I won't know for sure, but the scoring crew at the race in Mexico this weekend said that I took the win in Class 12 - Sportsman Unlimited.
The conditions were horrible - cold & drizzle/rain. Never gone so far, so fast with such limited vision. Visor was either covered in mud, rain or fogged up about 90% of the time. When it wasn't raining, I'd try to run w/the visor open but the wind kept making my eyes tear up.
We saw everything imaginable (except sun) - wind, rain, fog, dust, mud puddles, some of the slickest snot sand I've ever driven on. :shock:
MILES of whoops. From little stutter whoops that the Dez just ignores to 6' deep monsters that required just driving up and down and up and down and up and Oh Please Make Them Stop!!! Cool wash section full of rocks, high speed fire roads, tight twisty stuff thru the scrub brush - it's a really cool course.
We lost a belt about 8 - 10 miles into the race - right after making our third pass for position and the belt locked up the engine. Long term high speed runs seem to be the Dez's Achilles' heel. If I let the belt ride in a particular position on the clutch long enough it seems to overheat and then let go. Jay replaced it and we ran the rest of the race on one belt.
I kept making sure that I varied the throttle on the long speed runs so that the belt would keep moving in the clutches and not overheat things. I was able to cruise along with two other buggies at about 75 mph while feathering the throttle, so this new technique appears to work pretty well. Learn something new each race.
When the belt got tossed I thought we were screwed at first - I thought the engine had tossed a cylinder, but Jay gave the pull starter a yank and the good ol' Arctic Cat fired right up. Apparently the belt wadded up between the clutch and engine cases, so the starter didn't have enough to turn it over. (belt may have been stuck in the starter bendix for all I know)
The engine never gave a single hint of problems or concerns for the entire 112 miles. We did loose a CV boot sometime during the race, but 930 CVs in a 200 hp car that weighs 1300 lbs will probably make a full Baja 1000 race. Tough things...
Off my GPS, here are the stats: (we'll see how they compare to Whiplash's)
Course Length: 112.4 miles
2:39:40 moving time
42.5 mph average moving speed
80.1 top speed - (never have tried to see just how fast the Dez will go, but we still figure right around 95 - the belt issue has me a tad spooked and I didn't want to have to change a second one)