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Brady Melville
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Brady Melville
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Brady Melville
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Brady Melville
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Brady Melville
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Brady Melville
Punisher 4x4 Race Series
Go-fast off road racing has hit Canada in a big way and the excitement and buzz around the new Punisher4x4 Race Series is growing. Started in 2015 by Ryan Stambaugh, Shawn Holland and Eric Brinker, the series was a way for the three to do their 4400-class racing close to home. Brinker (owner of Brinkfab Motorsports) is a multi-year racer and finisher at the King of the Hammers race and actively races the Ultra4 West Coast Series. With long road trips to Southern California several times a year to race, the desire to compete closer to home grew. Two new Brinkfab IFS cars in the works for both Stambaugh and Holland prompted a decision to start a new Canadian race series for 4000 class cars. A local racetrack in the small town of Alix Alberta was the site of numerous tough truck style events and the owner was approached about expanding the track length to accommodate go-fast style rock races at Tail Creek Raceway.
Highlights of the course include a great spectator area overlooking the oval dirt track and large boulder sections across the infield. The cars race out of the oval and into an old motocross track with some huge jumps, berms and whoops. As they come out of the motocross section they head down a high speed straight in a very tight forest trail. A hard S-turn up a hill takes them to the upper level and the wheat fields, an exciting section of the track with racers bouncing off the rev-limiter and some of the cars breaking 100mph through the sweeping turns. Next up is a large step-down jump into the "pipeline" section of the course. Multiple hairpin corners and an unpredictable whoop section can lead to some spectacular crashes and some great passes. Another high-speed straight away past the hot pits followed by another large step-down jump back into the infield makes for an extremely fast, fun and technical course with a little bit of everything for off road racing fans and drivers alike.
Punisher4x4 Racing is growing with two events run in 2015 and a longer three race point series started in 2016. Three races are planned for 2017 are turning Punisher into a can’t-miss event in any serious off roader’s calendar. With racers coming from the Northern US and Western Canada, the event is really starting to grow. After covering the final race last season I was eager to get back for an event this year and I hit the Grudge Match Race on August 6-7, 2016. Arriving on the Saturday in time for qualifying we were greeted with damp conditions from rain earlier in the week meaning the racing was going to be fast and dirty. Practice runs in the morning led to some carnage, including a brutal frontwards rollover in the whoop section by Jeff Hautamaki, leaving most drivers with some minor mechanical issues as the teams got out and stretched their legs and put down some practice laps. The sound of wrenches turning and welders burning filled the afternoon break as the teams tuned and fixed their cars for the afternoon qualifying session. Steve Duke had a great battle up front, keeping Rick Campagna off his tail for the entire race, earning himself pole position for the Main Event. Richie Tremblay struggled with steering problems on his Rockwell axle race buggy and a bad line through the boulder filled section, leaving him with broken parts. He finished qualifying but was left with a list of work to do for the evening. Matt Nieman, last year's champion, had a hard day after lowering his KOH tested car and installing turf tires. The big slippery rocks proved hard on his rig with rear differential issues leading to a broken axle shaft in the front end and a cracked rim. It seemed like every one of the nine teams had some sort of wrenching to do and you could hear teams hard at it late into the night.
Sunday morning dawned cold but clear, with no rain in the forecast and a full day of racing ahead. After a bit of open track time for the teams in the morning, the racing got underway with the Mega-Trucks taking to the infield for some short track racing thru the tank traps, log runs and huge rocks set up especially for them. Tons of carnage and some 60" AG tires on AxleTechs sure put on a crazy show for the fans. After the wreckage of the Mega-Truck race was cleaned up, it was time to let the fastest growing class onto the course, the Stock-Mod rigs. With a different route past some of the largest rocks, these lightly built rigs showed that they can put on just as good a show as the full race rigs and a few Jeep Cherokees and some barely-there Chevy pickups put on some of the most exciting racing of the weekend. Nothing held back, there were some crazy passes, full laps run on flat tires, and huge jumps on stock suspension. These guys are out here to have fun with friends, push their trucks to the limit and not break the bank!
The Main Event began in the early afternoon. Steve Duke used the 30-second stagger to get ahead on the first lap of the race, but Rich Campagna fought the dust and reeled him in quickly. With PorkChop pushing hard on Campagna's tail, it turned into a battle for the lead at the front of the pack. In the dusty tight turns of the motocross track, Campagna made a pass on Duke and started to pull away in the clean air. Further back in the pack, Matt Nieman had some bad luck in the slippery boulders in three wheel drive and ended up having to call for recovery. Starting way back due to a broken rear end during qualifying, Dustin Gehring started quietly laying down the fastest times of the day in his recently acquired Big Ugly Racing 4400 car. Running at the back of the pack, Gehring was leading the race on corrected time by pushing hard into the corners and setting a wild pace thru the rocks. At a certain speed (if you're brave enough) you can start to bounce and skip over all of the rocks. It’s a very fast strategy used by great racers like Shannon Campbell and Loren Healy, but it's a high-risk, high-reward move. You can easily bounce off the course or just destroy parts launching yourself into the rocks, but when it goes well you pull away from the pack. Dustin started flying through the rocks and picking up time on every lap, but eventually his hard driving caught up with him and he lost a belt in sight of the finish line. Campagna raced conservatively once he took over the lead and held off Duke to take home his first win of the 2016 season.
The next race is July 1-3, 2017 at Tail Creek Raceway. Check out www.punisher4x4.com for more race days and locations.