Monster Energy Kawasaki's UTV
Racer Mike Lasher Interview
Mike Lasher Speaks
About the Past Racing Season and Preparing for
2011 Season
|
Monster Energy
Kawasaki's Mike Lasher
|
Irvine,CA (1/20/2011) -Kawasaki
UTV driver Mike Lasher has been involved in side
by side racing for a long time and has been known
to put his Monster Energy Lasher Motorsports Kawasaki
Teryx on the podium a time or two. After a season
of ups and downs in 2010, Lasher and his teams have
seen their off-season testing paid off with a second-place
finish at the first Best in the Desert race in Parker,
Ariz. We sat down with Lasher to see what how his
new season is shaping up. Monster
Energy Kawasaki: Last year you had
a roller coaster season and now you started 2011
off with a bang. What have you guys done to get
back on the podium?
|
Monster Energy
Kawasaki Teryx 750 UTV piloted by Mike
Lasher
|
Mike Lasher: Last year
was a season of challenges to say the least. This
is our third year running the Kawasaki Teryx.
The first year we ran it mostly out of the box
for the season and we were really happy with our
results. We just wanted more. So we had a big
plan to tear the car down and build it bigger,
better, stronger. Well, we changed from a carbureted
motor to a fuel injected motor and that just put
a little wrench in our program. It seemed like
at every race, we had something come up.
We would hit the desert every time we could to
practice and tune things in. It all came together
in Parker. We wanted to win, but I’m extremely
happy with the second place and I know we can
build our program from here.
Monster Energy Kawasaki: What
does your program look like for 2011?
|
Mike Lasher and his
team mates finished second at the first
Best in the Desert race in Parker, AZ
|
Mike Lasher: We are going
to run the BITD series. They don’t run UTV’s
at every BITD round, but it’s still a fair
amount of races. We’ve already had the first
round at the Parker 250. We’ll do the Silverstate
300 and the Blue Water Grand Prix after that. We
will also do the Vegas to Reno in August, the Blue
Water Desert Challenge, which is a two day race,
and the Henderson 250 in December. Our main focus
is the Best in the Desert series, which keeps us
pretty busy already, but we are going to fit some
other racing in between to keep testing and help
get our set-up dialed in.
Monster Energy Kawasaki:
How well is the UTV class attended for the Best
in the Desert series?
Mike Lasher: The UTV
class has been in the BITD series since 2005.
It was one of the first series to allow UTV’s
to race. We’ve been involved since the beginning
and have ridden the Teryx as long as it’s
been available. We had the first racing Teryx
for the series. Parker was the biggest UTV race
we’ve had since it’s started with
18 cars lined up on the start. I’d say an
average race in somewhere in the 10-12 mark. We
are hoping to see the increase from Parker continue
at the next round in April. It’s great to
see that many cars out there. It’s not a
cheap form of racing, but I think it’s definitely
thrilling enough to attract a lot of people.
Monster Energy Kawasaki:
How much goes into your car from when you get
it out of the box?
Mike Lasher: Our first
year we didn’t do much and it was good.
Out of the box, the engine is super reliable and
we didn’t have any issues. But we knew that
if we wanted to run up front and be competitive,
we really had to be able to take it up a notch.
Now we are working really close with Muzzy’s
to get us where we need to be. Another thing is
the development of the suspension package. We
tried to do simple blot-on product in the beginning
to showcase the aftermarket options and it worked
great for the short races. Unfortunately, when
it came time for the long races like Vegas to
Reno, the shocks had a hard time keeping up. We
have it figured out now and have great sponsors
backing us.
Monster Energy Kawasaki:
Speaking of sponsors, it seems like you need a
great group of supporters behind you for this
to all go smoothly. Anyone you would like to acknowledge?
Mike Lasher: Definitely.
It’s awesome to have the backing of a great
company like Monster Energy. Also, I’d like
to mention GBC Motorsports who is our tire sponsor.
We’ve had phenomenal luck with their tires.
Another great sponsor we have is Walker Evans
for our shocks and wheels and XMF (Xtreme Machine
& Fabrication) for our suspension.
Monster
Energy
Discuss
this in ATVriders.com Forum
|
