UTV Rally Raid Round 9 Race Report

11/17/2012 – UTV Rally Raid Round Nine (9) saw some of the best weather this season! The temperature never climbed higher than 75 and the cool down at night allowed the drivers to hammer down hard, limiting their fatigue! The dust was at an all-time low as a result of Stony Lonesome’s fantastic course management!


We know every driver out there was thankful for the relentless work ef-fort put forth by the water team. Thanks guys, we really appreciate your work.

Round 9’s attendance was excellent too. Drivers from near and far (Maine, Indiana) made the trip to race the penultimate round. The various driver championships are coming down to the wire and every point counts.

38 Teams and 45 total drivers participated in the race. The pit-crews worked hard keeping the racers going with food/fuel with constant radio chatter keeping everyone informed of their position.
Stony Lonesome provided a Catering service that ran flat out all day serving Hot Food and drinks throughout the event.

As The race start drew closer, racers, pit crews and spectators made fast work of the available resources and shortly after the start of the race all the burgers were sold out, with Philly Cheese Steaks shortly thereafter.

Round Nine debuted a new Transponder based timing system. The system proof of concept was a resounding success with live timing screens visible to the pit area, live timing available to the internet and driver alert systems which allowed the timing crews to monitor timing accuracies and expected driver intervals. 2013 will see the continuation of the advanced timing systems with further modifications and systems resiliency to ensure the timing remains accurate 100% of the time.


An inside look at the timing control center. Lots of sensitive timing equipment to keep the racers happy!

The race started promptly at 3:15pm CST. The racers set off in pairs at thirty (30) second intervals. The entire grid left the starting line without any problems and the race was underway.
Mr. Andy Prins from RacerTech, UTV Rally Raid’s headline sponsor, was the guest race starter. Andy performed flawlessly when the pressure was on. The entire race was on his shoulders!

One of RacerTech’s many specialties is taking a brand new machine, pushing it past it’s limits, destroying it, figuring out how it broke and coming up with a solu-tion which prevents the same problem from happening again.

At RT Pro you will find more chassis braces, gussets and brackets than you will find anywhere else. You will also find THE most thoroughly designed and comprehensive suspension systems available.

There is no other company in the industry who puts more thought and engineering into their systems than RacerTech. In addition to suspension equipment, don’t forget to check out all of RacerTech’s rigid mount protection systems. Others just call these bumpers, but these guys put a lot of thought into these as well. Most of RacerTech’s bumper systems double as structural chassis strengthening pieces, which makes them a better investment for your machine than you can find elsewhere.

Also in attendance was another key sponsor of the UTV Rally Raid series, Joomgo (www.joomog.com) . Joomgo is the UTV Rally Raid’s Class 2 sponsor. Mike Mayleben from Joomgo raced Polaris RZR 800S like a true champ and kept all four wheels grounded, for the most part.

JoomGO! offers packages that are fixed monthly costs with no upfront money to design your website giving it a professional design that will give off a fantastic first impression. They take care of all the on-going updates so that it stays fresh and up-to-date.

Joomgo also provide website hosting on the cloud to keep it fast loading, using new technology in-stead of dedicated or shared hosting.

Joomgo works on integrating your marketing message through social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help control and promote your message. Most importantly, Joomgo continu-ally work on Search Engine Optimization to help your search results on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

UTV Rally Raid’s Class 1 sponsor is The SxS Store Class 1 was represented well with solid lap times that were not far off the Class 2 results. Team Harmon finished 12th overall, which is simply amazing considering the stiff competition.

The SxS Store.com was setup to service the growing needs of the South Eastern USA with excellent quality UTV and SxS parts and accessories. The mission of the SxS Store is to provide customers the option to buy all the great industry names at reduced prices with cost effective shipping rates for the South Eastern region.

The SxS Store.com transacts business worldwide, however the focus of the store is to service our continental US customers better than any other UTV store from anywhere in the USA.

The team at SxS Store.com are all riders and racers of UTV’s and SxS’s. You can rest assured that you are purchasing from people that are just like you, knowledgeable enthusiasts of the sport! Along with great products and great prices, the customer service is first class, effective and efficient..

The SxS Store.com’s industry partnerships affords the consumer a opportunity to purchase not just UTV parts, but racing apparel and gear too. There really is no good reason to purchase from any other online store.

Please take a few minutes to visit www.thesxsstore.com and check out the latest equipment at the most cost effective prices.

In addition to our loyal sponsors, the Executives from our new Tennessee venue, Windrock Park, made the trip to gather valuable information as they too prepare for UTV Rally Raid in 2013. The Windrock Park team toured the track and asked many pertinent questions regarding track design and driver expectations. Their efforts to build an exclusive UTV Rally Raid Series track have been truly epic. The Windrock Park track will be closed to the public, only open to the drivers of the UTV Rally Raid Series. We foresee great successes at the Windrock Park venue. With over 72,000 acres and full High-End luxury cabin accommodations there’s no excuse for family and friends to stay at home!!! visit: www.UTVRallyRaid for updates on location and race schedules.

Stony Lonesome provides a very FAST, free flowing race course. Although there are certainly some technical sections the driver attrition rate is very LOW. Several of the fastest UTV’s in the series will reach speed of 70+ mph through large sections of the course. The overall course runs 10+ miles through the hills of Bremen, Alabama.

The fantastic track conditions allowed the top drivers to lap in the 14’s with the fastest Lap winner in the Outlaw Class recording a very fast 13+min lap time. That’s simply amazing considering the 10+ mile course!!! Bridges, hardpack and smooth surfaces are some of the at-tributes of the Stony Lonesome cir-cuit. The facility management truly provide an awesome partnership.

Deep ruts, rocks and washouts are kept to a minimum!!! Every possible option is explored to keep the drivers safe and the vehicles in the race. With only 6 or 7 total vehicles recovery, and NO vehicles causing any delays to the race, UTV Rally Raid’s course design and implemen-tation by the Stony Lonesome crew has made this race venue a stable for 2013!!!
Every racer had a blast with no course casualties.

Some Action Shots from Round 9!


Team Evans Racing trying to distance themselves from Team Basch Bros, Outlaw Class, on the Short Course Section.


Team JTL Motorsports, Outlaw Class, giving it a foot full coming around a tight hairpin


Team Tony’s Toys fending off Team Hard in the Outlaw Class


Team Wesley Hale, Class 2 being chased by Team Barton Motors, Outlaw Class


Team Carroll Racing, Class 2 hard on the wheel!


Team Kilowatt turning fast laps in the Outlaw Class


Team Harmon, Class 1, pinned and focused on the task at hand

As you can see from a small selection of the race-day photographs, the drivers were really going for win. The race finished right on time at approximately 7:30pm (after taking elapsed starting times into consideration).

Over the course of the 4hr Endurance race, the field managed to accumulate 368 total laps with the fastest team recording sixteen (16) total laps of the Stony Lonesome track.

The awards ceremony took place almost immediately are race conclusion. Results were tabu-lated by the Timing Systems and the results were presented to the drivers.

The atmosphere between the competing teams was awesome. Big cheers and rounds of ap-plause erupted when the winners of the respective awards were announced. Congratulations to all the racers, pit crews and spectators for the fantastic atmosphere throughout the entire event. The UTVVRR community and sponsors make the event what it is!!!

The Top Three positions for each class are as follows:

Class one:
1st – Team Harmon – Polaris RZR 800
2nd – H.O.R.S – Yamaha Rhino
3rd – Team Edub Racing – Polaris RZR570

Class Two:
1st – Team Buff – Polaris RZR570
2nd – Team Basch Brothers Power Sports – Polaris RZR 800 S
3rd – Team Bluetorch – Polaris RZR 800 S

Outlaw Class:
1st – Team LCB Racing – Polaris RZR XP900
2nd – Team JMG Racing – Polaris RZR XP900
3rd – Team Ford Racing – Polaris RZR XP900

Fastest Lap of the Event:
Team Octane Racing -13m 51.343 seconds – RZR XP900