Unfortunately, he runs a RotaxV-twin engine, and wasineligible due to the fact that this particularengine was never offeredin aUTV from the factory. July 1, 2010, Can-Am released the all newCan-AmCommander whichcomes stock with the same popular engine that Brian, andmanyotherscurrently run in their outdated Yamaha Rhino`s. Brian`s firstreactiontothis news was that he would be in competition to record the 2011runningof theKing of the Hammers! The team ran the Whiplash Offroad Racing Seriesin 2010,and didsurprisingly well for their first entrance into an entire raceseries. ThePro-Mod championship was theirs for the taking. The car that Brianbuiltonlyhad 1 part failure during the whole series, causing theironly DNF fortheseason. (Wheel studs) When it came time to make for KOH, therewasn`t toomuch to doto the car. Brian installed a set of 3/8" UHMW skid platesfromFactoryUTV, a Quickshotspare tire and jack mount from Pro-Armor, a set ofPitbullRocker 26.5" tires, asecond battery and bracket from Rhino Parts andPerformance, and a hand-me-down winch from his friends at Freedom RVinTucson. The two didn`t get time to get to Hammer Town early enough topre-run theracecourse. Because of this they were quite nervous andspent most of thenightbefore the race worrying, and reading racecourse maps and strategizingthe run."I must say that the coursemarkers were clearly and well set out. Thanksto ReidNordin for thetime he invested in this" The dawn of the run was a cold one. Somewerereportingtemperatures under 30 degrees. Brian and Greg made their wayto thestarting line and were placed in 16th position out of 18.Once theywere rolling, and nervousness were settling, Brian began to get afeel forhis tallerride height, larger tires, and no sway bar. By thefirst technicalsection theyhad passed two or three cars and weremaking their way over the firstobstaclewhen they encountered stoppedrace traffic and a race car blocking thecourse.At this point Gregexited the vehicle to assist the stuck racer. Duringthistime, Brianshifted the car into reverse and now felt theshifterlinkagebreak. With some fast thinking, he was capable to take a portionof theengine cover and observed he could change the transmission byreachinginto theengine compartment. By the time Greg was second to thecar, at least fiveminuteshad passed and the stuck race car wasstill blocking the course. Gregscouted analternate route down andaround the stopped traffic. Once the team madeit downthe mountainand into the valley, Brian put his base in it and didn`tlookback. Savefor the broken shifter, the LSR XTR-F suspendedRhino was workingflawlessly and they were able to carry on some of the biggestwhoops andruts they had always seen. Not much was slowing them down. When theymade their way into the first named rock section called "Elvis", therewere anumber of stuck, and/or slow moving vehicles blocking thecourse. Again, Greggot out to help those drivers through thissection. What took probably onlyfive minutes felt like an eternity toBrian who was as patient as could be. Oncethese vehicles were moved,Brian quickly made his way downward through the rocksection with Gregspotting him. Once back at race speed, Brian was driving as ifhe wasgoing to win this race. They had no idea where they stood, butassumed it wastowards the presence of the pack as they had already passeda handful of cars, andsome that were low on the position of thecourse. When they reached the second named rock section,"Aftershock" they now knew that this section was passing to be the"makeor break" section of the course. After rounding the first cornerthey were greetedwith an excited audience that was comforting them on.While running this section,Greg was out of the car spotting for lines.Sometime during this section anumber of spectators told Greg that ourteam was working in foremost place. Oncethrough the section Gregreentered the race car and told Brian what he had justheard. Neitherof them could think that they were in 1st station as they knewthatthey hadn`t passed 15 cars. At any rate, this intelligence was adequate to excitethetwo into believing that they would not only goal this race, butfinish on thepodium. Nervously, Brian once again put his base in itas to not allow anyother racers to get up. This was met with someresistance from Greg as hewasn`t going to provide Brian to make it awaydue to his excitement. There were afew "boulders" that Brian hit sohard the car became partially airborne. "Wecan`t say enough goodthings about Factory UTV`s UHMW skid plates." Once the teammade it concluded the final lead and had a viewinto HammerTown, theyslowed down fora second to wait for traffic up front, and behind.There was no mark of anytraffic in either direction, and the teamstill didn`t know for sure whetherthey were in the go or not. Whatthey did know, was that there was nobodybehind them for miles. Thelast three or so miles was a heavily whooped outdownhill sand sectionwith the chance to give the car up, and put LonestarRacing`sXTR-F suspension to the test. Brian set the cruise control around 55mph through this division as it was obvious that we could have gone muchfaster,but doing so was risking throwing the run away and they wererunning low onfuel. When the two made it to the "Green"? flag, theywere told it was thefinish line and that they had placed third!"Thisrace was by far the bestracing experience of my life! There isnothing cooler than high speed desertracing mixed with some of themost demanding and technical rock crawling that aUTV has everencountered. I get done my part of rock crawling in UTV`s, butneverunder race conditions. This alone makes for an adrenalin rush like noother! Also, the fact that we`re able to run our UTV`s at what islikely thebiggest off-road race in the country, makes it all that muchcooler. I would like to thank myco-driverGreg Frantz for being flat out awesome! He`s a level headedguy with the skillsand patience to put up with me, and help guide mealong the way. I want you guyscould hear our PCI intercom chatter.We`re quite hilarious. We`re either scaredsilent, arguing aboutsomething, or joking and laughing our ass` off while werace! Iwouldn`t have had the successes that I`ve had in off-road racing if itwasn`t for him. You rock G." "I would alsolike to thankUltra4Racing, Dave and Jeff Knoll, Reid Nordin, JoeyDiGiovanni, Rusty Baptist,and Michael Green of Pitbull Tires forsponsoring thisevent!Congratulations to Jagged Extremefor taking place the win, and Mitch Guthrie for his second placefinish!" Special thanks to our friends andsponsors:Rotax Your Rhino - Lonestar Racing - www.UTVForums.net TCPPerformance - Seizmik - PCI Race Radios - PRPSeats - Pitbull Tires -Muzzys - Banners Plus - Unisteer - Dalton Industries -UTV OffroadMagazine - AZ Amsoil - HJC Helmets
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