Last Sunday, Cash and I loaded up “Big Blue” (my 2018 RZR Turbo) and drove 2 hours and 15 minutes to Rev’s in Bastrop, TX for Round 7 of the 2020 TORCS cross-country series. October is always a hectic month for my family (several birthdays, anniversaries, etc.), so I was looking forward to blowing off some steam with my TORCS brothers and sisters. Below is my race write-up.
WHERE:
Bastrop, TX… it’s a small town about 30 miles SE of Austin. This property has a mixture of rolling pastures and woods. There is also a nice house sitting atop of a big hill that overlooks the entire property (wish I lived there!).
TRACK CONDITIONS:
Last year’s race at Rev’s was hot and SUPER dusty. This year’s event was no different. When Cash and I arrived on Sunday afternoon, it was sunny, 97 degrees, and the air above the treeline was filled with white clouds of dust. Thankfully, a constant breeze kept the temps from feeling unbearable.
The track at this property is always fun, but one drawback here is racing during dry conditions when the loose, sandy soil (SILT) tends to scatter into the air easily and floats seemingly forever. In these conditions, it feels like driving through a never-ending fog that makes dodging trees and other racers just that much harder.
Due to the risk posed by extreme dust, TORCS made the call to stagger our SxS starts to one racer at a time (like they did here last year). To make things even safer, they divided up our single SxS race into 3 separate races. First, the PROS raced 5 laps (approx. 40 minutes). Next, the TURBO guys ran 4 laps. Finally, the NONTURBO group raced 4 laps. Running separate races for each class reduced the number of buggies on the track at the same time.
Having driven 2+ hours to travel to this property, I wasn’t thrilled about racing only 30+ minutes, but I totally understood why they did this. Safety of the racers and spectators is priority #1 (rightly so), and it’s no fun if someone gets serious injured and/or totals their UTV. So their decision made good sense to me even though I wish we could have raced a little longer. The reality is that even if TORCS decided we could only race 10 minutes, I’d happy agree b/c I know it would be the most exciting 10 minutes of my week!
The track was 4 miles in length, most of which weaved through large trees in the open pastures with a few wooded sections here and there to keep things interesting.
PARADE LAP & HOT LAP:
When the riders meeting started at 2:30 pm, 17 UTVs gathered near the starting line area. Terry D. and Kory W. explained the staggered starts and separate races as mentioned above. Then all of the Side-by-Sides joined in for one parade lap around the course.
When the parade lap started, Cash and I jumped in line right behind the leader so as to minimize the dust that Cash and I would eat. The layout was very similar to last year’s course, except they removed a bit of the wooded trails near the start. I was very happy that each lap was a respectable 4 miles long.
Besides the intense dust, my initial impressions of this track were that some sections were very rough, especially around certain turns. Other sections of the course had extremely deep, sandy soil that seemed to stop Big Blue in her tracks. Whenever this happened, we suddenly slowed to a crawl. Unless I could somehow avoid those areas, the only solution was to keep the hammer down and try not to lose momentum. Except for a few of the wooded sections, most of the course was wide and fast. The only things slowing racers down were the dust, bumpy sections, and deep, sanding soil that seemed to act like quicksand.
CLASSES:
The turnout for this race was only a few less than normal with 6 UTVs in the PRO class, 6 in the Turbo class, and 5 in the Non-turbo class.
While the PRO class raced, I got the chance to visit with an old ATV racing buddy and one heck of a nice guy (Jerry Matthews). He drove down with his son Hunter and girlfriend Anne to see Cash and me race. While we have chatted on the phone and Facebook many times, I haven’t seen Jerry in person since we last raced together in the utility class of the ATVCCS around 2007-ish. It was so nice to chat with him about off-road racing and our families. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating… Over the years, I’ve met the nicest people while racing off-road! That definitely includes Jerry and his family.
THE START:
The flagman told Cash and me that we would leave the line second (according to our current standing in season points), so we lined up behind the lead car driven by Greg and his co-pilot/son Michael. After watching the Turbo class start earlier, I decided to hang back at least 10 yards to avoid getting roosted whenever Greg & Michael launched off the line.
45 seconds after Greg and Michael left the line, the flagman waived the flag and off we went. Cash and I both let out a loud, “Yeeeee haw!” as we headed towards turn number one.
LAPS 1 – 4:
After making the first right turn around a large tree, the course zigs and zags around a few more trees before finally making a sweeping left turn towards the first section of woods. Upon reaching the woods, the track runs back and forth across a dry creekbed a few times and then heads towards a large grassy field. Once the track reaches this pasture, the trail runs to the right towards a standing dead tree. Last year, I recall that we made a hard left turn at this dead tree and run alongside a large pond. This time, we had to continue straight and circle around the pond become coming back to the pasture area. For the next few miles, we zigged and zagged around large trees in this large field.
Eventually, the course took racers alongside a dry creek surrounded by more trees. Here, the trail drops down into the dry creekbed in an off-camber section and then popped back out into the open field again.
On the back half of the course, it took racers near the big house on the hill and then continue to run in and around more big trees in large open areas.
Here, the soil seemed to get deeper and deeper, especially around the turns surrounding large trees. On a few of these turns, the roost coming off the front tires would suddenly blow up into Cash’s face or my face depending on whether we turned left or right. Whenever that happened to me, all I could do was close my eyes for a second and pull my goggles off my face to get the wind to clear the dirt from my eyes. This happened repeatedly during the race, but mostly in this back half of the course.
Finally, the track returns runs near the parking lot area where I saw some of Greg’s dust still hanging in the air. Does that mean I’m finally catching up to him? Who knows. He was no where to be scene, so I kept the hammer down and hoped for the best. Here, the trail runs through some woods alongside the parking area and finally runs through a dry creek area and pops out near the scoring schute area.
Near the beginning of lap 2, Cash and I entered the first section of woods and crossed the dry creekbed a few times. As we exited the creek the last time, we saw someone’s radiator fan laying in the middle of the track (more on this later). We kept pushing and hoping to gain some ground on Greg.
Soon, we entered the large field and headed towards the pond. I noticed heavy dust to my left on the other side of the large pasture. Somewhere in those clouds was Greg’s Can Am X3. So I kept pushing the go fast pedal to see if we could somehow catch him.
A few minutes later, Cash and I were running through that same pasture area and saw Madison pulled off the side of the trail. I later found out that the radiator fan we saw lying on the track belonged to her RZR Turbo and without it, her ride overheated. Bummer! Cash and I pressed onward.
On the third lap, I could see through the first large pasture that Dwayne was not far behind me. In fact, it appeared to me that he gained some ground. I also noticed that Collin wasn’t too far behind Dwayne, so that made me concerned that we were losing ground on them. It also appeared to me that Greg had also gained some distance on Cash and me. As much as I wanted to push Big Blue harder, I was afraid the rough track would tear up the machine and we wouldn’t finish the race. So I maintained the same pace and hoped for the best.
RACE RESULTS:
When we finally reached the checkered flag, Cash and I finished 4th out of 6 in the Turbo class. This was not the podium finish we hoped for, but we enjoyed every minute both on and off the race course. At the end of the day, HAVING FUN with my son and good friends is what it’s all about. We accomplished that and more!
MUCHO CONGRATS to Greg and Michael for taking the win on a challenging course! Also, my hat goes off to Dwayne for finishing 2nd and Collin for taking 3rd place – which was fitting considering that he crossed the finish line with ONLY 3 WHEELS! Apparently, the lug nuts came off his back wheel about a hundred yards from the checkered flag. Being the trooper that he is, Collin didn’t let that stop him and he finished in style!
LONG DRIVE HOME:
Because Cash went home this weekend, I ended up driving him to the race and then took him back to college afterwards. Luckily, his dorm at Texas State was less than an hour away. After eating dinner in San Marcos and dropping him off around 8pm, I finally headed towards home in Conroe, TX. Everything was smooth sailing until a I had a TIRE BLOWOUT somewhere between Bastrop and Giddings. Ugh! There’s nothing like pulling into a grassy ditch and changing a trailer tire at nighttime in the middle of nowhere. Boys and girls, can you say TOTAL DARKNESS? Luckily, I packed a bright flashlight this time, which is very RARE! 23 minutes later, I was back on the road and eventually got home safely at midnight. The upside was that I slept good that night.
SHAMELESS PLUG:
In case you haven’t heard, my new book about off-road racing with Cash entitled TEXAS OFF-ROAD RACING: A Father-Son Journey to a Side-by-Side Championship is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other book retailers. Get your copy today!
As always, I have to say a BIG THANK YOU to Gil and Jackie and the entire TORCS crew for hosting another FUN event! I hope you enjoyed my race write-up.
