Team Ducky Racing 2016 King of the Hammers UTV Race Recap

via UTVGuide.net

After taking on the ULTRA4 series in 2015 and coming away with the Western and National title (see Chasing the Ultra4 UTV Championship) we were ready to tackle it again in 2016. Knowing we had to step up our game I decided that going with the latest offering from Polaris was the way to go. With Polaris’s help I acquired a 2016 RZR XP Turbo (XPT). For the build I partnered with Desert Concepts (Riverside, CA), who handled the cage build, frame strengthening, panel work, wiring, and installed the long list of parts needed to make a competitive race car (see Desert Concepts Inc. signs Team Ducky).

The car was together in time to do a shake down run and some tire testing at the end of January. I met Mark MacDonald from Desertcraft, Mark Thornburg from MOTO RACE tire and Randy Jelleff from ATVONICS at the lake bed in Johnson Valley. The XPT had zero miles on it so I took it easy at first to break it in. That afternoon we decided to get in some of last years desert loop and open her up on the dry lake bed. Wow, was this car a beast! I ran her up to 85 mph and it still wanted to climb. We hit a few hill climbs and rock sections and I could really feel the difference in the torque and power the XPT offered.

The next day Bryan Grigsby (owner Desert Concepts) arrived with his crew to do further testing and go over the car. We found some minor issues, but nothing to worry about and easily addressed during final prep before the race. We took the rest of the day pre-running some of the tougher Hammer trails. The Chocolate Thunder run, at “race speed” was made from the gatekeeper to the top in 1:20. The crew from Desert Concepts has a ton of time and experience in the Hammer trails and they helped me pick some great lines.

King of The Hammers was now a little over two weeks away, so back the XPT goes to Desert Concepts for final prep, fix some of the small issues we ran into during testing and get it wrapped, (special thanks go out to ADART for the wrap).

Time to get ready to race… We get to the lake bed on Friday 1/29 and start setting up.

We took care of some last minute details and got into Hammer Town to get the course downloaded to our GPS. We left the XPT in camp and shot out of camp with Mark from Desertcraft in his XP1000, Desert Concept’s XP900 with JT Stephens at the wheel and Jason Wilkins in his new Yamaha YXZ. I rode Co-dog with JT Stephens. We ended up running most of the first lap marking the technical sections and hazards. Running out of gas in the XP900 on the way back was not fun. Saturday I got in the XPT to do some shock testing and I felt that the car was a bit stiff and could be improved. Mark came ready to make the changes we needed, we broke down the shocks, changed the valving and made a spring change on the front. That did it… shocks were working great and I could flat blast through the whoops.

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