Last Sunday, I loaded up “Big Blue” (my trusty 2018 RZR Turbo) and drove to Powell Ranch for the last race of the 2020 TORCS cross-country series. My regular co-pilot and favorite son (Cash) skipped this event to study for final exams at Texas State. Luckily, my long-time friend and former ATV competitor (Jerry Mathews) agreed to join me as my alternate co-pilot. Below is my race write-up.
WHERE:
Cedar Creek, TX… it’s a small community approximately 30 miles southeast of Austin. This property has lots of small mesquite trees, a few open pasture areas, and several creeks running through the property.
TRACK CONDITIONS:
This was the first time I raced here, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turns out that the terrain looks similar to other TORCS races held in the greater Bastrop area. This place reminds me of Knesek Ranch with more elevation changes and creek crossings, but a smaller parking area.
At race time, the weather was fantastic; mid-60s and mostly sunny. Unlike the last few races, this property had a little rainfall the night before to knock down some of the dust. This course was laid out over 3.5 miles of mostly tight, twisty trails, a few short runs through small, bumpy fields, plus a handful of (dry) creek crossings to keep things interesting.
PARADE LAP:
When the riders meeting started at 2:30pm, 18 side-by-sides gathered near the starting line. As usual, Terry Deck began the meeting by saying something like, “blah, blah, blah… today we’re doing the normal racing format of 60 minutes… blah, blah, blah.” Just kidding! Terry did a great job of explaining the track that he set up for the side-by-sides and let riders know about the hard/easy alternate route that he installed. He said the shorter route was maybe 2 seconds faster.
When the meeting concluded, we returned to our cars and got ready for the parade lap and one hot lap. Jerry skipped the meeting to get some new googles from a vendor and showed up just in time to take the co-pilot seat next to me. As the parade lap got underway, Jerry handed his truck key fob and hat to his friend Eli for safe keeping (more on this later). Jerry and I jumped in line near the back of the pack as we slowly made our way around the course for the first time.
My initial impressions of the track were as follows. First, the course had lots of woods, including one section that squeezed riders between several trees as we snaked our way up the side of a small hill. With this much wooded trails, the one draw-back I could see was the lack of places to easily pass slower racers. Second, the open fields that we zig-zagged through were rough and choppy, making these areas challenging to pass anyone. Third, Jerry and I didn’t find the hard/easy alternate route that Terry mentioned during the rider’s meeting. Oh well, I figured that Jerry or I would spot it during the race. Last, I noticed a few sheets of metal poking out of the ground near the inside turn close to the end of the lap (this was the turn immediately past a rusty, old 1940s pickup truck parked alongside the track). I took this turn extra wide because I was concerned it might slash my right-side tires (more on this later).
CLASSES:
On the front row, there were 6 UTVs in the PRO SxS class. Next, our Turbo SxS class had 4 side-by-sides competing. Behind us were 8 buggies in the Non-turbo SxS class. This is a pretty typical turn-out for this year, but I’ve seen bigger turnouts in our Turbo class earlier this season (and hope to see bigger numbers next season).
THE START:
After the Pro SxS class left the starting line, Jerry and I took a spot on the far right side of the line. The flagman pointed to each UTV in our Turbo class beginning with the other end and ending with Jerry and me. When he pointed to us, I nodded my head. Suddenly, I remembered that I hadn’t yet counted the number of competitors in my class, so I took a quick peek to my left. A split second later, I looked up and discovered the flagman had ALREADY WAVED THE DARN FLAG and was quickly walking away. All 3 Can-ams to my left were leaving the line and here I am asleep at the wheel. Doh! Once we got moving, I told Jerry, “Looks like we have our work cut out for us.”
LAP 1:
Greg Harbour and his son/co-pilot Michael won the holeshot, followed closely by Justin McComb and Nick Collins. Finally, Jerry and I rounded the first turn with our tails between our legs.
We followed Nick closely through the first section of bumpy turns that zig-zagged alongside the parking lot. There was no place to pass here, so I decided to be patient. Of course, that was easier said than done b/c Nick was roosting us as he zoomed around each turn of soft, sandy loam.
After weaving through a few more turns, the track takes racers through a whooped out section that enters the first pasture area filled with 2’ tall (dead) grass. As soon as we reached this field, I put the hammer down with the hope of passing Nick as soon as possible. However, Nick took the smoothest line in the middle, which forced us to go wide left so as to avoid eating the dirt thrown off his rear tires. After hugging Nick’s bumper for the next three 180-degree turns, we exited the pasture and made a hard right turn back towards a dry creek crossing.
As we made this right turn, we were hanging on Nick’s rear bumper. Suddenly, Nick went wide around the turn. So I quickly jumped to the inside and made a quick pass before reaching the dry creek crossing. Yeehaw! One down and two to go.
Soon we caught up to Justin’s rear bumper and started eating his roost while looking for a place to pass.
LAP 2:
We were still following Justin’s tail closely as Lap 2 started. Then the most unexpected thing happened… we saw Greg and Michael pulled off to the side about 50 yards past the scoring schute. Later, we found out they dropped their Can-am’s key fob and it wouldn’t run without it… so they had to go back to their truck and retrieve a spare key to finish the race. Don’t you just love technology!
Now, Jerry and I found ourselves in 2nd position and feeling good about our chances of taking the lead as soon as I could find a safe way around Justin.
LAP 3:
As Lap 3 began, we saw a friend and non-turbo racer (Dwight Childs) standing alongside the course (close to where Michael and Greg were parked on the last lap), and he was cheering us on as we went by. After the race, he told me that something sliced his right rear tire near the end of the second lap, which is EXACTLY what I was worried might happen to Big Blue when I first saw the pieces of metal sticking out during the parade lap. That’s a bummer for Dwight, but at least it wasn’t an expensive repair and he got to enjoy at least a few good laps on the track today.
LAP 5:
For several laps, Jerry and I continued to eat Justin’s roost while patiently waited to find a good place to pass. I was beyond frustrated at this point because we were consistently running about 7 minutes and 10 seconds per lap, and I knew we could ride much faster once we finally got around him. I kept yelling, “Go, go, go!” b/c I knew we were losing precious time. I was hitting the brake pedal way more than the gas, which is not a good sign. Also, I started to notice a few cars from the non-turbo class were starting to pile up behind us. Grrr!
As we came down and around a sloping hillside about mid-way through lap 5, I noticed two of the non-turbo cars flying down a different route and they beat Justin to the bottom of the hill where the trail meets up again. Hey! That must be the hard/easy that Terry was talking about in the riders meeting. I told Jerry we were going to take that route on the next lap.
Soon after we passed the hard/easy section, we entered a slight uphill run through very tight woods. Just as we reached the top of this small hill, Justin nailed a small tree and turned over onto his left side. I slammed on the brakes and quickly realized we were trapped between trees with nowhere to go. So I waved to Nick (who was right behind us at this point) and pointed to the right to make a path around Justin’s overturned Can-am. He did, and we quickly followed his lead. So now we’re still in 2nd position, but this time behind Nick. Ugh.
LAP 6:
On the next lap, we reached the same tight woods where Justin turned over and saw a bottleneck of cars stuck behind him. I tried to move to the right as if to find a way around. Then I looked at one of the guys at the back of the bottleneck and he yelled there was no way around. Just then, Kenny Gorman from the PRO SxS class pulled up from behind and made a path through the trees to bypass the roadblock. Jerry and I backed up and then followed Kenny’s lead. Best of all, we got around Nick in the process because he was in line behind the bottleneck.
Now Jerry and I were finally in the lead position and making great time behind Kenny.
Uh oh… about 50 yards up the trail, I noticed something felt wrong! Big Blue’s engine was revving like crazy. Took me a few seconds to realize that I had accidentally shifted into Low range after backing up to get around the last bottleneck. Doh! That meant I had to come to a complete stop before shifting into High range again. So I waited til the next sharp turn to do that. Luckily, no one was following close at the time.
LAPS 7 THRU 9:
About a mile into Lap 7, the track drops down into and then out of a rocky creek crossing in the woods. As the trail exits this section, it opens up to a wide, sweeping righthand turn on a soft, thick sandy trail. Kenny took the inside lane. We went outside, and I mashed the “go fast” pedal to the floor. Both cars were drifting around this turn while throwing roost high into the air and sliding all over the place. It was a total adrenaline rush, and I started giggling like a school girl!
After a mad dash to see who could reach the end of this trail first, Kenny got there just ahead of us and we fell back into line. I didn’t even care that we didn’t pass him b/c that was so much fun!
Soon, we approached the tight woods where Justin’s car overturned earlier and Kenny pulled to the right side to let us go by. I later heard he had a damaged ball joint and pulled out of the race after lap 7.
A few seconds later, we entered the section of woods where Justin’s car overturned earlier, and I noticed one UTV was still blocking the trail ahead (perhaps it was Justin’s, but I’m not sure). So I made another path into the woods to get around this roadblock. In my haste, I accidentally knocked some bark off a tree with my front left tire. GULP! I hope it didn’t bend anything. Then I kept going and luckily everything felt fine.
Finally! We had clean air for the first time in the race. With no one in the way, I started pushing Big Blue harder and we easily knocked 30 seconds off our prior lap times. In fact, my best time came on Lap 9 at 6 minutes and 29 seconds… Yee haw!
RACE RESULTS:
When we crossed the checkered flag, Jerry and I took the win in the Turbo SxS class and finished 4th overall. Can’t complain about that! Congrats to Nick for his second place finish (a little over a minute behind us) and to Greg and Michael for their podium finish… which ain’t bad considering they lost a whole lap while they went back to their truck to grab a spare key fob.
Speaking of missing key fobs, Eli accidentally dropped Jerry’s truck key fob during the race! After the race, Eli miraculously found it alongside the track where he stopped earlier to snap pics. However, I don’t think Greg and Michael had the same luck finding their missing key fob.
***MUCHO CONGRATS*** to Greg and Michael for taking the 2020 TORCS Turbo SxS Class Championship! They racked up 5 victories this year (compared to 3 wins for me) and finished with 9 more season points and also the title. Cash and I are already looking forward to racing again next season.
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 retailers. It makes a GREAT CHRISTMAS GIFT!
As always, I have to say a BIG THANK YOU to TORCS for hosting another FUN event! I hope you enjoyed my race write-up.
