Shane Earn and Jason Voss Govern the Blue Water Desert Challenge
The general consensus among drivers, co-riders, and race crews, is that the run needs to be smooth in order to prevail on a sprint loop course like the Blue Water Desert Challenge. The Arizona desert threw stale dust at the coarse track to make conditions less than ideal… but that’s racing. The flaws in the raw terrain are what make Blue Water a desert challenge, and not a a desert script.
Shane Earn, in his 1055 orange and black Jimco, lead the Class-10 field on time by the second lap on Day-1, and held that position all 3-laps on Day-2, all the way to the finish, against 30-other class-10 finishers. The 2nd place finisher, Blade Hildebrand, had his Jimco adapting to the race course lap-after-lap, and finished just 46-elapsed seconds behind Earn. Jimco driver Jason Coleman, despite having steering issues and “only went 80-percent at all times,” managed to finish ahead of 24-other cars who completed the Blue Water Desert Challenge, in 6th place.
Your overall Blue Water Desert Challenge winner was Jimco Trick Truck pilot Jason Voss. He said that he, “had some awesome battles this weekend, it felt good to come home with the overall win on both days!” Voss’s #35 was in complete harmony with the desert surroundings, and performed how it usually does… like a champion.
The #41 truck of Justin Lofton turned the best qualifying time, and ran tight pace on Day-1, with Voss fighting to chip seconds away around every turn. As results became official, it was revealed that Voss had caught Lofton on the clock, and won the overall by a faction of a minute. There was “no other person I’d rather start next to,” Lofton declared of Voss, and looked forward to the side-by-side start of Day-2. To Justin’s dismay, the #41 truck suffered unrecoverable issues early on the first lap, leaving Voss to race freely into the second day’s overall win.
Steve Strobel in the red #94 had a top-5 finish in class. He had to fight hard to come back from a 2-minute flat tire change on the very first lap. Troy Vest took the 9th-in-class finishing point and Scott Schovajsa from Texas placed 12th in his Jimco TT.
Jimco was well represented in the 1500-class, with two podium finishers. Cody Parkhouse hammered through all 6-laps, squabbling on the clock with the first-place car. He ended his race in the 2nd spot, less than 2-minutes off the top position. The 3rd place award went to Kevin Thompson. Both Parkhouse and Thompson sneaked their Jimco’s passed 13-other finishing trick trucks in their race group!
Sam Berri in his Jimco took a familiar place in the Top-5, while the #1520 Jimco of Corey Keysar placed 6th in class.