Race Testing the Yamaha YXZ1000R in Extreme Dust
- Updated: July 5, 2016
photos by Quantum Racing and Brandon Barker
It was back to Hawk Pride Off-Road Park in Tuscumbia, AL for round four of the 2016 UTV Rally Raid (UTVRR) Series. As stated in other race reports, whether you race or not Hawk Pride is a top-shelf facility and well worth the visit. I’ve always loved riding and racing there, except this last time…
Going into this race, we really needed to do well. This would be the fourth race in the new Yamaha YXZ and we feel like we are finally getting her dialed in. Knowing we should have won round three before we made a bad mistake and being second in the point’s championship, we knew we needed to finish ahead of Team TSR Racing and toward the front if we were to have a chance at the Championship. This race was also the last race before our two month summer break and the half way point of the series. The goal was to get the class win and cash in on all the points that go with it.
When we arrived on Friday afternoon, we quickly realized all the jumps on the short course were faced backwards, so we knew the course would be ran in the opposite direction for the first time this year. The course builder also mentioned there was a completely new section added, so with these two revelations, we knew it would be more competitive than normal. Throw in the late June Alabama heat, and we knew this would be a tough four hour race. Besides the high temps, our crew chief, Anthony Rick, was dealing with some family matters and wasn’t able to make it to this round. For those that don’t know, Anthony is my rock when it comes to racing. I’ve told anyone that will listen, if it wasn’t for him, I couldn’t race and that is the cold hard honest truth. He does more for our race team than I could ever explain and knowing he wasn’t with us only magnified how hard it would be win this round. The good news was the fact that we were very well prepped with what I felt was a dependable race-winning car. Everything was very well dialed in, our YXZ was more than ready for round four.
We drew row three in the 1000 Pro class, which was actually row seven for the race. I knew I was going to have to deal with the dust on the freshly prepped course and figured the first two laps would be brutal until the top silt layer got slung off. What I didn’t expect was how bad the dust would be. The good news is UTVRR decided to start us in one minute intervals, instead of thirty seconds. At the start, I got one of the best jumps I’ve ever gotten in the YXZ (I’m guessing watching all those new launch mode videos of the new 2017 YXZ SS must have wore off on me). Once I got out on the course, I quickly realized the dust just didn’t go away. It was way worse than I was expecting. I had to back way down and hadn’t even reached the woods yet. Less than ten turns into the race, Keith radioed me to inform me that they had red flagged the race because one of the cars that started in front of us was on fire. At this point, I figured instead of coming straight back to the pits, I would go ahead and take a slow sight lap to see the course until race control actually gave me the red flag. Once we reached the short course (approximately half way), race control was flagging us off. Luckily, no one was hurt and the car that had caught fire had very little damage. That is exactly why we run fire extinguishers and have fire suits.
Sitting back on the starting grid waiting to take off a second time, all I could think of was I hope I get as good a launch this time as I did the first, the less dust the better. As the light turned green, I got a good launch and pulled the holeshot a second time, although not nearly as flawlessly as I did the first time. Anyway, we were off and I just wanted to put in solid laps and try not to make any mistakes in the dust. As I began to click off laps, the more disappointed I got with the dust because I love driving this car so much and not being able to see slowed me way down. Of course, that is racing and everyone was having to deal with it. However, there is dust and there is DUST! The unanimous consensus at the end of the race was this was the dustiest race any of us have ever been in! Considering Tim Farr and Keith Little, both of whom have years and years of experience in many different off-road environments, agreed this was the dustiest they have ever seen in their lifetimes, that should tell you just how bad it actually was.
I made the best of it and just tried to keep the car between the lines, so to speak, so I could hand it off to Keith in one piece. I was able to complete six laps before I had to stop for fuel. With Anthony not being there we had gotten some pit help from other teams. Our pit stop was pretty good considering we were out of our normal routine. Keith began to set a good pace and looked good. Everything was going smoothly for three laps and then all of a sudden he came into the pits unexpectedly. He thought he had a flat tire as he said the car was hard to steer to the left. We checked everything over and couldn’t find anything bent and no flat tires.
We think our power steering unit was going out. While we were checking the car out, we made a mistake that would end up costing us the win. We were so focused on trying to figure out why he was having a hard time turning left that we didn’t think to put fuel in the car while it was in the pits. This was my fault for not thinking about it until after we had sent him back out. Once Keith knew nothing was wrong with the car he laid down our fastest lap of the race, even with the hard left hand turn steering issue. He was smoking fast in those conditions. On his last lap, he realized he was extremely low on fuel and the car actually cut out on him at one point. He had to slow way down to conserve on fuel. This allowed Truett Racing to overtake us for the win by fourteen seconds.
At the end of the race, the finishing order for the 1000 Pro class according to the scoring system was 1. TSR Racing, 2. Truett Racing and 3. Double E Racing/UTV Scene. We were all within a minute of each other, that’s pretty crazy for a four-hour race, and goes to show you just how competitive the class is. Later we found out that the adjusted time in the scoring system was wrong, which made the official results: 1. Truett Racing, 2. Double E Racing/UTV Scene and 3. TSR Racing. We were all still within a minute of each other, but we had accomplished one of our goals of finishing ahead of TSR for the championship battle, but my fuel mishap cost us the win and that has been a tough one. I keep thinking back at how I could do forget such a simple thing.
The good news is even though it was the dustiest race of all time, we managed to keep all that dirt out of the engine – thanks to Yamaha’s dual air filtration system. What’s more, other than our new found power steering problem, which we’re looking into, the YXZ performed great. And even better news when I got home, washing our very dusty YXZ was much easier than all that mud we put it through at round two.
We are now off until September. Round five will be back at the Highlifter Off-Road Park in Shreveport, LA. We hope to see everyone there. It goes without saying, we couldn’t do it if it wasn’t for our sponsors. Thank you for believing in us and making his happen: Yamaha Motor Corp., UTV Scene.com, Double E Racing, GBC Motorsports, DWT Wheels, Driven Racing Oils, Zbroz Racing, S3 Powersports, ATV Zone, Hess Motorsports, Salt Number, Custom Metal Works, JC Racing and Nstyle Designs.
