Another race season has come to a close following last weekend's 7-miler. Spent more time working on the camper than the buggy. When the time came to tend to a few minor details, I ended up having to do a swingarm pivot bearing replacement job. Couple days of dirty work and that was a done deal and made it to the races with some breathing room.
Left the go pro in the home office and my camera is down for the count, so unfortunately no vid or pics. This shot is from the previous race.
Final race is always the biggest, the 7-miler, which is the full course, and is now actually 8.5 miles per lap.
11 of us showed for UTV, with some of the top points position racers absent, much to my benefit since I went in sitting tied for 7th in points.
Class is pretty well settled in giving us 1 hour to run before the ATVS and bikes go off the line, so 2 laps is the max one can get in on the 7-miler.
Got off the line fine, settled into a pretty normal pace for me which meant staying a bit conservative. More comfortable with the new gear ratios, definitely was able to stay in 3rd a lot longer andsmooth out the rough stuff by running faster. Water and mud on the course was normal, not as bad as last race, but conditions were as expected--rough rocky and worse than the last race in regards to loose boulders all over. Within mile 1, I passed the first who went off the line, a Yamaha out with a broken tie rod, good dude named jason who's had crap luck this year and is on engine #3 in his Y. got picked off shortly there-after by two who'd started behind me. not much later, i pulled over to let another by only to have him catch a tree next to us and rip off his entire front left. Avoided his wheel and nearly flipping ride, made sure they were ok and continued on.
From that point and pushing it maybe a little harder than ever, I didn't have anyone else get by me, ran through the rocks a lot better but began hearing some noise from the left rear (chain again) within a couple more miles.
Close the 8 mile mark i came across my buddy Ron stopped in the middle of a downhill off camber right hander--he'd rolled it and couldn't refire. Trying to get by him i caught the left front on his rear tire followed by the left rear on the same. a couple yards later I got stuck in a muddy rut. DNF??? Damage assessment time.
Upper front A-arm snapped at a weld near the kingpin, left rear sprocket loose and no chain. About a half a mile to the finish, no way was i gonna call it quits. Ronnie killed his battery trying to refire--i found my chain, intact, a couple feet past his rig. knocked the master off with a rock and spent a good half hour trying to get the muddied up master link in place. mud grit kept it from closing up enough for the snap clip to seat in the grooves so i kept at it by pouring handfuls of muddy water on it and managed to push the clip home with the snout of my fire extinguisher. With the chain on, albeit on a very loose sprocket, i was off again for the last bit of the course which included the hillclimb. Babied her around it the last rocky sections, pulled the hillclimb and crossed the finish line at the 1 hour and 46 second mark.
End result was an 8th place, First through 5th made 2 laps, 6-8th got 1 done and 3 dnf'd.
One of the locals welded up my a-arm sunday morning, I tightened the sprocket and called it good to go for some short course fun. Only ronnie and I had at it in the UTV class. Racing started with the V-8 trucks, which kept getting stuck in one corner. Come our turn, and with no pre-walk on the course I found where they were getting stuck alright. about a 4-foot deep pottery clay thickness mud rut in a right hander that swallowed my front left so deep that it put her on her side. No damage but to the ol ego, drove it out of the mud under it's own power (unlike the trucks) and got clipped by Ron by a second or so on round 2.
Fun way to end the season, still running, largely all in one piece and probably my best points season yet.
Did find y that at some point I ripped the engine guard (3-foot 2x4 aluminum C-channel) off the underside and put a pretty massive dent the right front lower A-arm.
Final series points put me in 5th overall for the season. No rewards for it, but nice to have the bragging rights for the only "Built Not Bought" racer to be well inside the top 10 out of 30-plus entrants.
Winter plans include "modularizing" the jackshaft bearing mounts and swingarm pivots into single, removable framework that will improve their alignment and eliminate some of the wear im getting at the pivot bolt, going to taperlock sprockets on the jackshaft and replacing the sprockets i made with custom ones. This past few race's chain issues were caused by the bolt center being a hair off on the centers i welded in. The same sprocket consistently loosens its bolts and tosses the chain intact.