The weekend at Elk River Motorsports Park saw Scott Douglas gain some much needed speed on the competition, as the familiar AMSOIL/Rusty's Off-Road/Walker Evans Racing/Cooper Tire PRO-4x4 ran strong start to finish during Round 3. Unfortunately, Mother Nature forced the postponement of Sunday's Round 4 as Douglas Motorsports would have to wait another weekend to show the world the true potential of the updated Ford Raptor.
After a trying opening weekend of the TORC Series presented by AMSOIL, the Douglas Motorsports took a "big swing" with major changes to the AMSOIL/Rusty's Off-Road/Walker Evans Racing/Cooper Tire PRO-4x4. With a month between race weekends, Scott Douglas added three inches to the wheelbase of his familiar hot rod. This also meant the rear suspension needed a redesign along with a reconfiguration of the weight bias.
After the first practice session, the balance of the truck was much improved while running through the whoops as well as the in the braking zones. After a few more adjustments, the lap times dropped even more during the second practice session.
Saturday's fourteen lap main event saw the Scott Douglas run a solid race leading the first five laps until front brake lockup issues surfaced. As the race progressed t
he team knew a few more tweaks were needed to take advantage of the updates in the truck. When the checkered flag was raised, the #7 AMSOIL /Rusty's Off-Road/Walker Evans Racing/Cooper Tire PRO-4x4 crossed the finish in fourth place.
"The PRO-4 class is only unlimited class in TORC and all of us keep spending and stepping up the speed of these awesome trucks.," remarked Scott Douglas. "Driving in PRO-4 is just insane and I'm hungry to get back on top of the podium."
Quickly the team went to work accessing the race and implementing a few more adjustments to the 900 horsepower four-wheel drive race truck.
Unfortunately on Sunday morning Mother Nature sent a severe thunderstorm through the Elk River, Minnesota area causing substantial damage to the track as well as several race teams' pit areas, including Douglas Motorsports. Fortunately, there weren't any serious injuries, but the damage forced the postponement of Round 4 to later in the season.
"I'm really proud of my team. We worked put in some long hours at the shop since  Joliet and the feedback from Friday and Saturday tells us that increasing the truck's wheelbase has created a more stable faster race truck. The storm that came through the area didn't give us the chance to really show our true speed. The most important point that came from this weekend is that nobody at the track was injured. The high winds damaged plenty of equipment, but that's replaceable. Thankfully everyone in our racing community will be back at Crandon."
Douglas Motorsports has only two weeks (June 24-25) to prepare for "Big House Brawl" at infamous Crandon International Off-Road Raceway.
DOUGLAS MOTORSPORTS - Marketing Partners
AMSOIL - Rusty's Off-Road - Walker Evans Racing - Cooper Tires
KC HiLites, Mastercraft Safety, Impact Racing, Howe Performance
Fox Shox, Miller Electric,
Peterson Fluid Systems, Fox Shox
Rugged Radios, Raceline Oil Pumps, Allstar Performance.
- Race Report/Pics: Douglas Motorsports
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