Gettin’ Our Trail Fix On
With Justin Vickers
Story By: Kyle Callen
Photos By: Tom Leigh
The Trail Hero SXS Rally in Sand Hollow, Utah was an epic event. The state park was the perfect backdrop to get our friends together to not only ride but make some fantastic memories. The UTV Sports crew ventured out 3 days early to do some prerunning and prepare for the craziness that laid ahead. Preparation for the event started weeks earlier, making sure our pack list included everything we may need, and obviously that the stacks of stuff matched that pack list. With all the insanity that ensued, the toughest part was prepping UTVs for 9 days of pure abuse from the media crew—cleaning clutches, installing new belts, and nut-and-bolting every car to make it as good as new.
The week went off without a hitch. Each UTV needed a few little things at the end of each day upon return, which was more than expected (Ed. Note: Kyle, you’ve lost your mind if you thought they would come back perfect at any point throughout the week). Then you throw Justin Vickers into the mix; he wanted to take our 2019 Polaris RZR XP Turbo S Velocity out for a quick spin, and I must admit the car is awesome. It has custom shock tuning (thanks to our friends at Walker Evans Racing), PRP Alpha seats and 5-point harnesses, Factory UTV skid plates, an SDR Cage with custom mounts for our All German Motorsports (AGM) Electric Jack, and SDR Doors just to name the big ticket items. This car was built in preparation for some rally racing. It’s fast, nimble, and rides great in all conditions—and Vickers wanted to see what a well set-up car was all about, so we (hesitantly) let him loose.
It didn’t take all that long for my phone to ring. Vickers found himself stuck in the sand with a folded up left front lower control arm. He blames the car but I think his bucket of talent ran short. My immediate thoughts were, “I didn’t break it, I sure ain’t fixing it.” Either way, it was time for a field repair to get the car back to camp. Lucky for us HCR Racing was camped behind us and happened to have a set of spare stock arms for the car, and I knew we had that AGM Electric Jack on the car and a Boxo USA Tool Roll which should have everything needed to swap out the part. After getting loaded up in the rescue vehicle, it was time to find him.
Arriving on the scene, Vickers and Cody were out of the car laughing, so at least nobody was hurt. Dropping the replacement arm in the sand, “Start wrenchin’ boy, you broke it, you fix it,” I said. For those that don’t know Justin Vickers, he is a phenomenal dude and a hell of a character. As I showed him where the tools were and how the jack worked, it grew more apparent it was going to be comedy hour while he worked. Replacing the lower control arm in the field is a pretty simple task. The removal of the old part was effortless. Using the jack and getting the weight off the corner, one hit to the pinch bolt on the spindle and it was out. The inside of the arm was forcefully removed in the last minutes of the vehicle’s motion so that just required loosening two bolts and pulling the bushings out. Installation of the new arm should have been just as easy, but with the tabs tweaked, it required the finesse of a ratchet strap. Removal of the shock took a fair amount of persuasion from the hammer to get everything on the frame slide back into place.
Once the hard part was done and a beverage break was taken, we were back into the sand to wrap this up and get back to camp… or so we thought. Some finagling was required to get the ball joint into the spindle and get the pinch bolt back in, but Vickers is an outside-the-box kinda thinker and made it happen.
What’s the moral of this story you ask? Well, anything can be fixed on the trail with the right tools and parts. Being prepared for the unexpected isn’t that difficult. Companies like BOXO USA and All German Motorsports make great compact tools that are easy to store in your UTV to be ready for any situation. Oh… and don’t let Justin Vickers drive your cars!