Check out Ryan Piplic’s race report for this past weekend’s Best in the Desert Pahrump 250, last race of the year.
Going in to the last BITD Pahrumph 250 race we drew a 15th start position for our team in our Polaris Rzr turbo. Knowing we would have to deal with the bad dust and a rough course, we set out on a conservative pace for the first 100 miles of the race. We were noticing a lot of mechanical problems from other racers after seeing this we knew we had the right plan. After making it to the first scheduled pit at mile 117 we found ourselves in the mix with the leaders we caught up to on adjusted time, almost tied with the leader of the race. We decided to continue with the plan of taking it easy for the next 100 miles to the next scheduled pit.
Unfortunately we were coming through some bad silt and hit a rock and received a flat and broken rim. We pulled over and changed the tire and continued on with our plan. After mile 195 we had a mechanical problem which caused our Rzr to catch on fire. Unfortunately we were not able to continue because of the serious damage to the Rzr; thankfully nobody was injured and we were close enough to a pit to receive help and get back to the pits.
This would be our first DNF at BITD series this year. We were looking forward to this race because of all the lessons we learned so far in our rookie year at BITD and we knew we had a serious chance at winning our first race at the Pahrump 250. But with each race comes a new lessons and we learn from it and carry it over to the next and make our program better. Looking forward to starting fresh and going for the 2018 championship!
Antigravity Batteries is proud to sponsor Ryan Piplic, a multi-time champion who started racing SXS back in 2012. This was his first year racing in BITD. He also races in WORCS and took home the 2017 Pro Production class Championship! Follow Ryan on Facebook.
