Visions July 13-17, 2022 - MidAmerica in Jay, OK

[tribal4krawler]

Been ridiculously busy with life and work, almost decided not to go at all but ended up going with all the kids and boozecruiser JK to just hang out and have fun. Ended up codriving for Ken in 4680 but we had a broken front axle and a poorly running motor so we just cruised around for a lap and called it a day before we hurt the truck any more (we knew the cheater broncos were going to destroy everybody) I was getting out in the staging lanes John Dicus (well known codawg and friend of mine) waved and said Andrew Gorman needed a codriver at the last second. Gorman is in the national points lead in 4800 and had a ton of tow rig issues driving over to Visions from LA and really hadn't gotten to prerun and did poorly qualifying. I walked over to check out the 4853 Jimmy's car and strapped in to make sure I fit properly. (pro tip: never, ever volunteer to codrive before checking that you SAFELY fit in the car) I fired up the Lowrance and realized he had never uploaded the map which was concerning since I knew from the race before that the dust was going to be a SERIOUS issue for at least a lap or two. Set the GPS up to track location and told Gorman we'd need to run a bit conservative until we had a good map to work off of which he agreed with. Starting I believe 23rd next to Rants we decided to try and keep up with them and hope they had a good map. Took the green and hung with Rants for quite some time until we got completely blanked out in the dust for about a half of a lap. If I hadn't already run the race course earlier in the morning we would have been screwed. Cars were already crashing into trees, rolling over, getting stuck, etc. We passed enough cars just in the first lap that I suspected we might be top 10 which Gorman had said he really wanted and if possible to be in front of Jeremy Jones. We never saw Jones the whole day (I believe he finished 4th or 5th) but we settled into a good rhythm knocking seconds off every lap. Car felt great the entire race so we were all over the throttle passing the pits every lap. The last lap got exciting as we caught Digby on the short course and I recommended we pass him before the knockout hill because the dust was bad from there all the way through the pits. Digby hung in there and we ended up going door to door up the knockout hill and passing him to get clean air and a fast run (I saw 75-78 mph on the GPS) past the pits. I felt like we were very competitive in the woods and I think if he would have had more practice in the short course we would have possibly made up some more ground but all in all, 23rd to 8th overall (7th in class) was something we were very pleased with.

 

[665.0coupe]

That white mega truck ate shit last night, I don’t have any vid of it because they ran them in the dark. Those things are psycho and so are the drivers. The one dude really embodied the “never lift” even when he was out of control.

We stayed until right after Horschel rolled and the 4400 cars were done. I didn't have much desire to watch the rest of the mega trucks, just not my thing. I was surprised how hard the prerunners went. The Raptors landed hard a few times!

I hope they get everything figured out for October. I have a feeling it will be just as big of an event as this one was.

 

[JR4X]

Ended up codriving for Ken in 4680 Andrew Gorman needed a codriver at the last second.

That’s cool, that dust was terrifying. Rants hit 3 trees. Right front tire, took out the tire. Left front tire, took out the tire. Centered one up and took it down. Also tagged one in qualifying after the big bicycle.

 

[JR4X]

We stayed until right after Horschel rolled and the 4400 cars were done. I didn't have much desire to watch the rest of the mega trucks, just not my thing. I was surprised how hard the prerunners went. The Raptors landed hard a few times!

I hope they get everything figured out for October. I have a feeling it will be just as big of an event as this one was.

Nice to meet you and your wife!

 

[JR4X]

Here’s dad’s qualifying entertainment. Overshot the catch ramp. Flying completely flat, rear landed on a bench in the ramp but the front landed on the flat. It spiked the front to full compress pretty hard.

 

[665.0coupe]

Nice to meet you and your wife!

GF for now.... It was good to meet you guys as well! I hope you start a build thread for your 4600 Bronco.

I told her I'm coming back in October, but her family is trying to plan a trip to Florida that same weekend. We can go to Florida anytime, the races only happen once a year. I should probably start convincing her now that I need to go to KOH 2023!

 

[tribal4krawler]

Here’s dad’s qualifying entertainment. Overshot the catch ramp. Flying completely flat, rear landed on a bench in the ramp but the front landed on the flat. It spiked the front to full compress pretty hard.

I couldn't believe they sent yall and the guys after with Cody sitting right there outside his car. When I saw your dad kick off the tabletop I thought the st Clairs were goners.

 

[JR4X]

I couldn't believe they sent yall and the guys after with Cody sitting right there outside his car. When I saw your dad kick off the tabletop I thought the st Clairs were goners.

I’m liking the MAO people a lot but they need to step up their safety and communication games big time. Thankfully Dad came nowhere near Cody but a slightly different scenario and that could have been a bad spot.

In the mega truck knockout thing. There was a truck upside down and in the middle of the track with safety crews trying to figure out what to do with it. The flag man cued up two more trucks and sent them down stream with people standing on course. All in the dark of course. They really dodged a bullet there, the running mega trucks saw it in time (with no lights on them) and avoided running over SXS’s and people. It was a very close call though. They need to talk to each other more!!!

 

[ridered3]

Been ridiculously busy with life and work, almost decided not to go at all but ended up going with all the kids and boozecruiser JK to just hang out and have fun. Ended up codriving for Ken in 4680 but we had a broken front axle and a poorly running motor so we just cruised around for a lap and called it a day before we hurt the truck any more (we knew the cheater broncos were going to destroy everybody) I was getting out in the staging lanes John Dicus (well known codawg and friend of mine) waved and said Andrew Gorman needed a codriver at the last second. Gorman is in the national points lead in 4800 and had a ton of tow rig issues driving over to Visions from LA and really hadn't gotten to prerun and did poorly qualifying. I walked over to check out the 4853 Jimmy's car and strapped in to make sure I fit properly. (pro tip: never, ever volunteer to codrive before checking that you SAFELY fit in the car) I fired up the Lowrance and realized he had never uploaded the map which was concerning since I knew from the race before that the dust was going to be a SERIOUS issue for at least a lap or two. Set the GPS up to track location and told Gorman we'd need to run a bit conservative until we had a good map to work off of which he agreed with. Starting I believe 23rd next to Rants we decided to try and keep up with them and hope they had a good map. Took the green and hung with Rants for quite some time until we got completely blanked out in the dust for about a half of a lap. If I hadn't already run the race course earlier in the morning we would have been screwed. Cars were already crashing into trees, rolling over, getting stuck, etc. We passed enough cars just in the first lap that I suspected we might be top 10 which Gorman had said he really wanted and if possible to be in front of Jeremy Jones. We never saw Jones the whole day (I believe he finished 4th or 5th) but we settled into a good rhythm knocking seconds off every lap. Car felt great the entire race so we were all over the throttle passing the pits every lap. The last lap got exciting as we caught Digby on the short course and I recommended we pass him before the knockout hill because the dust was bad from there all the way through the pits. Digby hung in there and we ended up going door to door up the knockout hill and passing him to get clean air and a fast run (I saw 75-78 mph on the GPS) past the pits. I felt like we were very competitive in the woods and I think if he would have had more practice in the short course we would have possibly made up some more ground but all in all, 23rd to 8th overall (7th in class) was something we were very pleased with.

Lots of right seat time for you between those two classes and a good thing they ran the Stock class first before 4500/4800. I’ve met the OJ body style Bronco folks at AOP races. Seems like they have some bad luck with that rig as a racer.

That’s cool, that dust was terrifying. Rants hit 3 trees. Right front tire, took out the tire. Left front tire, took out the tire. Centered one up and took it down. Also tagged one in qualifying after the big bicycle.

Dust looked gnarly on the livestream. Stupid question for anyone on here, since they’ve now had one big car race in snow/ice and one in a dust bowl, is there anything they could do in the woods to knock down the dust? I know they tried to keep the short course watered down but it still looked dusty.

 

[ridered3]

I couldn't believe they sent yall and the guys after with Cody sitting right there outside his car. When I saw your dad kick off the tabletop I thought the st Clairs were goners.

Sr certainly had an entertaining Qualifying run.

I’m liking the MAO people a lot but they need to step up their safety and communication games big time. Thankfully Dad came nowhere near Cody but a slightly different scenario and that could have been a bad spot.

In the mega truck knockout thing. There was a truck upside down and in the middle of the track with safety crews trying to figure out what to do with it. The flag man cued up two more trucks and sent them down stream with people standing on course. All in the dark of course. They really dodged a bullet there, the running mega trucks saw it in time (with no lights on them) and avoided running over SXS’s and people. It was a very close call though. They need to talk to each other more!!!

On the safety and communication thing, I was surprised and yelling at the tv during both of those moments and a couple of others during Visions. I know there are some learning curves for MAO going to big cars instead of SxS but those two moments stood out to me.

 

[ridered3]

Another general question.

During some of the livestream interviews and after seeing several socialist media posts over the last few days, there seemed to be lots of 4400 class wrecks from big names like Miller and Shirley (I’m sure it happened in other classes too but those were the first two I thought of) due to lapped cars and avoiding or minimizing additional damages/injuries.

Was 30+ cars at one time too many for that size/length of a course (when 1st is nearly done with Lap 1 before last person leaves the start line I’d imagine that’s at least partially to blame) or was the bigger issue just speed/dust/not many passing options?

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

Sr certainly had an entertaining Qualifying run.


On the safety and communication thing, I was surprised and yelling at the tv during both of those moments and a couple of others during Visions. I know there are some learning curves for MAO going to big cars instead of SxS but those two moments stood out to me.

They don't have the SxS track safety thing figured out either. A buddy of mine almost got T-boned a couple races ago by the entire pack of cars that started begind his race. He got spun out right after the land rush start corner and his car died and wouldn't refire. As he was sitting there cranking it he hard the second race start and thought he was going to die when they came around the fist turn. Luckily the pack leaders spotted him sitting there and slowed way down to avoid the crash.

The series I raced in was the same.... Lots of blind jumps with no idea if someone is wadded up on the other side that you may land on or crash into. They need spotters/flaggers at every blind spot on the track. They try to get around it by requiring one way radios for the drivers but if the officials don't see the crash or stalled car before the pack gets to them it's useless.

 

[tribal4krawler]

As far as the ultra4 race and # of cars go, if they would have done a longer race like 918 which was 9 miles, it would have helped with spreading people out. Also, if they'd add some true bouldery sections, that'd help create some distance between racers. I do think that especially in UTV they need to separate the pros from the amateurs. They have a big enough class that they could have had 2 races which would have been alot safer. I saw a lot of close calls where one of the front runners running 9 minute laps nearly ran over one of the newbies running 16 minute laps. There's nothing MAO can do about the dust other than do rain dances which would make some of the hill climbs super, super gnarly. Talking about gnarly, did anybody see the bull fighter deal with the not rodeo clown guys trying to get the 500 bucks off the bull's horns? The one long haired dude I seriously thought was going to die after he got punted, trampled, crushed against the fence, etc MULTIPLE times. He just kept going back for more. Insane.

 

[665.0coupe]

Another general question.

During some of the livestream interviews and after seeing several socialist media posts over the last few days, there seemed to be lots of 4400 class wrecks from big names like Miller and Shirley (I’m sure it happened in other classes too but those were the first two I thought of) due to lapped cars and avoiding or minimizing additional damages/injuries.

Was 30+ cars at one time too many for that size/length of a course (when 1st is nearly done with Lap 1 before last person leaves the start line I’d imagine that’s at least partially to blame) or was the bigger issue just speed/dust/not many passing options?

Keep in mind that this was the first Ultra 4 race that I've been to so I probably don't know what I'm talking about but I'll give you my perspective.

They changed the start time interval for each race depending on the car count and estimated lap time, so for every race the first car off the line was close to completing a lap when the last car was sent off. I didn't think there were to many cars for the track size, but I did like to see close racing and passing. I think the dust caused more problems than the car count. The short course section was wide with a lot of room for passing, where as I think the wooded sections were tight one car width trails. There was also a breeze most of the day that helped clear out the dust on the short course, but the trees blocked the breeze in the wooded sections.

As for the safety side of things, they also need to work on their radio etiquette and communication. A few times I heard "We have a big fire over here!!!!" followed by the race director asking multiple times where the fire was located and then getting mad and yelling that he didn't know where the fire was.

 

[tribal4krawler]

1:48:27 is when the shitshow starts at the rodeo. you'll notice there's one dude (gray shirt and pony) who just repeatedly gets his ass kicked, the blue shirt pony tail guy gets brave eventually and the 3 other dudes are like uhhhhh ya no thanks

 

[ridered3]

They don't have the SxS track safety thing figured out either. A buddy of mine almost got T-boned a couple races ago by the entire pack of cars that started begind his race. He got spun out right after the land rush start corner and his car died and wouldn't refire. As he was sitting there cranking it he hard the second race start and thought he was going to die when they came around the fist turn. Luckily the pack leaders spotted him sitting there and slowed way down to avoid the crash.

The series I raced in was the same.... Lots of blind jumps with no idea if someone is wadded up on the other side that you may land on or crash into. They need spotters/flaggers at every blind spot on the track. They try to get around it by requiring one way radios for the drivers but if the officials don't see the crash or stalled car before the pack gets to them it's useless.

As far as the ultra4 race and # of cars go, if they would have done a longer race like 918 which was 9 miles, it would have helped with spreading people out. Also, if they'd add some true bouldery sections, that'd help create some distance between racers. I do think that especially in UTV they need to separate the pros from the amateurs. They have a big enough class that they could have had 2 races which would have been alot safer. I saw a lot of close calls where one of the front runners running 9 minute laps nearly ran over one of the newbies running 16 minute laps. There's nothing MAO can do about the dust other than do rain dances which would make some of the hill climbs super, super gnarly. Talking about gnarly, did anybody see the bull fighter deal with the not rodeo clown guys trying to get the 500 bucks off the bull's horns? The one long haired dude I seriously thought was going to die after he got punted, trampled, crushed against the fence, etc MULTIPLE times. He just kept going back for more. Insane.

Keep in mind that this was the first Ultra 4 race that I've been to so I probably don't know what I'm talking about but I'll give you my perspective.

They changed the start time interval for each race depending on the car count and estimated lap time, so for every race the first car off the line was close to completing a lap when the last car was sent off. I didn't think there were to many cars for the track size, but I did like to see close racing and passing. I think the dust caused more problems than the car count. The short course section was wide with a lot of room for passing, where as I think the wooded sections were tight one car width trails. There was also a breeze most of the day that helped clear out the dust on the short course, but the trees blocked the breeze in the wooded sections.

As for the safety side of things, they also need to work on their radio etiquette and communication. A few times I heard "We have a big fire over here!!!!" followed by the race director asking multiple times where the fire was located and then getting mad and yelling that he didn't know where the fire was.

That’s surprising to read about the safety side of things. As a spectator that listens to Race Ops when at races, I’ve heard the vagueness of radio communication many times but it usually wasn’t safety related.

Curious with U4 becoming part of MOA, if they’ll introduce heat races for UTV or 4400 to get the car counts for the final races more in line.

 

[tribal4krawler]

The two rides I codrove in

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

The two rides I codrove in

That bronco is so awesome!

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

1:48:27 is when the shitshow starts at the rodeo. you'll notice there's one dude (gray shirt and pony) who just repeatedly gets his ass kicked, the blue shirt pony tail guy gets brave eventually and the 3 other dudes are like uhhhhh ya no thanks

Crazy what some people are willing to do for $500, intertaining as hell to watch though!

 

[ridered3]

Madram11’s highlight video from the Rock Racering at Visions

 

[ridered3]

Madram11’s highlights from the new Knockout Racing from Visions