TORQ Locker Can-Am X3 Top 5 Finish at Ultra4 RCV Battle at Badlands

June 29th, Victor New York
Erik Jokinen, Driver, #901 Race Report:

Cora Jokinen and I loaded up Monday and departed early Tuesday morning for the race. Only we had a slight 12 hour detour to make first. Cora set the GPS for Fancy Gap, Virginia. Why did we drive to Virginia when the race was in Indiana? Well… We we’re going to meet our new friend Mike Bergman to buy his 2017 Can-Am Maverick X3 built by CT Race works. This X3 has quite the history, the only UTV to ever qualify in the Last Chance Qualifier at the King of the Hammers race, Mike Qualified 50th out of 200 unlimited class cars.

Mike is an awesome guy, like true Ultra4 family, he offered to meet us a couple hours away from his house so we could shave a couple hours off our convoluted trip to Indiana. Mike walked us through the car at a Loves Truck Stop and after the deal was done, the car was loaded into our trailer and we started our 9 hour drive to Attica Indiana at 9pm at night. An hour or so later we found the same Walmart at the West Virginia welcome center exit that we stayed in only a couple weeks before and decided to call it a night.

We arrived at the Badlands Off-Road Park in Attica Indiana around 4pm Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed some down time with our dogs after a full day of driving. It’s not often that Ultra 4 events have full RV hook up sites, so we took full advantage of the opportunity to stay in the park’s campground that night. Later in the evening our good friend Michael Maskalans arrived. Mike also lives in Rochester NY and has ample race experience behind the wheel of his 4800 class car. I’m sure he was surprised to get a call from me a few days prior asking him to be my co driver for the race this weekend. I didn’t have to twist his arm very hard, that’s for sure! After he arrived Wednesday night and we began to talk strategy

Thursday am we moved the RV and trailer down to the Main Pit area. First order of business was to get some seat time in this new car. We put the car through its paces in the whoops and the dunes to get a feel for how the suspension was tuned and check for any issues. We played with 2WD and 4WD to see how the car handled before the TORQ Locker. After pre-running we noticed we needed to make a few tweaks to the rear camber and toe, then race-prepped and torqued all bolts. Next up was installing a TORQ Locker in the trailer, piece of cake. Now we knew we had the traction we needed to be competitive.

It rained Thursday night and into Friday am. After we received the course map Friday, we decided to pre run the UTV course when the rain stopped, which was around 3pm. Although the course was relatively short, just over 2 miles, it was a great mix of tight woods, rocks and short go fast sections that definitely kept teams on their toes. We selected our lines on the more difficult sections and discussed the most important part of this race to us as a team… get to the Finish Line!

Race Day: Saturday am the UTV class was first to qualify after the drivers meeting. We chose not to qualify, because of our lack of spare parts for this new car. This placed us dead last in 11th position for the main race. We watched the rest of the field, made up of all Polaris RZRs, run their lap and then we headed back to camp to get ready.

The green flag for the UTV race dropped at 2pm. The cars are let go into the woods, individually at 10 second intervals. 3-2-1 it’s go time. The X3 roared to life when my foot hit the floor. We made quick work of the first rocky climb, and that helped set the tone for the rest of the race. Mike and I are close friends and he has been an integral part of our team for a long time, but this is the first time we have raced in the same vehicle together. I’d say we clicked right away. His course cues and reminders we’re on point. By the second lap we settled right in like an old married couple. (Minus the bickering)

The car felt great. My only complaint was I forgot gloves and had to put on a pair during lap 2 while driving. We kept missing a shorter line on one rock section, but the line we ended up on for the first 5 laps or so “Wasn’t That Bad!” One of the toughest spots though, was a steep drop off from a rocky ledge. It was about 10ft down, nearly vertical, and had a boulder at the bottom that would catch the passenger front tire every time. Get lined up, drop down slow and power out when the front wheels make contact. We named it “Mini Backdoor!”

 

I believe it was sometime around lap 7, I started to notice a slight loss of power. I thought it might just be the course deteriorating. It felt as if we were racing in low range. Looking back on it, the fact that the gauges were caked in mud, kept me focused on driving. I couldn’t see the digital gauge cluster flashing ‘limp mode’ warnings. The build up of mud on the front facing radiator was just too much and the X3 started to overheat.

Cora called us on the radio to tell us the leaders had just received the white flag. We had no idea what position we were in. Our only concern was getting across the car across the finish line. We completed our final lap and crossed the finish line in 5th position. I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. We made it! After 1 hour and 20 minutes of not knowing how hard to push this “new to us” car, and not knowing what it can handle, or how much abuse the stock front shafts could take. We certainly now have a pretty damn good idea. This car is amazing and it took everything we could throw at it. The TORQ-Locker worked perfectly, turning the X3’s front end into a full traction machine. I’m very confident to say that we would not have been able to complete the course without it.

 

A huge thank you goes out to Jeff Brown, Tim Vassas, Nate Tucker and Eric Peterson for the pit support for this weekend.

The professionalism and dedication of our Team, family and friends, combined with the continued support from our Marketing Partners ensures our future success, and for this we wish to say thank you.

Cora Jokinen Team Owner
#901 Team TORQ-Locker Can-Am X3
President, Torq-Masters Industries

Erik Jokinen, Driver
#4901 Team TORQ-Locker Can-Am X3