National Sand Drag News - Dumont Sand Wars 2016 Race Recap

President’s Day Weekend at the Dumont Dunes near Baker, California was where all the action was in the sand world as Sand Wars 2016 took place. The Las Vegas Jeep Club ran the traditional Jamboree format for the 43rd time with Hill Climbs on Saturday along with Sand Drags on Sunday. The Jeeps were joined by the SXS Wars UTV’s for the first time as they competed in their own Hill Drags event on Saturday & joined in on the Sunday 300’ Sand Drag action. Chamber of commerce weather greeted all that attended with Sunny skies and temps around 75 all week. You couldn’t ask for better conditions to put on a great show in front of the massive Dumont Dunes crowd.

Sand Drags

The Sand Drags on Sunday were highlighted by three prestigious categories that offered sponsor added bonus payouts to the winners. The Pro Boost category saw a pair of roots supercharged entries battle it out as Dave Stidham’s “Grinch” Funny Jeep squared off with Eddie Arant’s white Blown Altered. This one would be all Stidham as he recorded a 3.51 ET for the win over Arant who had troubles at the hit. The next top category would be the Pro Gambler 1 class run on a 3.95 Index. Justin Adamson would put the “Raped Ape” Jeep in the PG1 Winner’s Circle as David Den Hartog would red light it away on the starting line. The biggest of the three featured classes would be the Pro Gambler 2 - 4.25 Index category. This would be quite a race as Chris Calafiore got the job done in his Larry Minor Motorsports-built Jeep defeating Wes Gilmore’s Rattitude in the final round.

Dave Stidham - Pro Boost Winner

Justin Adamson - Pro Gambler 1 Winner

Chris Calafiore - Pro Gambler 2 Winner

Traditionally there are several heads-up categories as part of the Las Vegas Jeep Club Jamboree and this year would be no different. Four entries showed up to wage war in the hotly contested Pro Drag unlimited category. The final round would feature the Flyin’ Hawaiian Junior Alimoot at the wheel of Dave Stidham’s “Grinch” Jeep against Eddie Arant’s Blown Altered. Junior ran a best of 3.50 heading into the final while Eddie was right there with a 3.61 on his first pass of the day so this shaped up to be a good battle. Unfortunately Eddie broke in the Pro Boost class and was unable to make the Pro Drag final round giving Junior a solo to the victory. Alimoot didn’t take it easy, though as he recorded a solid 3.53 ET for the second win of the day for “The Grinch” Jeep. The X600 Jeep class is contested on a 3.80 Index and this would be a tight battle in the final with Justin Adamson scoring his second class win of the day in a great race with Shawn Thompson. The Truck contingent suffered terrible luck early in the weekend putting several great trucks out of action by the time the sand drags took place on Sunday afternoon. The last one left standing to take the XX600 Truck class victory was Team Hardcore’s Doyle Quinn. Another competitive class is the 4.30 Index Duner category for regularly duned Jeeps. This year’s Duner class victory would go to Wes Gilmore as he put his Rattitude Jeep in the Winner’s Circle defeating Charlie Owens who did a great job of saving the “Intimidator” Jeep in the final round when he got out of shape.

Junior Alimoot - Pro Drag Winner

Wes Gilmore - Duner Winner

The Index categories have become quite popular as part of the Las Vegas Jeep Club Jamboree with four classes separated by four-tents of a second (.4) starting at 3.80 seconds. The Pro 1 - 3.80 Index class was where Justin Adamson would earn his third class victory of the day as he defeated a strong running Wes Gilmore. Adamson would come close to taking his fourth win of the day, but would come up a round short in Pro 2 - 4.20 Index as Chris Calafiore took his second Sunday class win. The Pro 3 - 4.60 Index class featured two tough customers in the final round with Jon Kendig wheeling the “Instigator” Jeep to the win with a strong 4.61 over Mike Williams in Kenny Hayes’ Flirtin’ With Disaster Jeep. Pro 4 - 5.00 Index put on a great show with a great mix of Jeeps, Trucks, and V8-powered Buggies doing battle. The final round would see Doyle Quinn’s Team Hardcore Chevy Truck turn on the win light as Jack Weddle left a little too soon turning on the red light.

Justin Adamson (Near Lane) Pro 1 Winner vs. Chris Calafiore Pro 2 Winner

Jon Kendig - Pro 3 Winner

Doyle Quinn - Pro 4 Winner

The UTV’s waged battle laying down some solid passes on the 300’ of Dumont sand. Terry Lawrence would emerge victorious in the UTV Unlimited final round defeating Bart Govacho’s “KONG” while Preston Kurtz swept both the UTV 1K Turbo & UTV Combo categories. The Women’s Jeep classes were a hard fought battle as always at Dumont. Debbie Gilmore’s “Rattitude” & Wendy Thompson’s “Intimidator” put down some good passes in the X600 & Duner Jeep classes with Debbie using the Big Block Chevy power to take both victories.

Terry Lawrence - UTV Unlimited Winner

Debbie Gilmore (Near Lane) Women's Class Winner vs. Wendy Thompson

Hill Climbs

Saturday’s Las Vegas Jeep Club Hill Climbs put on a strong show as always at Dumont. In the prestigious X600 category, the competition wasn’t eliminated by starting near the top of the hill so side-by-side Hill Drag eliminations would determine the winner. After some great battles the final round would see Justin Adamson square off with Wes Gilmore. This time it would be the Nitrous-assisted SBC power of Adamson getting to the top of the hill first for the win. Two classes would require a unique multi-lane Turtle Crawl battle to determine champions. In the X400 class, it would be Mike Williams taking the victory in Kenny Hayes’ Larry Minor Motorsports-built Duner Jeep scoring the win in this Jeep’s first Dumont visit. Mike nearly swept the Turtle Crawls as he narrowly got to the top of the hill ahead of Justin Adamson, the X200 class winner. Jon Warren’s “Raspberry Thunder” BBC-powered 4WD Jeep won both the X500 & A Jeep classes along with earning the “Hot Dog” Award for his incredible wheelie nearly the full distance of the hill during X500 class competition. Doyle Quinn topped the XX400 Truck class with his 4WD Chevy Truck while Bobby Stevenson took the AA Truck class win. Jack Weddle won both the X300 & B Jeep categories with his good looking CJ-5 Jeep. Doug Thompson made a strong run up the hill with his Jeep to take the F Jeeps class win. The Women’s classes were also a battle between Debbie Gilmore and Wendy Thompson as they were on the Sand Drags. But the Hill Climbs would have different results as Wendy scored wins in both the X600 and X400 Jeep classes.

Justin Adamson - X600 & X200 Winner

Mike Williams - X400 Winner

Jon Warren - X500 & A Jeeps Winner

Doyle Quinn - XX400 Trucks Winner

Jack Weddle - X300 & B Jeeps Winner

Doug Thompson - F Jeeps Winner

Wendy Thompson - Women's X600 & X400 Winner

Specialty Awards

The Las Vegas Jeep Club traditionally passes out specialty awards to many of the top performers of the weekend. The coveted Best Engineered award goes to the racer that performs at a high level in both the Hill Climb & Sand Drag events. This year’s Best Engineered award was not in question as Justin Adamson earned this one with three class wins in the Drags & two wins on the Hill along with several runner-up finishes. The Best Appearing award is pretty self-explanatory going to the most eye turning rides in competition. This year’s Best Appearing was a no brainer going to Kenny Hayes, who brought out two great looking Jeeps. Kenny had his trademark Flirtin’ With Disaster Jeep as well as his newly acquired Larry Minor Motorsports-built Duner Jeep that recorded ET’s in the high 4.2’s in its first time on the 300’. Jon Warren earned the new Hot Dog award for moment of the weekend with his perfect wheels up charge starting about mid way up the hill through the finish in Hill Climb competition. And the award nobody wants, the Hard Luck award went to Wes Gilmore. Wes put in a huge effort to get his newly acquired Blown Alcohol Jeep together for this event and unfortunately broke the rear end ending his day early on Sunday. Although Wes had hard luck with this Jeep at this event, we know it’s going to be a strong runner once the new car blues are worked out.

Justin Adamson - Best Engineered

Kenny Hayes' Jeeps - Best Appearing

Jon Warren - Hot Dog Award

Wes Gilmore - Hard Luck Award

Photos Courtesy NSDN

Event Photo Gallery - Courtesy NSDN

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