Chris and Nick Blais take 1st Overall in the UTV Rally Class at the UTV World Championships!
By: Chris Blais & Nick Blais, UTV Rally, 1st Overall! 10/10/2020
The UTV World Championship was held in Lake Havasu, AZ at a brand new venue. This new venue would even out the racing as most of the racers didn't know what to expect, never having raced here before. We decided to go prerun the weekend before and check out what Lake Havasu had in store for us. After 2 laps of prerunning, the course was already changing a lot. It was tight, rough, rocky and challenging. I like these type of survival courses as it suits my style and is definitely my forte’.
Tom Morris at UTV Shocks made some changes again to our suspension that we were testing out, and our car was working amazing on this course in the rough chop and in the sand washes! We went back home after prerunning, and the crew and I put a lot of time into prepping the car for this event. We were prepared to race with our Kenda Mastodon tires mounted on KMC wheels and Tire Balls for protection.
We rented a house this time so we could all relax and enjoy the trip during our down time together with family. Thursday at sign-ups and Tech we were able to catch up with a few sponsors and friends which is always nice. It was a great, fun, hot day out there with a huge turnout. On Friday, I had my brother practice some belt and tire changes just in case. Around 2pm we went over to check out the Pro NA and Unlimited race for a few hours. We could tell the course was getting hammered. I made some suspension adjustments based on what I saw and we were ready to go.
We got up early Saturday for our 7am start time. We were ready to go and Super pumped! We got the jump off the start, but the other car we started with decided to stay on the road and cut off a small section of the course grabbing the holeshot from us. We just tucked in behind and followed them. We had a good pace going and I wasn't pushing. We stayed within 30 sec- 1 minute of the leader on the first lap.
On lap 2 we would pass the leaders while they were changing a flat tire. After that is was clear sailing for us the rest of lap 2 and lap 3. We were gradually pulling away from the field. We started catching more lappers on the last lap and I was trying to take my time not to make any mistakes. We came over one rise at slow speed and there was a huge rock in the middle of the trail. I clipped it with the front a arm pretty hard but didn't notice any issues with the car. Then about 10 miles later we hit something in the main line at speed smashing our right rear wheel and flatting the tire. We continued to drive on the flat and with our awesome Tire Balls installed, we could keep a decent pace going. We were still passing lappers with the flat tire. We luckily finished the race physically 1st and had to wait for the adjusted times to become official. After about 20 minutes at the finish line, they told us we did win the Overall. We were stoked! This was awesome to be able to share this experience with my brother Co-Driving.
My team worked really hard to get us to this race and be completely prepared. This course was one of the toughest I have raced a car on, and was happy to be one of the winners and survivors at this event. I can't thank my family, friends, & employees enough for everything they do. I was happy to bring home a win for the entire team and all of our amazing sponsors!
Photos by Harlen Foley
Thanks to all of our awesome sponsors, family and crew for all the support you give us. This would not be possible without all the hard work of my guys in the shop and our family and sponsors!
Next races:
Oct 17, DP4 Series at Johnson Valley, Anderson Dry Lake
Oct 22-25, BITD at Parker, Blue Water
Race Results
Thank you to all our awesome sponsors for their continued support and our new sponsors for 2020, our families, my parents and all our friends who support us. We can't go racing without you!
Can-Am Offroad (Best SXS Around)
Kenda Powersports (Best tires out there)
SF Raceworks (For all your cage/ wiring/ race car needs)
Tom Morris/ UTV Shocks (Best shock tuner I have ever had a chance to work with)
KWI Clutching (Kris Werth is the man! My car rips and not a single belt issue)
Gboost Belts (Worlds Best Belt says it all)
Baja Designs (Best lighting around, my sponsor for almost 20 years)
Eibach (Best springs around that don’t sag!)
Alsup Racing Development (Amazing suspension components)
Blud Racing (Best oil and customer service you could ask for)
Double E Racing (The only rear sway bar I use)
Alpinestars (Nothing but the best race suits and fire protection available)
Dirt Specialties (Awesome looking doors)
KMC Wheels (Sweet looking and strong wheels)
Mickster Race Jack (Superlight and most functional jack available)
Triton Racing Coolers (Super strong plate style front Radiator)
Zollinger Racing Products (Strongest Knuckles I could ask for)
PCI Race Radios (Clear and precise radio communications)
Impact (Most comfortable helmets and racing harnesses I could ever want)
Mastercraft Safety (Suspension Seats)
Necksgen (Most comfortable neck restraint out there)
Sector Seven (Cool mirrors with some bright lights)
Megla Designs (Best graphics designs around)
Whalen Speed (Amazing tune and customer support)
Tire Balls (Best tire protection there is)
Blais Racing Services is an authorized BITD UTV engine building shop. We can rebuild your Canam X3 engine/ reseal and retag them for the Pro Production Turbo UTV Classes.
