BLAIS RACING SERVICES RACE REPORT!
DP4 Racing – UTV Series
Round 4, Barstow, CA
7/20/19
By: Chris Blais & Jeremy Gray, UTV PRO Turbo, 3rd Place.
Round 4 of the new DP4 Racing Series took place in Barstow, Ca. This would be my second DP4 event I have participated in. My co-driver, Jeremy Gray would actually be in town this time for the night race. I was pretty excited as we don’t do many night race events during the year. I knew Barstow would be rough and rocky and prepared the car the best I could. We had an engine issue the last Cal City race we did so I had been scrambling the last few weeks to get everything ready. Thanks to Murray Racing for helping us out and Andy at PWRTune for working with me on our new engine setup I put together to try out.
I had been testing all week and the day before the race to make sure our engine was tuned properly so we didn’t have any issues. I felt we were ready and the car was ready for the race. We started out with a good pace but the course immediately went into the rocky washes and mountains. A pack of us hung with the lead car the first half of the race. I managed to smack a rock outcropping I didn’t see on the left side as the Canam was a little wide for the tight trails we were on. We ended up getting 2 left side flats down the road on the first lap. Jeremy made quick work of swapping out the rear flat so we could continue on. We lost about 12 minutes to the leaders driving in on a front flat on the first lap. When checking out the car after the first lap and swapping flat tires we noticed the stock right rear trailing arm was starting to bend and crack a little.
We decided we would just set a good pace and not make any mistakes to damage the car any futher or have a DNF. A few cars would catch us here and there then we would pass them back in the pits or broken on the course. There were cars broken everywhere! Barstow has always been like this and destroys the best equipment out there. Driving a 75% pace we survived the tough and rocky course DP4 layed out. Out of 37 cars only 8 cars completed the full 6 laps. We ended up 3rd in the Pro Production Turbo class and 6th overall. The course was 28 miles long and took us about 1 hour a lap. After 6 laps of this rough course I was very happy to be one of the few finishers. Congrats to Robert Nuckles for a great race and the Overall Win! I look forward to racing the next DP4 race in Lucerne which I hope is a little higher paced than this race was.
My Baja Designs lights worked awesome, just wish I was able to go faster and actually use them to their full potential. My ZRP knuckles have held up to the extreme abuse I put my car through without a single hiccup and my UTVShocks.com suspension by Tom Morris has been incredible. Time to get to work and get ready for the next one! Thanks to everyone for the support and everything you do for us so we can keep racing.
Next up will be Vegas to Reno in a couple weeks with Jonmark Richardson from Deadlegs Racing. I am really excited to get back to BITD and Vegas to Reno again. In 2007 at the Vegas to Reno prerun I crashed badly on my dirtbike and had a career ending Spinal Cord injury. Time to get back there and put this race behind me again.
Special thanks to all our sponsors who jumped back on board for our 2019 season. Thanks to everyone for believing in me!
Tom Morris/ UTVShocks.com (Best shock tuner I have ever had a chance to work with)
Eibach Springs (Best springs around that don’t sag!)
KWI Clutching (Kris Werth is the man! My car rips and not a single belt issue all year)
RJ Fabrication (For the best looking car & roll cage out there)
Kenda Tires (Mastodon HT’s kick butt)
Raceline Wheels (Not a single wheel problem all year)
Baja Designs (Best lighting around, my sponsor for almost 20 years)
Impact Safety (Best helmets a guy could ask for)
PWR Tune (Awesome performance and customer support)
EPowerSteering (HD power steering unit so I can easily drive one handed)
Safecraft (Auto fire suppression to keep me safe as it’s harder for me to get out of the car)
Zollinger Racing Products (Amazing quality knuckles & hubs to handle the abuse)
RokBlokz (Sweet mud flaps and trailing arm guards)
Sector Seven (Mirrors that you can actually see out of and lights that work amazing)
Teixeira Tech (The best radius rods around)
Blud Lubricants (Best oil around)
Pops Powders (All our powdercoating needs)
NecksGen (Most comfortable neck brace I have ever worn)
Thank you again to everyone and I look forward to a great 2019 Race Season!
If your company is interested in working with us for 2019, let us know. With our race team, we are able to promote your products along with selling them in our on-line store and shop! We are also looking for a Title Sponsor to help represent our winning team for 2020! (714) 343-5263
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