Dirt Riot Southwest Round 3, St. Johns, AZ

What a Busy Race

After anxiously driving over thirteen hours from Fort Collins, Colorado to St. Johns, Arizona for our third Dirt Riot event of the season, we were relieved to find a size-able group of competitors at the Apache Fairgrounds. Understanding the competitive atmosphere that was around us, we pre-ran the course carefully until we were confident that all major ‘race-ending’ obstacles were classified and noted. Approximately twenty minutes before ‘qualifying’, however, we snapped our first axle ever. Our freshly retrofit Smart-Lok unit is incredible when engaged in ‘Trail-Active’ mode but, as with any locked front end vehicle, puts a phenomenal amount of torsional load on drive-line and axle components during any quantity of steer. As such, we lost our front driver axle and was forced to qualify in 2WD. The result? Massive amounts of ‘fish-tailing’ around the course and, to our surprise, a first-place qualifying position! After this we desperately searched the surrounding regions for any kind of front axle for the next morning’s race. Luckily, Ken Goodall from Sin Fab Industries saved our race by providing an axle off of his personal Can-Am X3. From this, we rushed to throw our newfound axle on at six the next morning and qualified several laps for the day’s race. Ultimately, we were able to lock down a first place finish and fend off any further breakage through the duration of the race.