“Black Rhino Performance/Racer X Motorsports Sponsored Athlete Cody Rahders’ UTV World Championship Race Report”
El Cajon, CA, March 9, 2016- At the 2nd annual UTVunderground.com World Championship race Cody Rahders takes a 2nd place finish in the Production 1000 class and a 9th in the Pro Turbo desert race.
First race of the day was the desert race with both the Turbo (class 900) and non Turbo (class1900) lined up 15 plus cars wide for a land rush start to the first turn with Cody lined up in the middle of row two. At the green Cody got a late jump on the flag and hit the first turn in 10th. Cody recalled, “It reminded me of racing motocross. A little pushing and shoving but everyone came away clean.”
On laps one and two Cody pushed hard to make up as much time as possible on the leaders picking up around 12 positions but on lap three his belt started slipping causing him to stop and change it out.
On lap five the belt was once again an issue however, this time it gave no warning prior to letting go and once stopped they found that it completely wrapped in, around, and through the primary clutch causing them to take too much time to remove the pieces. This caused them to be a lap down.
Cody stated, “At the Henderson 250 we had zero belt issues but it was much cooler out that day so once I got going again, with not much chance at a podium I pitted and had the pit crew ditch the belt cover hoping that would help the belt live for the rest of the race since I was pretty sure we couldn’t get the heat out. It did, at the expense of both my primary and secondary clutches. Being exposed to the rocks and sand at the end of the race they were trash, time to redo my clutch ducting.”
Once back on the track Cody dropped in behind Mark Burnett and the two battled back and forth for the rest of the race until Cody broke an axle on the last lap where he slowed considerably and finished the race out 9th place in Pro Turbo and 14th overall out of 80 entries for the Pro UTV desert race.
Cody then got into his Lucas Oil Regionals short course Class 100 car and lined up third row for the Production race. This race, like the previous, had both Production turbo (Class 4500) and non turbo (Class 100) cars racing against each other for the overall win.
At the green Cody got a good start and came out in second place through the first turn on his row and went to work catching the leaders.
“My Production 1000 car has a bone stock motor and since I knew I couldn’t out motor the turbo cars I had to take some chances and pass in the dust and there were a lot of cars to pass. Since I was in the back I used my experience from the desert race to make passes while everyone was driving in a line still learning the course,” stated Cody.
At the end of the first lap Cody had moved up from the somewhere in the high 30’s to 8th place and for the next three 14 mile laps he would continue to push finishing 2nd in Production 1000 and 4th overall out of the 70 cars that lined up for the Production class race.
Cody continued, “All we did was use the stock Polaris RZR XP Turbo shocks that come stock on the production turbo car, put in the Factory Fox upgrade kit, then put them on my Lucas Oil car and race. That’s what got me to 2nd. We needed more motor, the Tensor tires off my desert car and a way better start position if I was going to win. Once I got clear of traffic the leaders had over 2 minutes on me and I was just beating the car to death trying to get closer so I settled in and took 2nd. ”
I would like to thank Polaris RZR, Fox Shocks, Cognito Motorsports, Black Rhino, Racer X, Method Wheels, Tensor Tires, KN Filters, Sparks Racing, Superchips, Baja Designs, and Eibach.
Special thanks to my co-driver Fernando Ramirez, and pit crew; Nick Novak, Jon Kelly, Kevin Sullivan, Fern Sr. and Nate Burleson for their help. Photo credits JDM Foto, Ron Drugg.
Next race, the Mint 400!
