Bad Luck Snatches Victory from Mystik’s Mitch Guthrie Jr.
BITD Laughlin Desert Classic Race Report
Glendora, CA (5/10/2016)
- With just seven miles to the checkered
flag, Mitch Guthrie, Jr. held the overall lead
at the Best in the Desert Series Laughlin Desert
Classic when disaster struck. With victory in
sight, an electrical fire ended the winner of
the UTV World Championship’s race early in the
two-day event.
With a track nearly identical to the UTV World
Championship, Guthrie Jr’s preparedness showed
as he dominated the first day of racing. After
starting 12th, he drove his Mystik Lubricants
/ Kicker Audio / Walker Evans / ITP / Lonestar
Polaris RZR Turbo to second-place finish. After
snagging the holeshot from the front row on day
two, Guthrie was dominating when the fire ended
his charge.
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Mitch Guthrie Jr. pulled the holeshot on day two to take the early lead |
“I knew we had the win in the bag, so I was pretty
bummed out,” said Guthrie. “It was mainly wiring
the caught on fire. We’re going to dive back in
and figure out what happened. The car was flawless
before it caught fire. We were running away with
it.”
Guthrie Jr and co-driver Kurtis Elliott were
forced to break out the fire extinguishers to
put out the fire. Although they finished most
of the race, due to BITD rules they are scored
as a DNF because they didn’t cross the finish
line on the final lap.
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Unfortunately, an electrical fire put an end to Mitch Guthrie's charge to the finish |
“On the last lap, I really turned it on and I
knew we had the win,” said Guthrie Jr. “About
seven miles in, it started cutting off. When I
tried to restart it, we saw smoke and the thing
had caught on fire. So we had to get out the fire
extinguishers. That was the end of our day.”
Guthrie Jr was the man to beat all weekend in
the Fox Proving Grounds section, leaving his fellow
Turbo class competitors in the dust.
“I couldn’t believe how fast we could go through
the Fox Proving Grounds…I have the Walker Evans
Suspension to thank for that, as well as the Velocity
Shocks,” said Guthrie. “The ITP Tires were great.
It’s pretty rough out there and they held up great
and gave me the traction I needed.”
Guthrie Jr. is pleased to welcome Mystik Lubricants
as a sponsor. Not only does he use Mystik’s high-quality
oil in his SXS, he uses it in all of his race
team machinery.
“I’m so happy to have Mystik Lubricants on board,”
said Guthrie Jr. “I can’t wait to see what the
future holds with them. They make products for
everything. We’re using it in our SXS, our motorhome
and everything else that helps us to get to the
race track. It’s pretty cool to have them as part
of everything we have.”
Guthrie Jr will get a few months to prepare for
the toughest and longest race of the year when
the BITD Series host the Vegas to Reno on August
17-20th.
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