Season 2 of the Red Bull Scramble kicked off Saturday in the dunes of Glamis. Although many faces ranging from World Rally-Raid Championship stars Seth Quintero and Austin Jones to the great Robby Gordon and his son Max Gordon headlined the card, newly minted Red Bull athlete and real estate agent Corbin Leaverton came out on top.
Leaverton, who won the Red Bull High Desert Scramble and the Best In The Desert Trophy Unlimited title alongside Cody Bradbury in 2023, continued his momentum into 2024 by winning the Pro class final ahead of pole-sitter Chase Carr and Shawn Saxton. Carr had dominated the race by leading the first four laps before Leaverton passed him on the final circuit to score the win.
Jones, two weeks removed from winning the Challenger class at the W2RC’s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, placed fifth. He narrowly edged out Michael McFayden for the top-five finish, the latter a new Honda Factory Off-Road Racing Talon driver; McFayden’s colleague Ethan Ebert, who races the team’s Honda Ridgeline in SCORE International competition, retired from the final.
“I’m super familiar with this area because I do a lot for Dakar and Abu Dhabi out here in these dunes,” said Jones. “I’ve been here a lot but I’ve never done a race here. The course that they set up was absolutely insane. It was the perfect mix of really fast and fun and a little bit of sketchy to keep everyone honest.”
The Gordon family, entering their first Scramble Series race, had mixed results. Robby finished third in his heat race while Max was forced to retire from his when the belt came off his SPEED UTV. The younger Gordon’s final then ended on the opening lap when his rear tyre clipped a dune and sent him into a roll. Robby stopped to check on Max and another driver who crashed the same lap, costing him approximately forty-five seconds. Max avoided injury while the car remained in relatively good condition with most of the damage being to the trailing arm.
Quintero finished second in the heat but mechanical trouble relegated him to fourteenth in the final. The reigning W2RC Challenger champion was making his return to driving a UTV, having moved up to a Toyota Hilux for the 2024 season.
Kaden Isobella won the Sportsman final for amateur racers.
With Glamis out of the way, the Honda drivers now turn their attention to Saturday’s SCORE season-opening San Felipe 250 while the Gordons continue developing their SPEED UTV marque and gear up for the Stadium Super Trucks opener at Long Beach in April. Quintero and Jones rejoin the W2RC next month in Portugal.
The second round of the 2024 Red Bull Scramble, the Ranch Scramble in Texas, is on 4 May.