Christopher Polvoorde made his third consecutive Toyo Tires Desert Challenge Unlimited victory look clinical, though it was anything but.

The first half of Sunday’s race was a duel between Polvoorde and RJ Anderson. They were the fastest qualifiers by a wide margin as the only drivers to set a time below eight minutes with plenty of room to spare: Anderson’s time was 7:21.970 and Polvoorde was 1.489 seconds back, while Adam Householder was a distant third at 8:00.502.

Come race day, Anderson quickly took off while Polvoorde easily got past Householder for second. The two quickly pulled away from the field from there before doing battle with each other.

Anderson was keen on having a Hammers trophy join his Crandon World Cup in his list of recent accomplishments. Unfortunately, his hopes came to an end when the serpentine belt broke at the halfway mark. With his main rival gone, Polvoorde had little opposition behind him.

Instead, his adversaries were in front of him. As he approached Lap 4, he started to come across lapped trucks that were much slower. Consequently, he felt things “got a little hectic. Made a couple mistakes in there. I was like, ‘Just gotta calm down, calm down.’”

Polvoorde easily cleared Ray Griffith by the end, the only truck to set a time below four hours. The win also meant both Desert Challenge winners from 2025 repeated as Brock Heger claimed the Limited Race on Saturday.

“RJ was giving it a lot. I was like, ‘Oh man, he’s really going to make us work for it this year,’” Polvoorde quipped. “It was a lot of fun those first couple laps. I was pretty bummed to see him go out, and then after that, I just went on cruise control. Just managed all day.”

Griffith held off Jordan Brenthel by a minute and a half for the T2 class win; Brenthel crossed the finish on two wheels after bicycling his truck while trying to pass a lapped truck. A convoy of T2s followed in the overall, with the next highest T1 behind Polvoorde being Chris Hertsch in ninth.

Householder was among the DNFs after his truck’s jack got jammed. Bailey Cole never even got to start because of an engine problem that struck in qualifying, nor did his classmate Kevin Percifull, who finished second in Pro Stock NA on Saturday; consequently, Shawn Kroll was the only buggy to actually participate in the race and basically won by default.

Sunday was one to forget for Terrible Herbst Motorsports. Thor Herbst rolled his truck, while his brother Pierce was knocked out by a transmission failure.

Class winners

Class	Overall	Number	Driver of Record	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Total Time
B1	26	132	Shawn Croll	TTR Racing	Eversen Fabrication	3	2:39:00.0
T1	1	94	Christopher Polvoorde	CPR Enterprises Inc.	Ford	5	3:59:28.7
T2	2	253	Ray Griffith	A&G Motorsports	Mason	5	4:13:38.8

Featured image credit: via Christopher Polvoorde