Vegas to Reno Race Recap from 1938 Polaris RZR

| August 25, 2010 | 0 Comments

1938 Polaris RZR

We started off great in the 1938. Third off the line and moving up quick. By pit 4 Brian Thomas was ready to step out of the driver seat so I stepped in. As we were coming out of the pit, I thought we had to wait til the road crossing to increase speed so 1919 took advantage and flew by us. We think he may have just clipped our front tire with his rear and next thing I knew, we were off the track out in the desert. We got out and found a broken tie rod! Bummer, but luck would have it that we still had good radio contact and were not far from the pit area. My crew found an Ironman Quad rider that was willing to let them tape a tie rod to his bumper and stop for me so I could take it off. Thank you, thank you, thank you to # 674!

1938 Polaris RZR

We put the tie rod back on and even though we had a broken axle and scary toe out we continued on in 2 wheel drive sliding around on the slick desert sand like we were on ice. I began to worry about the up coming Trick Trucks. I knew they were not far behind. We tried to keep our speed about 40 mph to make it 30 miles to pit 5 before they caught us. We made it!!! The crew ended up having to rebuild the entire front of the RZR. That put us down a little over an hour. Driver change and we were back on the trail! At pit 9 our third driver, Robert, said he thought the belt was slipping , so, we change it out. By now the top 3 side x sides were about 100 miles in front. We knew we were probably out of contention but just wanted to finish this race! We pushed on. At pit 13, I and my crew chief and husband Eric as my co-rider got back in the car and vowed to just cruise and finish the last 140 miles. It was at aprox mile 405 I began to hear a strange noise coming from the engine. We still had power, so we continued on until almost mile 409 where a loud rod knock and loss of power ended our day. We over came a lot that day and were very sad that we couldn’t cross the finish line. We had a great time and a great adventure. We will be back next year to conquer our nemesis!

Thank you to all our sponsors: OMF, MTA, Tire Balls, Baja Designs, Joel’s T’s, Parker Oil, and Rockstar Custom Motorsports. A HUGE thank you to the #674 for helping us out in that pit. We will pay it forward!

Thank you to BITD and TSCO for putting on this great event. Thank you to you Jon for taking great photos and allowing us to be part of your website!

More pictures from the race can be found here.