I would like to start this off by saying, “Hello, welcome and thank you for joining me for the first edition of my blog.” I am looking forward to sharing my story with you, that being my past and future. If there is anything specific you would like to know about me, please feel free to reach out to me and let me know.
I will go back to where Baby Jeep Racing all started, When I was sixteen I bought my first Jeep Wrangler. When I bought it I had no intention to go rock crawling or even go racing, I bought it as a way to get out of in the back country and see things that people don't normally get to see. In short I wanted to go leaf looking, well my plans quickly changed when I went to Moab, Utah for the first time and discovered how much fun it was to go rock crawling.
This was the turning point for me, when I wasn’t out wheelin’ my Jeep I was online learning everything I could about the world of off-road. I would spend hours googling all the different parts that were available for my Jeep, and Youtubing anything Jeep/off-road related. That’s when I discovered Ultra 4 Racing, I watched every video that had “Ultra 4” in the title and fell in love with the idea of racing my Jeep Wrangler.
Years past, I moved jobs a few times. Until I built up the courage to take the dive and start cutting my precious Jeep Wrangler apart to build it to race in the 4600 Stock class in the Ultra 4 race series. Here is a fun fact I never actually finished the build of that Jeep, but more on that later.
Now that I have started to take my Jeep apart to start the build process I needed a name for my race team, I had a complete creative block when it came to this. So, I turned to my creative advisor ;) my mom, a while back when we would be out on the trails wheelin’ she would call my Jeep “Baby Jeep” because it was always the smallest Jeep on the trail. She told me that I should call the race team “Baby Jeep Racing” since I was going to be racing Baby Jeep.
Not long after I convinced my family it would be fun to go to the 2016 Ultra 4 Nationals in Reno, Nevada. This is where I met the crew chief for VP Racing, a 4600 team that was the top contender in the class and just happened to be racing a Jeep Wrangler. I began talking with the crew chief about what I wanted to do and he told me to take all the pictures I could on how they have their Jeep built, so that I don’t have to go through the trial and error of building a race car for the first time.
I went back home and continued to work on my Jeep Wrangler “Baby Jeep” I really wanted to get it ready to go racing at the 2017 Ultra 4 King of the Hammers. I was extremely naive in thinking that this would be an obtainable goal. Not because it was an impossible goal, just cause I did not have the time nor the funding to achieve such a goal. Instead I went to the 2017 Ultra 4 King of the Hammers to spectate, which I did not end up doing, I arrived on the lake bed Thursday morning just before the Every Man Challenge was set to take the green flag for their race.
While all the race cars were staging I was walking through Hammer town when I stumbled upon the crew chief for VP Racing while he was staging the 4612 race Jeep, I ended up hanging out with the VP Racing team for the rest of the day. I got to see first hand what went into winning the 4600 Stock class King of the Hammers race. The day was not without its trials, but more on that later. During the “after party” I would learn that the VP Racing team was racing in the 4400 Unlimited class on Friday as well. I helped them with their 4400 race the best I could, learning a lot of new things along the way.
Well I think that is a good stopping point for now. I thank those of you that clicked on the link and read until the end. Please keep coming back every week for a new addition to my blog, if there is anything in particular you would like to know about leave a comment and let me know.