The first season of the American Off-Road Racing Championship is over, and it ended at the 2026 Laughlin Desert Classic, October 15–18 in Laughlin, Nevada. Best in the Desert and UNLTD Off-Road Racing brought their series together this year, and Laughlin was the finale. On Sunday, Oct. 18, Conner McMullen won two races in two different trucks, and Tracy Graf, Phil Blurton and Ciaran Naran wrapped up the inaugural AORC titles.
Every result below comes from Best in the Desert's official race reports and the official timing page they link to, and every title matches the final AORC driver points standings posted on Oct. 20. If you're already planning 2027, the next desert dates are on our Find a Race calendar. And if this race was your first time with two people in a car on a lap course, our race packages are a good place to start sorting out comms for next season.
How Laughlin works
Laughlin isn't a point-to-point desert race. It's a lap race, run as two full days of racing with the same program each day, and each class is scored on its combined two-day time. Qualifying ran Thursday on a 3.1-mile course. Friday was the new Laughlin Off-Road Festival in front of the Colorado Belle in downtown Laughlin, with tech, contingency and two youth races. Saturday and Sunday were split into heats, starting with the pre-runners, then motorcycles and quads, and finishing with the full-power Unlimited Trucks.
The official timing page lists 308 total entries and 240 unique drivers, who ran 1,901 laps between them over the weekend.
Five laps a day for two days, door to door, with a co-driver in the right seat: that is a lot of talking inside one car. A clear intercom matters when the person next to you is calling traffic off a four-wide start. The PCI Comlink X and Kenwood NX-1700 Race Package pairs a two-person intercom that has a driver isolation feature with a Kenwood NX-1700 race radio. You can add Bluetooth and DSP, and PCI calls DSP a must for cars without a windshield.
Unlimited Trucks: McMullen doubles up
McMullen came to Laughlin with his usual Unlimited Truck SPEC ride. He also drove the #18 Unlimited Truck 2WD for Nic Whetstone, who came in as the defending Laughlin winner and led the 2WD points by three over Steve Olliges and Tracy Poole. McMullen qualified fastest in the full-power group on Thursday. Then on Saturday he took the #18 under the one-hour mark over five laps, according to BITD's Saturday report. On Sunday he was the only driver in the full-power trucks to break two hours over all 10 laps, which gave him the overall Unlimited win and wrapped up the 2WD class title for Whetstone. Poole and Olliges finished the weekend second and third in class, the same positions they held in the standings coming in.
The 4WD title fight was closer still. BITD says only one point separated the top 4WD racers going into Laughlin. Robby Gordon outqualified Graf and beat him by about 50 seconds on Saturday. When both days were added up, Graf and Justin "Bean" Smith, who was pulling double duty himself, finished more than five minutes ahead of Robby and Max Gordon. That was enough for both the 4WD class title and the overall Unlimited title for the season.
Heat 7 two-day overall, per BITD:
- #18 Conner McMullen, Unlimited Truck 2WD, 10 laps, 1:57:00.938
- #78 Tracy Poole, Unlimited Truck 2WD, 10 laps, 2:02:12.494
- #58 Tracy Graf, Unlimited Truck 4WD, 10 laps, 2:05:59.141
- #5 Robby Gordon, Unlimited Truck 4WD, 10 laps, 2:11:45.659
- #27T Steve Olliges, Unlimited Truck 2WD, 10 laps, 2:12:56.179
Ten laps at Unlimited Truck pace is a long time inside a helmet. The PCI Elite Wired Impact CARBON Air Draft OS20 SA2025 Helmet is a Snell SA2025 helmet built from 100% carbon fiber, and PCI custom wires it with large, high-watt speakers and an ear jack. More lids are in our race helmets collection.
SPEC: a win for McMullen, the title for Jergensen
Nearly 30 Unlimited Truck SPEC entries lined up, and McMullen posted the best time in the group both days. His Sunday time was less than half a minute slower than his Saturday time. Kyle Jergensen had the title on the line. He qualified on top, then dropped out of the top 10 on Saturday's fourth lap and finished the day 12th. On Sunday he drove back to second, which put him seventh for the weekend. That was enough to defend the points lead he brought into Laughlin and clinch the SPEC title, with RJ Stidham second in the final standings.
- #240 Conner McMullen, 10 laps, 2:06:53.756
- #205 Neal Drickey, 10 laps, 2:08:04.849
- #284 Justin "Bean" Smith, 10 laps, 2:08:45.344
UTV Pro and Class 10: Gonzalez wins, Blurton takes the title
Deegan Gonzalez started Saturday from the outside of the front row and won the heat. Michael McFayden beat him on Sunday, but only made up 10 of the 54 seconds he'd lost on day one. Carib Potts was the fastest Class 10 car, carving through UTVs both days to post the third-fastest overall time in the heat. In the title fight, top qualifier Ronnie Anderson was seven points behind Phil Blurton coming in. Blurton had a weekend he'd rather forget and finished 14th overall. But Anderson didn't finish, so Blurton took both the UTV Pro title and the overall Limited title.
- #T81 Deegan Gonzalez, UTV Pro, 10 laps, 2:13:26.440
- #T838 Michael McFayden, UTV Pro, 10 laps, 2:14:09.990
- #1061 Carib Potts, Class 10, 10 laps, 2:16:47.061
Two days of heat racing in Laughlin desert means plenty of time behind other cars, and BITD described Sunday's course as rougher than Saturday's. The PCI RaceAir Pro Package uses dual independent fan motors to deliver powerful, reliable airflow to one or two helmets, and it comes with both a 4 ft and a 5 ft flex hose for the driver and co-driver. If you're not sure which blower fits your car, our Baja Academy guide RaceAir Pro vs Boost vs Lite walks through it. The rest of the lineup is in our RaceAir collection.
Pro Turbo, Sportsman and the bikes
In UTV Pro Turbo, Dexon Despot won Saturday's heat and was fourth fastest overall on Sunday. That gave him the weekend by 55 seconds over Bryce Marking. The class title went to Steve Allen. Beau Judge drove Allen's #B43 to the fastest overall time on Sunday, finishing third in class and in the group for the weekend and scoring the points Allen needed.
In the Limited car and truck heat, John Bowers in Open Sportsman B broke the one-hour mark over four laps on Saturday. On Sunday two Sportsman racers did it: Colton Brenthel, and Justin Miller in Class 1450. Brenthel was the fastest in the group overall, and he was the only Heat 3 racer from any class to finish under two hours for the weekend, at 1:59:41.488.
On the motorcycles, Ciaran Naran and Cody Simpson were one of only two Open Pro teams to go under an hour on Saturday. The pace wasn't quite the same on Sunday's rougher course, but they were fastest again, beating Hayden Hintz by more than two and a half minutes on the day. They finished the weekend at 2:00:25.449, nearly eight minutes clear of anyone else in class. That locked up the #N1 plate for Naran next season, and he carries a four-race winning streak into 2027.
None of those results happen without the people in the pits. On a lap course, the crew chief and spotters need to talk to the car without fumbling a hand mic over the noise of the pits. The PCI Crew Chief Package - Kenwood pairs a Kenwood NX-1200 VHF handheld with a crew chief headset that has push-to-talk on the ear cup. For more handheld options, see our hand-held radios.
The first AORC champions
BITD's race report called the titles at Laughlin, and the final driver points standings AORC posted on Oct. 20 confirm all six:
- Tracy Graf: Unlimited Truck 4WD class title and the overall Unlimited title
- Phil Blurton: UTV Pro title and the overall Limited title
- Ciaran Naran: Open Pro Motorcycle class title and the overall Motorcycle title, plus the #N1 plate for 2027
- Nic Whetstone: Unlimited Truck 2WD class title, with Conner McMullen at the wheel
- Kyle Jergensen: Unlimited Truck SPEC title
- Steve Allen: UTV Pro Turbo class championship
Fifty years of Laughlin
BITD notes that Walt Lott first ran the Laughlin Desert Classic in 1975. Sal Fish brought it back in 1984, and the late Casey Folks carried it forward from there. Walker Evans, Ivan Stewart and Rob MacCachren have all raced there over the years. This year Laughlin closed out the first AORC season, and it's on the 2027 schedule again.
What's next
AORC has already announced its 2027 schedule. The season opens with The Parker 400, January 13–17, 2027, in Parker, Arizona. Laughlin comes back October 13–17, 2027, and the season ends with the return of the UTV World Championship, December 1–5, 2027, at a location still to be announced. You'll find all of it, plus the other series we track, on Find a Race.
The off-season is the time to rewire. If you want to sort out intercom packages, race helmets or helmet air before Parker, email us at sales@bajaracinggear.com.
Baja Racing Gear isn't a race promoter. The results and dates in this post come from Best in the Desert's official race reports, AORC's official results and final points standings, and the results at bitd.com. Check there for complete class-by-class results.
