AVID Racing Yamaha will make their World Rally-Raid Championship début on 25–28 April once they carry “The Burrito” to the Sonora Rally. Camelia Liparoti will pilot the automotive within the T3 class, with Tony Albano as co-driver.
AVID UTV, an aftermarket components producer and provider primarily based in California, created the staff—nicknamed “Undertaking Final Stand”—at the side of Yamaha for the 2023 King of the Hammers, with Tyler Thomas driving “Burrito” whereas Rodney VanEperen piloted a second Yamaha YXZ1000R dubbed “Taquito”. Dwelling as much as AVID’s background, the automobiles usually are not absolutely inventory with modifications like upgraded suspension to face up to KOH’s rocky terrain.
Burrito struggled with engine issues all through its time at KOH earlier than culminating in a drivetrain failure that knocked it out of the Can-Am UTV Hammers Championship. Regardless of the exit, it had proven early velocity with Thomas by climbing from eighty-third to fifteenth on the opening lap. VanEperen bowed out after two laps.
Whereas King of the Hammers is a rock crawling occasion with its personal extremes that drastically differ from rally raid, there was loads of crossover between the disciplines. Each have additionally been dominated by Can-Am whereas Yamaha’s assist is proscribed by comparability, although the latter has loved success from time to time. Most notably, Yamahas swept the T3 podium within the eleventh leg of the W2RC season-opening Dakar Rally, one among two stage wins within the division for the Japanese producer amid a sea of Can-Am triumphs.
Though the three way partnership is a brand new face for the Sonora Rally, AVID UTV by itself isn’t any stranger. Founder George LaMonte is a daily on the occasion, beforehand competing on a motorbike earlier than switching to a YXZ1000R Turbo in 2019; after LaMonte raced on his personal the primary 12 months, Albano started calling the pictures for him the next 12 months. The UTV efforts ultimately impressed his firm to develop the “Child Raptor”, a 2017 YXZ1000R donning a miniaturised Ford Raptor physique that Dave Sykes and Albano raced in 2021 earlier than they misplaced a CV axle.
Liparoti raced at Dakar in a YXZ1000R Turbo Prototype for X-raid Staff, who fielded seven such automobiles in T3 with manufacturing facility backing from Yamaha. A six-time FIM Girls’s Cross-Nation World Champion, completed thirty-fifth in school after a late string of stage retirements. She was the T3 runner-up on the 2021 Dakar Rally, which stays the most effective total end for Yamaha in a UTV. Whereas Yamaha is extra identified for its bikes, the bike rally raid programme was shuttered after the 2022 race (although the corporate has remained concerned with two-wheelers within the sport by way of the brand new Ténéré Spirit Expertise). In the meantime, restricted assist for T3 entries continues whereas the Yamaha Raptor is the preferred automobile within the Quad class.
