Words and Photos: Brandon Bunch
If you’re a fan of UTV racing, it’d be hard not to notice the TexPlex SXS Series in 2021. It caught our attention when the PR hit our inboxes announcing a $200,000 series purse, the largest we’ve seen for a dedicated UTV race series, and obviously grabbed the attention of racers across the country.
Round 1 featured the likes of Hunter and Cody Miller, Kyle Chaney, Dustin Jones, Cody Bradbury, Corbin Leaverton, Cole Keatts, Ronnie Anderson, Myles Cheek, and more all showing up to begin their fight for the big purse—Anderson and Cheek doubling down by competing in both the Pro Turbo and Pro N/A classes giving them the chance at a $30,000 championship prize twice! Equal purses will be distributed to both Pro class winners, with $10,000 going to second place and $7,000 to third in both classes as well.
Seems like a no brainer as a professional racer to go after the big bucks in both classes, but that’s going to be no easy feat. The UTV Short Course track at TexPlex is gnarly. It’s long, fast, and features huge table top jumps, massive bowl turns, and high speed sweeping corners that push drivers, and especially their equipment, to the limits as the track gets rougher throughout the day. Not to mention, it’s a ‘combined score’ two moto format that decides an overall winner for the round.
Racers warm up with timed practice in the morning, and the first moto is split into two separate start lines, or ‘heats’, for the larger Pro Turbo class. The races begin with the drop of a green flag on a moto-style landrush start, and start position is determined by lap times from practice, or finishing order from the previous moto. All of this combined makes it imperative that you perform well throughout the day—a poor time in practice could give you a bad start in the short six-lap first moto, potentially taking you out of contention for the overall win.
The Pro Turbo class proved just how important good starts are, and gave us a taste of just how western the racing can get here at TexPlex with that much cash up for grabs…
With the twenty-three car field split into two separate start lines for Moto 1, racers kept it on all four as Corbin Leaverton took the holeshot in the Heat 1 first line with Kyle Chaney and Cody Miller in chase, while Trevor Leighton took the holeshot in the Heat 2 second line. Coming back around through the start corner finishing the first lap, Thomas St. Peter ran it in deep on Dustin Jones sending them both tumbling and out of contention for the Heat 1 win, while Leaverton held the lead until breaking the front differential on lap two, dropping him back to 4th by the end.
Kyle Chaney and Cody Miller continued the battle for the lead with Chaney out front, until he too grenaded a front differential and spun out handing the lead to Cody, who also blew a front differential on the last lap and nursed it in for the Heat 1 win. The Heat 2 second line came to a less dramatic finish with Hunter Miller making his way to the front after Leighton and Anderson fell back, taking the win almost ten seconds ahead of 2nd.
Moto 2 came around for Pro Turbo and it was time for the real excitement to begin—nineteen cars lined up wheel to wheel to take the green flag of the eight lap sprint, this time on the long start stretch funneling down into the same tight right hander with a whole lot more speed. As the green flag dropped, Kyle Chaney and Hunter Miller bumped into each other heading down the start stretch before Dustin Jones bumped the back of Hunter spinning him around backwards in the middle of the first corner. At the same time, Cody Bradbury came up the inside behind the wheel of a borrowed RS1 on two wheels, and Dustin Jones and Ronnie Anderson bumped wheels exiting the first corner sending Jones tumbling for a second time. It was chaos.
This all resulted in an overall podium repeat from Round 1, with Cody Miller, Kyle Chaney, and Hunter Miller taking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. Ronnie Anderson took 4th overall after his 4th place finish in Moto 1 as a result of having a broken front differential as well, but it was clear to see that Anderson had the speed to compete with the three lead Can-Ams.
With a field that was half the size, racing was a bit less chaotic for the Pro N/A class. Thirteen year old Kainan Baker took the holeshot in Moto 1, but Colin Truett was able to get around him on the first lap. The two battled for the entire race, but Baker was able to take back the lead on the third lap and held off Truett who came across the line in second. Ronnie Anderson worked his way up from a 5th place start to take 3rd. Myles Cheek blew up the front differential in his RS1 during the first Pro Turbo moto, and had to miss Moto 1 for Pro N/A due to the fact that he’s running the same car in both classes, and wasn’t able to get it back rolling in time.
Moto 2 for Pro N/A started with the young Kainan Baker taking the holeshot once again, this time with Myles Cheek trailing 2nd, Colin Truett 3rd, and Ronnie Anderson 4th. Baker held the lead until a front suspension failure caused him to drop back, giving the lead to Cheek who then had a flat tire and pulled off to have it changed as the race went into the competition yellow.
Anderson took the green flag in 1st with Cross Kirchmeier following through on the outside in 2nd, and Cole Keatts running 3rd. Cheek was in 7th on the restart and put in a heater to make his way up to 2nd place by Lap 6, but Kirchmeier wasn’t going down without a fight and battled Cheek into the finish before settling for 3rd place. Cheek took a hard fought 2nd place, and Anderson took the win in Moto 2.
A tough day turned around for Ronnie Anderson, with him taking the overall win in Pro N/A as he did at Round 1, after Baker and Truett had misfortunes in Moto 2. Cross Kirchmeier ended up on the overall podium in 2nd behind the wheel of his Honda Talon, and Cole Keatts rounded out the podium in 3rd.
This class will surely put on a show throughout the rest of the season as Colin Truett and 13 year old Kainan Baker have made the statement that they can run with the top 3 here. And if Myles Cheek can get through a race without issues, he has the speed to absolutely decimate the field—possibly in the Pro Turbo class as well if lap times are anything to go by.
The loss of the LOORS Short Course Racing series was significant, but TexPlex has filled the void for some of the fastest SXS racers with this 10 round championship. While the whole series is taking place on one track, the race course is fast and brutal, and produces great racing—not to mention the venue itself is a rad motorsports playground in the heart of the country.
It’ll be interesting to see if the west coast racers can continue to find their footing in Texas and take the fight to the Miller brothers, and the other mid-west short course veterans. You can bet we’ll have our eyes glued to the races for the rest of the series.
