This race was originally supposed to be held back in March in Laughlin, AZ, with a Supercross format. As with most things in 2020, the race was rescheduled due to COVID. Luckily BITD kicked butt and got it rescheduled for September 26-27 as a two day race at Glen Helen Raceway, CA. If you never thought a Best in the Desert Race would be held at a motocross track with a 7.8 mile loop, join the club. To prepare for the format and terrain change, our 33 inch tires were swapped with 30 inch tires from STI,but beyond that the Dusty Crew UTV stayed true to its desert stature. Following suit with the rest of the season, we started mid-pack (17th out of 31 Pro Turbo UTVs). The race started 5 per line, putting us on the third line with each line separated by about 30 seconds.Thankfully Colt was the Holeshot King when racing ATVs and that transferred into UTVs. With a stellar start, we got less than a mile into the race to see that a UTV from the second row had split the course causing them to roll and block the entire course. With a complete bottle neck of the remaining UTVs with no where to go, BITD call a restart of the race which took about 75 minutes to happen.
Once again, Colt pulled the holeshot during the restart. The course was dusty so we held our lines and played it smart. Our plan was to cut our time down each lap and make passes during the rare time the course was wide enough and we did exactly that. About 6 miles from finishing Saturday’s race the transmission started acting up. Colt eased up and got the Dusty Crew Can Am to the finish. After the race, the oil was drained to find large pieces of metal throughout. With not enough time, man power, or resources we were unable to get a new transmission put into the UTV before Sunday’s race. Sunday’s race plan went from pushing as hard as we could to attempting to finish one lap, just to get points rather than a straight DNF. The transmission was stuck in high gear and since we were taking it slow and smart, we frequently moved over to make room for the teams who were fighting it out for the top stops on the podium. We eventually made it into the finish, thankful to have made it 4 laps when we were assuming we’d barely make it one. The preparation has already begun for the final race of the season next month in Parker, Arizona, and we can’t race to end the season with a solid hard-earned finish.
Dusty Crew Race Team is beyond thankful for all of the companies that are helping us get to each and every race this season.
Dusty Crew Apparel • Can-Am • System 3-Offroad • Accelerated Funding • Val Brinkerhoff Racing Stables • Eagles Landing Travel Plaza’s • Elka Suspension • Blud Lubricants • Seal Seavers • Lone Star Racing • TireBlocks • HMF Exhaust • Simpson Race Products • Assault UTV • Tire Blocks • S&B Filters • Evo Powersports • KWI Clutching • Baja Designs • Four Werx • Factory UTV