Mad Matz Qualifies For 2014 KOH at Badlands

Ruckersville, VA. – Matthew Peterson and co-driver Bryce Marshall drove the Mad Matz Unique Jeepz 500hp “Screaming Green Machine” to a respectable 10th place finish out of a very competitive field of 31 vehicles at Badlands Off Road Park in Attica Indiana this past weekend. The race began with a field of 31 specialized desert racing rock crawlers from the east and west coasts, with only 17 finishing this grueling Ultra 4 Race Series eastern series qualifier for the 2014 King of the Hammers.
It was a wet muddy and tough 6 mile-2 hour race. The winding course included wicked limestone rock faces and tight wooded sections with “deep” mud holes that would swallow almost any rig on the course! Then we broke out into the sand dunes and through the old rock quarry for some large rock walls and ugly boulder fields. On the second lap in we had one of our main cooling fans on our engine stop working putting our twin turbo rig in the upper 240° to 255° temp range. This forced us to slow down and not run the truck too hard so we could finish the race.
On the 3rd lap we were flagged down by one of Ultra 4’s great racers, Erik Miller the 2012 King of the Hammers Champion for help. Erik lost his idler pulley for the power steering on his race vehicle. On a mission, we took off headed back to the pits to pick up the part and then head out on to the Badlands course for our final lap. As we dropped over the edge into the rock quarry our rig really started to over-heat and the temperature spiked up to 270°.
The engine began back firing badly, as we approached the big rock wall climb, we pulled over to the right to allow the engine to cool down and opted to winch our vehicle up the wall. Once over the top we linked up with Erik and handed off his parts. We made our way under reduced power to the last rock wall, up and over and headed to the finish line. We completed 4 total laps or 24 miles of this grueling east coast course.
The Badlands Ultimate Motorsports Championship (UMC) Ultra4 race included some of the nation’s top off road racing champions to include Derek West, 3-time KOH Champion, Shannon Campbell and 2012 KOH Champion Eric Miller. “Ultra 4 racing is as much of a test of the driver as it is for the vehicle, says Matthew Peterson. These are races of attrition that test all of your skills, all of the time and can seriously tear your rig apart!” The Ultra 4 race community is a close knit group of incredibly competitive off-road racing teams, made up of great people who will help each other in the pits or on the course during the race.
Ultra 4 races are held at venues around the United States and are well known for the combined “go fast” open terrain driving and treacherous rock crawling through boulder strewn rock fields that are seemingly impassible. King of the Hammers is considered to be the most difficult off road race in the world. Mad Matz qualified for the 2013 King of the Hammers but the course beat their vehicle, but now they are going after KOH again!
Matthew and Mad Matz Unique Jeepz are sponsored by Altech Motorsports, Ashbury Precision Ordnance (APO), Genright, Hughes Performance, PAC Racing, Virginia Speed, Vision-X Lighting, and Yukon Gear and Axel.
About Mad Matz Unique Jeepz…
Mad Matz Unique Jeepz is a central Virginia based motorsports business that specializes in 4×4 enhancements and custom fabrication for Jeep, Toyota and other leading off road vehicle brands.
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