2180 Coll ... Drive• Lake HeVHU City• AZ. 96403 Call Toll Free: 877-627-8852 or E-Mail: lnfoOtcsperformance.com • Hi Performance Converters CU$tom Length Axles • • Automatic: Trans Axles TCS Designed Hubs • (for Race • Recreation) Input Shafts • American Made Excellence!! Lonely Long Advertising Term Space Relationship Looking Call For (818) .882•0004 lllllllijiiii ::._-.J• ... •-·-wo. SP. /4 :.:;.a-Off-Ro;sd and Bolt-On to Street Fiberglass for: "Ford, C~evy and Toyota" Trucks Carbon Fiber Parts and Custom Molds 1261 N. Baena Vista St . • flefflet Ca. 92543 Ph: 951.fi54•7334 Fa: 951.fi54-2375 See a list of our proc1Ud8"1f our -welt sfle: http://www.off-roadffbergJass.oo 1alix1:E ENCilNEElaNG Tel:562.903.1625 Fax:562.777.2593 I JEFF FIELO (818) 998-2739 9763 Varfel Ave. Chatsworth, CA 91311 NS WBST PERFORMANCE TRANSAXUS Kevin Pirtle 22545 South Normandie Ave. Torrance,California 90501 (619) 596-8033 , 000 W . Bradt•y. Unit Q El Cajon, C A 92020 310.782.2413 fax 310.782.3772 Carlos Orozco Adam Wik SCORE ENGINE BU1LOER OfntEYEAR 994, 1998, 1999,2000 FromPart$TO Complete Englnea 3265 W. Birtcher Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118 702-837-2522 I l!!!!I. I!!!!,. ,INC. SPECIALIZED WIRING, CDMMUNICATIDNS, AND REPAIRS FDR: Race cars - T1rophJ Tmcks-Pre-nlnners Chase Vehlcles - D al Spon Cars (76□) 9 □3-6955 MARC WADDELL, PRESIDENT WIREFAe@secaLOBAL.NET TRIINS MENDEOlA DISTRIBUTOR Performance Trans Off Road Street Trans Lorenzo Rodriguez Parts • Service • Transmissions • V. W. -Porsche Desert. Sand & Drag 850 S. Alta Vista Avenue • Monrovia, CA 910 16 (626) 305-RACE (7123) • www.wrtrans.com ·-

Page 46

-r 0 Classified~;.-. Some of the items adver-tised in these pages may not be legal for sale or use in all 50 states. Readers are ad-vised to consult appropriate local or state authorities for information before pur-chase of any specific item. FOR SALE: Class 8-Open, Q.i:_AL 6.:>T AT!:_ Ll:_A6{:_/Q.{:_NT AL.:> Vacation Rental Vacation Rental in the Ex-clusive Indian Wells Coun-·try Club in the Sunny Palm Springs area of Southern Cal-ifornia! 2 or 3 bedroom fur-nished for your complete re-laxation and if you are a glut-ton for punishment, play golf on 1 or both of the beautiful courses. FYI, wireless.internet and long distance phone calls (USA) included. Starting at $4,500.00 in season (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr) or $2,300.00 per month not in season. Call (760) 345-6124. IND~X TO AD\/~R.. Tl..::>~R....::> Ready for the Baja 1000, has Bilstein JK raced Baj~ ,1000 four times, best finish 2nd _place 2007, Motor 351-W strocked 420 inches, dry sump 600 hp, Mike's trans. · · Turbo· 400· ball bearing in tail shaft, King Coil over-by pass 3 inch dia. Bump Stop, MSD, All Rail Sweepstakes ........... 29 Bonneville Off Road Racing Caliente 250 ........... Back Cover Lowrance, PCI, Duel fuel tanks, BTR ~acing Wheels ................... 41 duel fuel pump and filters, Lee's· Steering1 Auto Meter, Summer ·0·Butch's Speed Shop .................. 31 Bros 40 spline, l3ead locks, td ·' . much to list, $40,000.00. Ca:11 CO~VA ........................................ 46 (559) 372-4599 or emiliaburns@ · yahoo.com.mx. . HDRA .......................................... 23 Kar Tek Off Road ......................... 5 Lucas Oil ...................................... 2 McKenzie's Performance Products .......... 4O NEO Synthetics ......................... 24 PRTWheels ............................... 18 Racer X Motorsports ................. 25 Ronco Plastics ........................... 36 SNORE ........................................ 47 Spanish Style Home .................... 4 South Point Casino ..................... 9 Transaxle Engineering .............. 41 Vacation Rental ......................... 34 ~ ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■p■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ : Sell or swap_youj extra parts and pieces·tn:· === : : DUS·TY-TIMES. . 11111111!111111~, : : Classified Advertising rate is only $25 for 45 words each mt>mh., not including name, address and .phone number. Add $5.00 for use of • black and white photo, or a very sharp color print. M~ximum size 5"x7" .All Classified A:ds must be PAID IN ADVANCE. REMEMBER - CLASSIFIED AD SPACE IS LIMITED -YOUR'AD MAY BE PUT OFF ONE ISSUE IF NOT RECEIVED IN A TIMELY MANNER. ·-· ----------------~---------------------------~~.-- ,~~-, Enclosed is $ ______________ (Send check or money order, no Cash) Please run ad ti.mes Page 46 May 2012 2012 ISSUE DEADLINE Jun 2012 Jun 8 2012 ·Jul 2012 Jul 6, 2012 Aug 2012 Aug 10, 2012 • • Sep 2012 Sep 7, 2~12 Oct 2012 Oct 5, 2012, . Dusty Times . I

2012 Volume 29 Number 5 Dusty Times Magazine

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3