ROUND 3 - MAY 8, 2010

BRM OFFROAD hits round 3 of the Arizona Short Course Championship series and has fun despite some mechanical issues during the main event. We rolled into Speedworld in Surprise, Arizona early Saturday morning to very comfortable temperatures and familiar faces. We grabbed the nearest pit stall and as it turned out it was right next to Brian Carmen, who was the eventual winner of the Desert Stock Truck class. We met Brian out at Glen Helen in 2009 when we raced out there and it was great to see him come out to our state.

Turnout for the races were a little on the low side, despite seasonal temps only in the upper 90's. Racing conditions were great and the Powder Puff race at the end was sure to be fun.

We got our first look at the track in the morning practice session and Jeff Barrett in the BRM Offroad ^#334 Limited Short Course Buggy was looking pretty speedy. The track layout was fun, the faces of the jumps were smooth, and the whoops section worked well if you just hit them hard in 3rd gear. Our Heat Race started off great. We started mid-field only to drop back after an early spin out in a slippery corner. Jeff battled back and regained his lost position but had a ways to go to battle the top 3. He was putting pressure on for another pass when once again, the fun memories from Wheatland 2008 came back to haunt us. With two more spins late in the race, Jeff settled for a mid-pack finish.

In between our Heat and our Main races we were back in the pits grooving our tires. We needed more bite to make a run for the podium. Our Main Event came as temps topped 98º, but that's actually typical for early May in AZ and not a factor to any of the local racers in attendance. We had a great start for our Main and Barrett quickly moved up in the field. The racing action was tight for first and second place while we had our battle going on for third. Once Barrett completed the move into third he was pushing to the front. Knowing a competition yellow (full course yellow flag) would be coming out soon, we settled into 3rd in anticipation of a great re-start right on the heels of 2nd place. It was a good plan. We were in the position we needed to be for the restart, but we didn't expect the following to take place. Half way thru lap 9, just before the competition yellow flag, our coil dislodged itself and we lost all power. Our race was done.

Dejected and a little disappointed we got back into the pits and one of the track members even found our coil for us. It was a little messed up, but we had about half an hour to get our 1600 single buggy running for Missy Barrett to take the green in the Powder Puff race. The charity race was being put on for all the mom's in attendance with 100% of the proceeds going to the Susan G Komen Foundation for cancer research. We were under the gun to get things rolling. We got the coil remounted and added some racing tape as a back up security measure J. Unfortunately we had some melted wires from the earlier dislodge. We kept looking towards the start as the vehicles were staged and would soon be lead onto the track. Moments later the pace truck started pulling out, leading the field onto the track. Our first attempt to fire it up failed, but it did fire up finally, unfortunately it was after the green flag was given and we registered a DNS.

Overall we had a fun time. The organization and races went very smoothly and the only wreck the entire day was a trophy kart rolling in turn 1 of a heat race. Very clean and very fast racing. A great show!!

We won't be back out to ASCC until the fall race in September, but we're also planning on bringing an additional race vehicle to race in the UTV Stock class. Below are photos from our race and a couple from the UTV class. Arizona short course racing is a blast! Just prepare to down a lot of liquids and bring some shade.

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stay young, have fun, PLAY!