Racers Only Motorsports year in review 2009

Mohave Valley, AZ. December 15, 2009: After a very successful 2009 season, we are finally finding time to sit back and look back at our season. We had a great time this year with some HUGE wins and only one DNF.
Our season started in January at the SCORE opener in Laughlin, Nevada. The Laughlin Desert Challenge is a very short “sprint” race, split up into 2 days of racing around a 6.5 mile course. After 2 days of racing and fighting tooth and nail for the lead, it wasn’t till the last lap that we finally secured our 1st place finish. BFGoodrich’s own Roberts Kukanis would ride shotgun on day one while Chuck Soper would ride on day two. Racers Only Motorsports would repeat as Laughlin Desert Challenge Champions.

Fast forward 2 weeks to the BITD season opener, the Parker 425 in February. This was our first race at Parker with a pretty heavy field, including the X-Andy McMillin Trophy Truck running in our class. Pete VanRooy and I started in the 15th position and by the end of lap 1 found ourselves in the lead by over an hour. The rain gods opened the sky and dumped copious amounts of water on the field, making visibility almost impossible. Matt Bare would jump in the car with me as we set out on our final lap with the mindset of just taking it easy and coming home in one piece. As it turns out, a Trophy Truck team had a different idea and rear ended our race car hard enough to damage the motor and put us out of the race, our first DNF ever in this car.
It was late March when we arrived for the SNORE MINT 400 in Las Vegas. After finishing last year’s MINT 400 in 3rd place, we wanted to improve our finishing position by two. This race was extremely dusty and would prove to be on tough race. My Daughter Lindsey would ride the first lap, Chuck Soper the 2nd while Matt Bare would finish the final 2. After 400 miles of Nevada’s roughest terrain, Racers Only WON our second race of the season while finishing an impressive 22nd Overall out of 194 entries.



The MDR California 200 race was not even on our schedule this year but we thought it would be a good race to test our lighting package we were planning on running at the Baja 1000. We started 7th and held our position for the majority of the race against cars worth 2-3 times more than our 20 year old car. The car held up fine without a prep from the MINT 400 and only had a minor problem with the front through rods loosening up and needing re-tightening. Racing in Class 1 unlimited for the first time, we came home with a very respectable 6th place finish and 15th Overall.



Finally, the race we had been dreaming about all year, the SCORE TECATE BAJA 1000. Besides our outstanding sponsors that have been supporting us all year (JETJOC, Tri State CareFlight and Wide Open MRI), Ironclad Gloves and the Laughlin Tourism Commission jumped on board to help with our cause. With a full list of co-riders including Ed Jaeger, Matt Ciccone, Matt Clayton and Pete VanRooy, the Trophy Truck Killer enjoyed yet another near perfect run at the Baja 1000, labeled one of the toughest Baja 1000’s ever. After 23 hours, 22 minutes, Racers Only Motorsports crossed the finish line 1st in class and 46th Overall (4 wheeled vehicles). I can’t say enough about my crew, they kept us going when we got tired and motivated us to get to the finish line…….Thanks guys! Racers Only raced two races out of five in the SCORE series, both wins, and ended up placing 2nd in points for the year! After 1487 miles, we had ZERO flats on our BFGoodrich tires…………..AMAZING!!!!!