With the new truck reporting for duty, it was an easy trip to this race.  It was nice to be back in familiar territory, having experience form last year.

​

Pre-running covered the second half of the course, a few changes had been made since last year.  Familiar parts remained and the improvements helped, the course was great.  A bit short of an even 40 miles at 36.5, but the whole experience was made better.  All 3 laps or bust!

​

The start was decent, settled right back into things with the familiar first sections.  The rough bits weren't as rough as expected.  Just before the halfway point on the first lap, the class leading dirt bike was caught and passed!  We played a chase game for the rest of the lap before it got back in front and held a gap just longer than the dust cloud.  The favorite sections of the course remained!  The favorite straights with a few small jumps on them as well as a technical section at the halfway pit were fun.  Damon Bell photography got some great ground and drone shots, including a video.

​

The rest of the race was against the clock, eating up miles until the fuel stop between the second and third/final lap.  This was the first real run with the new HMF Racing exhaust on, it sounded great and let the quad breathe easier.  Between that and the first use of VP's C9 fuel it was a happy quad.  The ITP tires continued to grab, barely showing any wear after 400 race miles plus pre-running and a little testing, haven't even had to rotate them yet.  They can really take a beating, not even sweating a 825 lb quad catching air.

​

The last laps each felt better than the one before.  Tying together knowledge of this version of the course and hitting better lines through several sections...  Always chasing that perfect lap...  I nailed the halfway section before keeping a solid pace all the way to the finish. Clean air almost the whole time, a beautiful day racing.

 

As it turned out, the rider of that bike had barely dismounted after his finish, the first thing spectators commented on is how close we were crossing the line, only a couple of minutes apart.  The best news came later.  Two of my laps were faster and by enough to yield an elapsed time that was half a minute faster!  That's right, a quad outran a dirt bike!