LVJC Dumont Feb '17 Race Recap

The President’s Day Weekend tradition continued in 2017 with the Las Vegas Jeep Club Sand Drags & Hill Climbs at California’s Dumont Dunes. Gloomy and wet weather greeted racers on Saturday morning for the Hill Climbs event, but the rain would leave the area around Noon leaving great, cool weather for the rest of the weekend. The Dunes had experienced a lot of rain prior to the event, meaning the Dune Sand would have a lot more moisture in it than normal. This led to some extremely interesting competition in both the Sand Drags & Hill Climbs events. Let’s take a look at all the action.

Sand Drags

The Las Vegas Jeep Club has come up with a great program of classes for the President’s Day Weekend event, including three headline categories. Pro Boost is the top category, which is open to all vehicles on a 3.40 Index. The LVJC set a 3.40 Index for this class as well as Pro Drag to keep ET’s & MPH’s in check on this unique temporary dune dragstrip. Round one of the Pro Boost class saw Dave Stidham run a 3.69 to get around Chris Adamson’s 3.80 & Wes Gilmore get the win with a 4.05 over Hunter Buettner Jr.’s 3.90. Hunter actually got to the stripe first, but knocked down a few cones DQ’ing the pass. In the final, Stidham’s Washington-based “Grinch” Blown Alcohol Jeep would turn on the win light with a 3.57 to Wes’ 4.02. The Pro Gambler 1 (3.95 Index) class was a hotly contested class with the final round coming down to Justin Adamson’s “Raped Ape” Jeep against Wes Gilmore’s “Rattitude” ride. Wes gained a slight starting line advantage, but at the finish line it would be Adamson with a nearly dead-on 3.951 edging out Gilmore’s 4.06. Pro Gambler 2 (4.25 Index) ended up with the biggest category of the headline classes with a strong 11 entry field. Interestingly enough, the PG1 finalists Adamson & Gilmore faced off in the semi’s of PG2. Gilmore pushed Adamson into a breakout in a 4.46 to 4.23 decision. That set up a final between Gilmore’s “Rattitude” Jeep and Chris Calafiore’s freshly painted Orange & Black #420 Larry Minor Motorsports-built Jeep. This was quite a race with Calafiore scoring the big win recording a 4.32 to Gilmore’s 4.47.


Dave Stidham - Pro Boost Winner


Justin Adamson - Pro Gambler 1 Winner


Chris Calafiore - Pro Gambler 2 Winner

There are a few specialty Heads-Up/Index limited categories during the Sand Drags portion of this event. The Pro Drag class saw an opportunity for a double up victory as Stidham’s “Grinch” Jeep lined up in an all-supercharged final against Grant Fraysier’s incredible Procharged Hummer. The win light would shine on a double-up winner as Stidham ran Low ET of the weekend with a 3.53 to defeat Grant’s 3.90. Grant would bring the Hummer back around & face the awesome Turbocharged LS-powered Blazer of Stephen Chase in the XX600 Truck class final. Fraysier would get the job done with a 3.88 ET to defeat Chase’s 4.29. The X600 Jeep class (3.70 Index) final round saw Wes Gilmore earn the win in “Ratttiude” with a 4.26 to Brian Phillips’ strong 4.37. Phillips would return for the Duner Jeep class (4.30 Index) final round and put his “Nightmare” Jeep in the Winner’s Circle taking a hole shot win over Chris Calafiore 4.38 to 4.35.


Dave Stidham - Pro Drag Winner


Grant Fraysier - XX600 Trucks Winner


Wes Gilmore - X600 Jeeps Winner


Brian Phillips - Duner Class Winner

Some of the other great categories of competition at this event included four Index classes open to all types of vehicles. The Pro 1 (3.80 Index) class was a father-son battle as Wes Gilmore Jr. would turn on the win light over his dad with a 4.14 ET in his Turbocharged Jeep. The Pro 2 (4.20 Index) class ironically saw Chris Calafiore in the #420 Jeep take his second class win of the day defeating Jon Warren in the final 4.32 to 4.36. It was an all Montgomery brothers final in Pro 3 (4.60 Index) with Sam turning on the win light over Brandon. Old school Water Pumper power to the front as Matt Lefever turned on the win light in the Pro 4 (5.00 Index) final with a 5.15 over Brandon Montgomery.


Wes Gilmore Jr. - Pro 1 Winner


Chris Calafiore - Pro 2 Winner


Sam Montgomery - Pro 3 Winner


Matt Lefever - Pro 4 Winner

The Women’s classes featured some great wheel-to-wheel racing. Debbie Gilmore doubled up with wins in both the X600 Jeep & Pro 2 classes defeating Wendy Thompson in both finals and recording a Best ET of 4.38. Thompson came back & captured the Duner class victory with a 4.97 ET over Aurelia Gilmore.


Debbie Gilmore - Women's X600 & Women's Pro 2 Winner


Wendy Thompson - Women's Duner Class Winner

For the first time ever the Las Vegas Jeep Club contested a Junior class for kids at this event. The action took place on Saturday evening with five competitors doing battle. The final round saw a pair of UTV’s face off as Drake Montgomery piloted the Team Hardcore entry against Mia Fraysier in the Team Hummer ride. Drake kept up his winning ways by running a 10.384 (10.36) to take the victory.


Drake Montgomery - Juniors Winner

Hill Climbs

The Hill Climb event was an even more entertaining show this year with unusually wet sand conditions on the hill leading to tricky launch conditions, especially as the starting line moved further up the hill in later rounds. As usual, Chris Adamson used some excellent driving skill and strategy to take plenty of hardware home. Chris emerged victorious in the X400 (N/A Jeep) class during an exciting Turtle Crawl tiebreaker against his son Justin as well as Chris Calafiore. Chris also won the X200 (Small Block N/A Jeep) class with an incredible climb up the hill after each of his competitors got stuck in front of him. The X600 (Unlimited) category had five entries survive the three elimination rounds on the hill to reach the Hill Drags tiebreaker. The final round of the Hill Drag action would see Justin Adamson’s “Raped Ape” Jeep line up against Wes Gilmore’s “Rattitude” to decide the winner. Both put up a great battle with the Orange & White Jeep of Adamson emerging victorious. Justin also came away with the hardware in the first ever Slalom timed course during the Hill Climb event. Jon Warren took the X500 (4WD Unlimited) class win with his “Raspberry Thunder” Jeep while Jack Weddle swept the other 4WD categories (X300, A & B) with his Ford-powered Jeep. Doyle Quinn (XX400) & Stephen Chase (XX200) took the Truck class wins. Doug Thompson was the F class Jeep winner while Wendy Thompson took the Women’s X200 Jeep class title.


Chris Adamson - X200 & X400 Class Winner


Justin Adamson - X600 & Slalom Winner


Jon Warren - X500 Winner


Jack Weddle - X300, A & B Class Winner


Doyle Quinn - XX400 Trucks Winner


Stephen Chase - XX200 Trucks Winner


Doug Thompson - F Class Winner


Wendy Thompson - Women's X200 Winner

Sand Drags Photo Gallery - Photos Courtesy NSDN
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Hill Climbs Photo Gallery - Photos Courtesy NSDN
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