The Idaho Sand Outlaws 2022 was one of the best in the Sand Outlaws Series to-date. Over 40 cars spread across four classes made the trip to St Anthony, Idaho Sand Dunes to race against one another. And it delivered a weekend stacked with intense racing action.
Outlaw Class
After a successful unveiling at the Sand Mountain Sand Outlaws Race, the EVP Mode #M8 car had many changes made from the last race to better realize the full the potential of 1200cc Ski-Doo engine package. Most significantly was the addition of a compound turbo system with turbos from Spectrum Motorsports.
The two turbos working in tandem gave us a bit more top-end boost than the single turbo setup we ran at Sand Mountain. Massive changes were made to the chassis thanks to help from Shock Therapy and the personnel at EVP.MOde. The Tapp primary clutch calibration was further refined to take advantage of the newfound power and chassis setup.
Brandon Toole and Kevin Burns made the trip to St Anthony early to make some final calibrations to the #M8 car before race day. Unfortunately, a valvetrain issue with the brand-new race engine meant that instead of spending their time getting the car dialed in, they had to do a motor swap in the parking lot of a hotel.
The only spare engine we had was the original test motor with hundreds of dyno pulls and field tests – not a great way to go racing. Brandon and Kevin got the car up and running and were able to get a few hours of field testing in before race day.
Race day: Scott Hughes, the series champion, called out Brandon for the first race of the outlaw class. Both cars launched simultaneously and were neck and neck going down the track. Scott edged out Brandon in the last few feet of the track, so we took a loss for round one. Brandon worked his way up through the draws racing other competitors to make it all the way to the finals against…. Scott Hughes. Unfortunately, Scott edged out Brandon in the final race, so we took a hard-fought second place. A second-place finish in the Sand Outlaw Series in the Outlaw class with a brand-new car that has only been at one race previously on a worn out backup engine is quite an achievement. It is due to the dedication and hard work of the EVP.MOde crew – especially Brandon and Kevin – that this outcome was possible.
Mod Class
Fresh off of setting a new worlds record on asphalt – running a 5.8 second 1/8 mile @ 122 mph, Dan Picht and the shop techs at Evolution Powersports quickly switched the Desert Storm Mod Class car back to our sand racing setup. Cody, Brian, Jake and Tim spent many hours getting the car ready to race. Their hard work paid off when Dan drove the car undefeated for the day taking first place in the mod class. Dan’s dedication continues push the envelope of how fast a mod class car can be. Additionally, Dan was injured and was on crutches, but still managed to spend 2o hours in the truck each way, hobble around in the sand and drive a perfect race. Thanks to Tim and John for making the trip and pitting the car in between rounds. Special thanks to Jack Sucilsky for coming out and racing his mod car. Jack is a seriously good driver and hope he will come race with us more often.
Duner Class
EVP customers Brandon Ristau and Glenn Chubach came out swinging with their new EVP Duner class turbo/header combination, both fighting their way up through the rounds to the semifinals. It came down to Ristau and his arch nemesis, Nicole Servey, in the finals. Brandon made a rare mistake at the tree, which gave Nicole her opening to first place. Brandon and Glen got second and third place, respectively – quite an achievement in a class full of very fast cars. Additionally, Glenn and Brandon are the only two cars in the class tuned on the factory ECU with EVP Launch Control. We are proud of them and glad to have them race with us.
Stock Class
EVP racer Natalie Zuccone could not make this race. She was missed by everyone and we hope she can make it to the next race.
Thank you to the Sand Outlaw Series, Greg Biffle, Christina Biffle, Scott Hughes, Marcus, Jake and all of the men and women who volunteer their time and resources so we have a series to race.
Jim Zuccone
