BEST IN THE DESERT UTV World Championship February 20, 2016

Terrabit Racing’s Kristen Matlock finished second in the Production 1000 class and third overall in her BITD UTV racing debut and just her second UTV race, but she is no stranger to racing with multiple championship under her belt as an ATV racer.

Maxxis' Kristen Matlock made an impressive BITD UTV racing debut by claiming the 2nd spot on the Production 1000 UTV class podium

“I raced my first UTV race two weeks ago in District 38 and I won that one; I’m hooked,” said Matlock. “I love this. I’ve always wanted to get into one of these side by sides. I was little intimidated by the number of entries here. Once we got going, though, it was like any other race. I had a great time today. I just put the throttle down and passed a lot of boys. After hearing about my finish, I pretty much did a back flip.”

Black Hills UTV’s Mike Cafro finished seventh overall and third in class despite a nagging throttle issues.

Trinity Racing's Mike Cafro & Jamie Kirkpatrick rounded out the top three on the UTV Production 1000 class podium

“We couldn’t get it to go over 50 miles per hour without the throttle going out,” explained Cafro. “So that made for a long day. It was frustrating because we thought we could do much better. We had a clean race and that’s where we ended up. I’m happy to be on the podium, but a little disappointed because the car could have run a lot better.”

Redlands Racing’s Ryan Laidlaw started his first BITD race of the season, driving a brand new Polaris Turbo. In the end, he finished first in the Turbo Class after Jones suffered issues on the final lap.

Ryan Laidlaw scored a 2nd overall finish & 1st place in the Turbo class

“It got rougher throughout the day and we felt that was to our advantage,” said Laidlaw. “This is our first race on this new build for this season. This is a lot of validation of the hard work and effort that went into building this car. Also it shows the huge effort everyone on our team has put into it. We did lose an axle at the beginning of the race, but our pit crew was great in getting us back out and into the race.”

Monster Energy’s Marc Burnett was pleased to rebound from difficulties in the first race of the season to score a runner-up finish in class. He suffered early mechanical issues to finish fourth overall.

Monster Energy's Marc Burnett scored a 2nd place finish

“We had two belts break, which really put us back,” said Burnett. “The course was so rough that it was ridiculous. We had a lot of problems at Parker so to finish in the top three makes me feel really good.”

S3 Racing’s Dustin Jones looked to be on a mission after grabbing the holeshot and holding the Turbo lead for most of the race, but he broke all four axles on his machine just one mile from the finish and pushed his car to the pits, but he still was able to salvage a podium finish with just one axle.

ITP's Dustin Jones claimed the 3rd spot on the podium after Branden Sims was penalized in the final results

“It was a tough race,” said Jones. “We had a great start and led for about half a lap, but broke a rear axle on the first lap. We got back out, and got back into the lead in the class. Then about a mile from the finish, we broke all four axles. We pushed the car three quarters of a mile into the pits and finished with one axle. It’s tough to going from leading the race to broken one mile from the finish, but that’s racing.”