Brock Heger’s historic UTV win streak has come to an end. After only knowing of victory for the past nine months, he was finally defeated when his Polaris RZR caught fire in the Vegas to Reno.

Heger was riding a seven-race undefeated stretch going into the V2R, having been the fastest UTV at the Baja 1000, Dakar Rally, King of the Hammers’ Toyo Tires Desert Challenge and Can-Am UTV Hammers Championship, Mint 400, San Felipe 250, and Baja 500. He qualified second among UTVs for the V2R and certainly had all the confidence to bounce back after retiring from the 2024 edition with a mechanical failure. Unfortunately for him, the Vegas to Reno won again.

To add insult to injury for RZR Factory Racing, Ethan Groom and Seth Quintero’s RZR also retired when they rolled into a ditch. Quintero, a World Rally-Raid Championship regular and three-time V2R UTV class winner, returned to Polaris after a brief stint with Can-Am.

Heger and Quintero weren’t the only rally raiders (though it’s not the former’s main discipline) to experience trouble Friday. Twice Dakar bike champ and thrice V2R motorcycle victor Ricky Brabec also bowed out with a mechanical failure halfway in his Class 1500 debut.

On the other hand, another rally raider came out on top after Heger’s retirement. Mitch Guthrie, a rival of Quintero in Dakar but a Polaris comrade in Nevada, and Heger’s teammate Cayden MacCachren—who doesn’t have rally experience but has expressed interest in it—picked up where Heger left off. MacCachren opted for a more conservative strategy that left him running outside the top ten for much of the day before picking up the pace in the final 200 miles.

Guthrie and MacCachren squared off with Cody Bradbury of Can-Am, who hoped to earn his manufacturer’s second straight V2R UTV overall win after defending winner Josh Row fell off the pace. MacCachren caught up to the leaders by the 300-mile mark before taking the physical lead in the closing 25, only for a brake failure to strike on the final mountain.

Bradbury and Guthrie went by, and the latter ultimately took the win by just nine seconds. While Guthrie isn’t part of RZR Factory Racing, his victory still brought the V2R back to the Polaris family. MacCachren fell to 28th in UTV Pro.

“It was a great race with tight battles up front dicing it up, with just seconds separating us at times,” Guthrie commented. “The RZR Pro R Factory performed flawlessly with zero issues, which gave me the confidence to keep pushing from start to finish.”

UTVs weren’t the only vehicles where the win went down to the wire. Just ahead of the four-wheelers, HERO Racing and JCR Honda renewed their SCORE rivalry as they fought for the bike victory.

HERO’s #N1 was led by Rider of Record Shane Logan alongside Arturos Salas Jr. and Ciaran Naran. Opposite them was the #N7 JCR Honda of Preston Campbell, who was riding a hot streak that included winning the Mint 400 and Sonora Rally to clinch his 2026 Dakar Rally ticket, and Tyler Lynn. Lynn currently leads the SCORE Pro Moto Unlimited standings after winning San Felipe and the Baja 500, beating the Salas–Logan–Naran triumvirate in both.

Campbell kicked things off as the fastest qualifier followed by Logan. The latter took the physical lead by RM 80 before trading off with Naran, who built the gap on the #N1 until it was Salas’ turn. While HERO was in front for most of the day, JCR stayed close behind with Campbell and Lynn before regaining the spot.

However, Lynn eventually got lost as did fellow rider Axel Pearson, winner of the latest Best In The Desert race in May. Logan, who was back on the #N1, came by both of them, after which they got back on the right track. Once it was Campbell’s turn, he got by Pearson when a rock shredded the latter’s tire.

Logan brought the bike home with a total time of 8:02:11, five minutes quicker than Campbell. As the overall bike champion, HERO earned $10,000 in prize money from Pro Circuit and BITD. Pearson settled for third among bikes and fourth overall.

The #N1 was the first motorcycle to be the fastest vehicle overall at the V2R since 2021 when Dalton Shirey beat the Trick Truck of Ryan Arciero by 12 minutes. Brabec was also faster than Arciero on his own bike.

Arciero was the race’s top four-wheeler for four consecutive years from 2021 to 2024, but opted not to go for a fifth in 2025. In his absence, Tracy Graf scored his maiden V2R overall auto win.

Graf shared the #58 Trick Truck with Justin Bean Smith. After qualifying second, Graf did the first 143 miles before subbing out with Smith, who cruised to the class and overall victories. Craig McCarthy, second in TT, was 22 minutes back while Guthrie was the runner-up four-wheeler and seven minutes behind.

While Arciero’s run came to an end, Jason Coleman equaled him with his fourth straight Class 6100 triumph, finishing right behind Guthrie and Bradbury. Coleman beat Trey Gibbs for the class win by three minutes.

Arciero and Heger weren’t the only drivers with streaks that came to an end. Going into Vegas, Brad Lovell had won his class in his last nine starts: the 2024 V2R, the 2024 and 2025 Finke Desert Races, the last two Mexican 1000s, the 2024 Baja 1000, this year’s King of the Hammers’ Toyo Tires Desert Challenge and Every Man Challenge, and the Mint 400. Lovell’s hopes of hitting double digits abruptly ended when his Ford Ranger Raptor crashed and took terminal engine damage.

With Lovell out of the picture, his Ford Performance colleagues Vaughn Gittin Jr. and Bailey Campbell took the Class 7300 win ahead of Chad Hall from rival Chevrolet. Conversely, Hall’s Bowtie ally Chris Woo got the edge on the Blue Oval’s Loren Healy in Class 1200.

Chris Forsberg was the lone entrant in Class 7100 with the Nissan Frontier with which he won his class at the NORRA 500 twice. The truck suffered a skid plate failure on the rear differential just 80 miles in, causing an oil leak that set him back.

The Gomez brothers swept the Ultra4 Class 4400 podium as Darian Gomez led JP by five minutes and had 11 on Marcos. Fourth-placed Casey Currie was over an hour behind Darian. Ryan Parette, the fastest 4400 in qualifying, retired after a bizarre crash with Stephen Rose just outside the pits less than half a mile from the section finish.

Being one of the premier off-road races in the United States, much of the V2R field unsurprisingly hailed from North America. Hironori Nishimura brought some Japanese flavor as the Sodegaura native finished fourth in Motorcycle Ironman Amateur.

Ben Howard showed up to the V2R as a last-minute addition who decided to take part after talking with other riders on Facebook and yanking the rally navigation equipment off his KTM 500 EXC from Sonora. Competing solo, he finished fifth in Ironman Expert.

“My wife noticed that the Vegas to Reno race was on our calendar and asked if I was going,” Howard recalled. “I really hadn’t planned on it till she asked so I put a post up on the Pro Moto FB group to see if anyone thought it was possible to get my act together a week before race day and of course all you guys thought I should do it.”

Ty McPherson entered the race on a modified Harley-Davidson Street 750, with which he had previously run San Felipe in April. He made it halfway and was fourth in Moto Over 40 Expert.

Stone Cold Steve Austin retired with a mechanical issue, though GFI Racing co-owner Zach Kisman won their class in his stead.

Class winners

Class	Overall Finish	Number	Competitor of Record	Total Time
3-Wheel Expert	138	454	Julian Hoefert	16:11:56.709
Class 1200	104	1230	Chris Woo	11:51:18.065
Class 1500	55	1540	Conner McMullen	9:36:57.876
Class 1700	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	DNF
Class 2000	143	2042	Emily Shapiro	22:40:23.685*
Class 4400	31	4490	Darian Gomez	9:00:27.629
Class 4400 (V2R Short Way)	152	5150	Brendon Thompson	3:35:50.913*
Class 4500	167	4532	Steve Crawford	4:32:11.773*
Class 4500 (V2R Short Way)	173	3105	Megan Miller	4:52:23.205*
Class 4600	135	4606	Jason Loch	15:12:32.779
Class 4600 (V2R Short Way)	162	4691	Kendall Glines	4:21:08.005
Class 4800	110	4813	Justin Hall	11:59:03.226
Class 4800 (V2R Short Way)	159	1717	Johnny Valadez	3:54:47.763
Class 4900 Pro Mod (V2R Short Way)	188	4932	Scott Lesage	6:17:13.726*
Class 4900 Pro Open	195	4954	Dillon Harper	7:05:09.793*
Class 4900 Pro Open (V2R Short Way)	193	171	Gary Henderson	6:44:08.908
Class 6100	7	6192	Jason Coleman	8:24:23.000
Class 7100	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	DNF
Class 7300	76	7366	Vaughn Gittin Jr.	10:24:44.671
Class 8100	136	8150	Dave Pryor	15:49:26.013
Motorcycle 399 Expert	124	225	Joshua Newsom	13:00:56.844
Motorcycle 399 ExpertPro	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	DNF
Motorcycle Family Expert	66	F44	Greg Pheasant	9:58:16.623
Motorcycle Ironman Amateur	83	O77	Adam Devargas	10:49:05.938
Motorcycle Ironman Expert	82	O20	Collin Mandichak	10:45:10.010
Motorcycle Ironman Pro	41	J78	Brian Roberts	9:21:38.268
Motorcycle Open Amateur	89	364	Brack Littlepage	11:02:29.612
Motorcycle Open Expert	46	309	Matt Grant	9:26:04.729
Motorcycle Open Pro	1	N1	Shane Logan	8:02:11.807
Motorcycle Over 30 Expert	72	55	TJ Boutwell	10:19:59.257
Motorcycle Over 30 Pro	32	P65	Nolan Rudd	9:02:45.964
Motorcycle Over 40 Expert	71	784	Brandon Long	10:13:45.583
Motorcycle Over 40 Pro	54	C22	Dennis Belingheri	9:36:56.137
Motorcycle Over 50 Expert	107	873	Benjamin Brown	11:53:29.666
Motorcycle Over 60 Expert	73	923	Dick Wilk	10:22:50.701
Motorcycle Women Expert	91	W1	Kimberly Loppnow	11:11:13.139
Quad Expert	102	442	Ryan Stafki	11:43:16.216
Quad Ironman Expert	106	672	Jose A. Jimenez	11:53:20.342
Quad Pro	97	Q111	Jessica Engen	11:25:38.012
Super 10	23	2938	Michael McFayden	8:53:50.977
Trick Truck	3	58	Tracy Graf	8:12:32.437
UTV Pro	5	T51	Mitch Guthrie	8:19:22.984
UTV Pro Naturally Aspirated	108	R941	Zach Kisman	11:55:05.537
UTV Pro Stock	112	S44	Lucas Bates	12:02:26.995
UTV Pro Stock R	59	Z73	Tyler Stewart	9:45:41.839
UTV Sportsman	132	M950	William Eisenberg	15:04:44.948
Youth UTV 1000 Open	101	620Y	Brian Fulcher	11:42:25.066
Youth UTV 1000 Restricted	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	DNF

Featured image credit: Giovanni Spinali