What It Takes
What It Takes
What It Takes
You know, I get a lot of comments and questions asking how someone can get into the sport I am in, and race a Pro 4 or Pro 2 in a series like the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series for a living. I usually wind up quipping a short answer, like “you gotta start from the bottom and work your way up” or “nothing worth anything gets handed to you”, but I figured today was a good day to explain the process of how I got to this point in my career. I hope you like to read - lol!
It’s pretty common knowledge that I began racing motocross on a quad in 2001, basically on a whim. I didn’t come from any kind of racing or riding background, and I had no one to turn to for advice. I just wanted to do it enough that I did the research, found a quad, learned where the MX tracks were in AZ, and made the effort to go riding every weekend. It was easy, though, because from the very first time I hit the track I was hooked. Thoroughly, absolutely hooked. I have never been addicted to anything in my life, except racing - and what a drug it is!
I met my hubby racing - he was one of the first people I met and we actually raced together for a while in the same class. He got faster quicker than I did, so then he was always a class above me after that, but we still rode and trained and practiced together. 5 years of racing MX goes by.....
Then I get a copy of “Dust to Glory” to watch. Someone said it was a great movie, and wow - what an understatement! I wonder how many people are racing now just because of that movie - I know I’m one of them!
After watching that movie about three times in three days, Jason and I decided we wanted to go desert racing. And we wanted to do it in a Yamaha Rhino, which in 2006 was quite the challenge, as the UTV class was having a hard time just making it to the checkpoints on time.
We decided to build not just a race UTV, but one with a streetbike engine in it, so it could cruise along at high speeds without much effort, and without using too much gas. Pump gas, stock motor, direct chain drive.....there you go!
I financed a Rhino, we brought it home, stripped it and sold the parts off of it to make money for the rest of the build. We spent the next three months straight working in our garage at night, after work (we both had day jobs, before Weller Racing), and on weekends. Jason just had a hand bender to bend the chromoly, and I only had one pair of air shears that I borrowed to learn to do tin work.
When I say we put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that Rhino (fondly dubbed the Super Rhino), I am not kidding. Blood, literally.....sweat.....and yes, tears. It can get extremely touchy at 3am when you have been working in close quarters for months and are getting on each others last nerves!
But we finished it, literally JUST in time to drive it, completely untested and with the paint still drying, into the trailer and to my first Rhino race on a short course. This was the Rhino Nationals in Casa Grande in 2006. No, not a desert race, but we figured it was a good place to let everyone see the Super Rhino, and to test it out!
It definitely wasn’t a track for a high strung, desert race-built Rhino to stretch it’s legs, but it was still enough fun to open my eyes up to a whole new world of racing. My suspension was horrible (we just put the shocks and a-arms on it out of the box - and they were waaaaaaay too soft!), but I still managed to bop around that track and wind it out on the longest section of the course. You could hear the CBR600 motor scream to life in that short section, otherwise I was just struggling to not kill myself on all the crazy jumps!
Super Rhino did great.....we got a top 10 finish, and that Rhino went on to race many a desert race in it’s lifetime! It’s actually still out there, being raced, I believe - but having gone through some generational changes.
The point is, that event was a turning point for us. While we built the Super Rhino to go race Baja, we enjoyed the short course racing so much, that we never even made it to the desert.
Instead, we started up Weller Racing - out of nothing but Jason’s sheer will and uncanny ability to fix anything with a motor. No savings account. No collateral. Just a leap of pure faith that he wouldn’t fail. That, and a ton of hard work and late hours.
As Weller Racing began to pick up momentum, we were introduced for the first time to true short course racing - in the form of a CORR race in Chula Vista. At the time, a local company, SDHQ, was one of our customers, and they were fielding a couple of race Rhinos in the new UTV class in CORR. They invited Jason to come out and be on hand as their mechanic, in case anything happened to either of their Rhinos. I was able to come along, and this was another pivotal event for me.
I remember standing at the fence and listening to the Pro 4 trucks fire up, and I was just riveted by the sound. I remember watching those trucks flying through the air, hearing them scream past, and you could feel the HP in your chest, and the dirt as it hit your face, and the smell of the race fuel. Here was motocross racing, but 100x better! I fell completely and hopelessly in love......
This was in 2007. It didn’t take long for us to make the decision to start marketing our business name in the UTV race scene by getting our own race Rhino in the field, and to sponsor a number of others. Soon, there were Weller Racing stickers on 4 -5 Rhinos, including a little blue stock Rhino that I started to race!
I pulled double duty in that stock Rhino, racing the Rhino Racing League here at home, and racing the Super Stock class in CORR for the rest of that year. We did great in Super Stock, although it was pretty ridiculous sailing a stock Rhino off of some of those huge jumps that the trucks flew off of! Whiplash and back pain was something I became intimately familiar with - I guess it’s a good thing I’m sort of a masochist - but it was always worth it!
For anyone who might think I’m a princess or spoiled, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. We used to pit out of a little enclosed trailer - just bare wood inside - nothing in it but our sleeping bags and our clothes. I used to get up extra early in the mornings on race day so I could sneak outside and wash my hair in a bucket before anyone else woke up. I thought we hit the big leagues when we got a quiet generator (instead of our obnoxiously loud, cheap one), and then, even bigger when we moved up to a 24 foot enclosed trailer with actual fold down beds!
Jason and I decided that it was time, in 2008, to move up into the Pro UTV class, with all of the fast guys. We spent 5 solid weeks stripping my stock Rhino to the frame, and building it into a Pro UTV. We aimed for light and simple. And we nailed it. We were starting to get help from other companies coming into the sport, like XMF, and Jason began picking up the finer skills of suspension tuning, etc. But mostly, he just built some badass motors!
I always opted for a bit less HP than my teammates. I wanted the reliability, and I wanted to learn to drive. I wanted to drive with less power until I was wringing every bit of speed I could out of my Rhino....then, and only then, would we up my power. I always wanted to master what I had, before we made it better.....I just figured that would make me a better driver.
My first race in the Pro UTV class was memorable. I broke my front diff in qualifying, so I had to go out and race in two wheel drive only. With some borrowed tires, we went out there and bolted straight to the front when the green flag dropped. I had a huge lead by the time I was rounding the final turn of the first lap, and then the next thing I knew I was doing everything I could to stay off the wall, and get control of my Rhino. I had snapped one of the remaining two rear axles, and learned real quick what it’s like driving on one axle!
Even though we broke an axle, I was pretty happy. I am not sure if anyone cared much about me joining the Pro UTV class before that, but I can guarantee that after that we were on their radar. As a matter of fact, a rule change was made regarding minimum weight due to that debut. Apparently I was lighter than most of my competitors, so the rule changed from a 1200lb minimum without driver, to a 1400lb minimum with a driver.
I was in love with my Rhino, and spent the next season racing as many races as I could in it. We were EVERYwhere! We were at every race we could make it to, and were appearing in magazines and online photo galleries all over the place. With my motocross background, I wasn’t afraid to huck the big jumps, so I would frequently be one of the first to try some of the sketchiest jumps. The more technical the track, the better, as far as I was concerned - that gave me an edge over others who didn’t have as much confidence in their machine!
2008 was a make it or break it year for me in short-course.....we committed to our sponsors to complete the whole season in CORR. And we funded it all ourselves....I put myself so far in debt to finish out that season, and we had to balance a work life with a home life. Since Jason had the shop to run, I would drive the truck and trailer out to the races myself, I would set up the pits by myself, and I would go practice and qualify by myself. Jason and his brother would drive or fly out on Friday night, after work, and would work tirelessly all weekend on our sponsored driver’s Rhinos and Teryx’s.
If anyone ever wonders why I like to strap myself into my truck and do it all myself, it’s probably because I had to do it for so long alone. You get good at knowing where everything is, and how to latch everything behind your head, etc!
Everything was going good, and then....at the end of 2008, CORR went bankrupt. I was sitting good in points and looking forward to making up even more at the last round, and suddenly, we were ALL wondering if we would be racing ANYthing anymore.
I was brokenhearted.....I had found my passion, a sport that I absolutely loved, and truly felt a part of....and it was gone. But, not for long. Soon we heard of two new series that were going to pick up where CORR ended. Lucas Oil was starting up a West Coast Series, and Ricky Johnson was starting up a series farther East!
Who would race where? That was the big question on everyone’s mind. Jason and I had a pretty easy choice. We went where the Vanillo’s and the Perfect’s went. I loved CORR for the people that ran it - for the people we interacted with at every race, and for the racers we were able to meet and hang out with.
We chose the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, and I’m still so glad we did!
So, we got to go racing again! Except, this time, Jason told me that if I wanted to race Pro UTV again, I had to go find a sponsor to pay for it. Where there is a will, there is a way - and I was fortunate enough to be working at the Tilted Kilt at the time, and they were wanting to get their name out in our industry! Thus started my sponsorship with the Tilted Kilt, who is immensely responsible for where I am today!
With the Tilted Kilt’s help, we were able to continue racing in the Pro UTV class, and as the class got faster, and the Teryx’s were getting the most out of their v-twin motors, our little single cylinder Rhino motors were really getting wrung out.
We reached a point in 2009, where we were faced with a decision. Find a way to build a Rhino clutch that could hold up to the crazy power we were finding in a single cylinder, high strung Rhino motor, or make another huge leap of faith. Jason had had an idea brewing for a while about putting an R1 streetbike engine into a Rhino - similar to the Super Rhino, but with an entirely different drive system. He had an idea for a bullet proof, quad-like drive system that would deliver maximum HP to the ground, and withstand tons of abuse from jumping and racing.
We made the decision to pull out of the PRO UTV class mid-season in 2009 in order to tear my Rhino apart and convert it to what is now known as an “SR1”. (That name is a blend between Super Rhino and R1...sort of homage to our first race Rhino!) We let the series know what we were doing, and what we were building, and asked them if we got it done, tested and working well, if we could do a test run of sorts at a race - not for points, but just to get it out on the track.
Tony and Lee said they would like to see it, and a month or so later, I got to drive the very first SR1 in it’s very first LOORRS race. I wasn’t out there to beat anyone, I was just out there to show it’s potential - and everyone really liked what they saw! More importantly, they liked what they HEARD! You can’t mistake an R1 motor on the pipe, and just imagining a whole field of those things brought a smile to any UTV racers face!
We had plenty of doubters and naysayers at first, but we worked hard on a rulebook for the class that would ensure the class remained a driver’s class. We wanted an affordable, low maintenance, highly entertaining class that would also be a great training ground for those who wanted to move up into the trucks. The power to weight ration of an SR1 is pretty similar to a Pro 2 truck. Crazy wheelspin, hard to control, and way too much power for it’s weight!
So, thus was born the SR1 class, and we were back in the game. When I started racing in the SR1 class - a real driver’s class - I started winning races. A lot of races. It could have been all of those years racing an underpowered Rhino, and forcing myself to work harder. It could have been the hours and hours of seat time I put in between races. It could also have just been that I found a class and a driving style that really suited me. No matter what the reason, I became a familiar face on the podium in LOORRS.
In 2011 I won the Championship.....but not without a lot of work and testing and dedication. Not without a lot of stress, and drama, and sometimes hurt feelings. People who you think are your friends, will be your friend as long as you aren’t winning. Start winning, though....and it can be very lonely at the top.
I got accused of cheating more times than I can count - which is laughable if anyone knows me at all. I loathe cheating. From someone who purposely made herself race stock quads against fully built race ones, and underpowered UTVs against more powerful ones just to become a better driver - cheating would render all of that work a total waste of time. Not to mention - how do you stand on top of a podium with a trophy in your hand, and feel good about it if you know you got there because you did something against the rules that no one else was allowed to do? Nope. I have never cheated......but it doesn’t make being accused of it by people you considered your friends any less disheartening.
So yes, victory can be bittersweet....but it’s still so very worth it!
In 2012, after many meetings, tons of nail-biting and stressful waiting, the deal was finally signed to put me into a Pro 4 truck. My dream had finally come true.....but not without years and years of hard work, painful wrecks, broken bones, broken parts, broken bank accounts, tested relationships, derailed friendships, losing and gaining sponsors, and just plain, hard racing.
And we aren’t done.....if anything, this 2013 season has been the hardest of them all, regarding sheer work load to make our own Pro 4 team a reality - to get this beast of a truck to the track each and every time. Owning your own truck and doing all of the work yourself is an entirely different experience than showing up to the track and driving. The amount of work that goes into a Pro 4 or Pro 2 program is almost unexplainable to anyone who hasn’t experienced it......but we are driven by the potential and possibilities and the belief that this is what we are meant to do.
Funny thing is....as long as this was to write (eek, and read....sorry!), I really have barely scratched the surface of what it has taken to get here. So for those of you who might wonder what it takes to get to the place I’m at right now, I’d have to say be ready to give your life for it. Be ready to give up every other thing that has ever been important to you. The sacrifice is huge......but if you are like me, it’s the only thing you could imagine yourself doing, and it’s more than worth it.
Sept 23, 2013