UTVRR Round 6 – The Long Break Was Over

At round six of the popular UTV Rally Raid UTV endurance racing series the racers were ready to go after the summer break. The ten mile course was set to be a fast one at Stony Lonesome ORV in Alabama. It looked like the weather was going to be kind to the teams with the exception of a lack of rain. 88 Degrees during the day and the humidity was relatively low so the weather was good. It did leave for some dusty conditions but the volunteers with the help from Rental Works in Alabama with the water trucks did their best to keep the dust down but that is part of racing in Alabama in the summer. As the day wore on and the racers began to grid up the and temperature seemed to cool a little the clouds rolled in with a chance of rain that never happened.

Round six of UTV Rally Raid saw 33 teams line up on the grid ready for what was hoped to be a great race and it delivered. With the top three teams in the fastest class separated by an amazingly close amount of time we were not left disappointed. In fact the top two just had one minute between them and this was after four hours of racing.

The course has started to develop some history to it now with certain parts of the course getting names form the drivers. One part of the course that springs to mind is the rather scary named “Dead Man’s Curve” It’s a very fast downhill section the has a sweeping right hand turn at the bottom. It takes a lot of technical high speed driving skill to be fast and it did claim a couple of roll overs at round 6 for one reason or another. Gladly they were rolled back over and the racers continued on. When the course is as fast as it is with UTV Rally Raid it is easy to be a casualty due to a momentary lapse of concentration as the four hours wears on and round six was no exception. Trees seemed to be the most popular moving target out there at and we suspect we have a couple of them with battle scars.

UTV Rally Raid has long been the realm of the Polaris RZR but it seems there is a new upcoming manufacturer making waves and that would be Artic Cat. The Cats are getting faster and faster on the endurance racing scene and round six saw a largest ever turn out of the famed Cat, it did well with one driver completing a lap with two flat tires.

The action in the pits is always worthy of note. Again we saw teams helping out other teams and a great pit lane atmosphere. This time we saw a pit lane fire that was put out very quickly. A Cat was refueling during the race and caught fire, thankfully the driver was fine and the fire was put out very quickly indeed thanks to the use of the mandated fire extinguishers the rules call for. All of this took about five minutes from start to finish and the Cat was back out racing. Kudos to everyone that was so quick in avoiding a bigger problem, the driver just wanted to get back out there and we are thankful he was able to do it.

As the race wore on we could see that the drivers were very keen to keep rolling with drivers coming though timing that were very keen get away again and some of the happy comments that were received at the timing gate. The course had a great lap time and a high average speed. The fastest lap was a fraction under fifteen minutes from Evans Racing in the Outlaw Class and most of the times recorded for any driver were up there in the faster lap times we have seen all season. We saw some new faces and some regulars come out, it made for a great day with some of our more seasoned racers passing tips to the new.

With RT Pro as the headline sponsors of UTV Rally Raid (UTVRR) you knew it would lead to some good racing and round six didn’t let us down. All the staff at Stony Lonesome worked really hard to make the race go well and as understaffed as they were they did a great job.

The top three in each class are as follows.

Outlaw

Clarke Brothers Racing – 13 Laps
Syndicate Racing – 13 Laps
Hendershot Performance – 12 Laps

Class 2

Team Buff – 13 Laps
Kretzschmar Racing – 10 laps
Hidden Trails 54 – 10 Laps

Class 1

Brinkam Racing – 11 Laps
Team Ford – 6 Laps

I do want to give a shout out to a Class 1 racer and that is the driver of Team Ford. She is the twelve year old daughter of one of our fastest racers in another class and she did a great job. She had enough by the time she put in six laps but a really great drive from her and of course the rest of the field did a great job of not being too pushy for the overtake.

Things like the last comment made here is what makes UTVRR such a great event. The teams are great to work with and really enjoy the pit lane comrardery.

Thanks for all the teams that came out to race with Quantum Racing at round six UTVRR. We can’t wait for round 7.

Huge thanks to the sponsors of the series. None of this would be possible without you.

RT Pro (Headline Series Sponsor)
Joomgo (Class Two Series Sponsor)
PCI Race Radios (Communications Sponsor)
Thesxsstore.com (Class One Sponsor)
Blue Torch Fabrication (Series Fast Lap Sponsor)
Basche Brothers Power Sports (Series Sponsor)
Adventure ATV (Fast lap Series Sponsor)
Mountain Motorsports (Series Sponsor)