BITD Henderson Fabtech Desert Classic Race Report
Well, i'm going to start this off with a great big to the people who talk alot of smack but weren't at the starting line.
A little back story to the train wreck leading up to the race. With striking an agreement to have BJ Baldwin race the 4471 in the 2010 KOH, i knew my time to do major rework to the car to both make it more comfortable for someone over 5'10, but to also help improve it's offroad performance time was limited. So i used the time between Offroad Expo and Henderson to do that, because BJ would be very busy with preparing for the Baja 1000.
With seeing the level of work Shaffer's Offroad did to Jason Scherer's car, and how well it performed afterwards, the decision was obvious who I wanted to oversee the work!
With being as far along as we possibly could be a week before the race, waiting on some very specific key part's to arrive via the brown truck, we were becoming pressed for time to be ready. Talks of withdrawing from the race came up, but knowing what the bigger picture was, if we could just start the race, we pushed forward.
Coming down to the wire, I made severall calls to people I knew Friday morning, and was put in contact with the right people at BITD to get setup to do a late registration and tech. Saturday morning at 6am!
We left Reno Friday night at 745pm, with only driving the car to the end of the parking lot and back to load it up, headed south. Pook and Myself had been up for over 40 hours without sleep at this point, along with Tim & Phil. Levi was our savior, since he had spent thursday night at home with his family, asleep, he was able to tow the racer safely to Jean. We checked into our room's at 3am, knowing we had to be up at 5am.
Our crew, Pook & Myself already in our firesuits, driving Chase1, towing the 4471 turn onto Knight Ranch Road at 5:55am, after just tlking with Kirk @ BITD being told to HURRY UP! BLM stop's us and asked for our pit pass..... Ummm BITD has it at the start line, we're registering late. No Pit Pass, no access. Ummm, ok? my pit pass is a mile up the road, 2 people in fire suits, a truck full of chase gear, and a race car in tow, isn't that a bit obvious we're actually here for the race? I showed him the packet BITD had mailed me, proving it was me. Not good enough! after a 40 minute delay, watching 40+ cars just drive by, a BLM higher up gave us a pretty impressive ass chewing bout thing's that weren't any of my buisness, then allowed us to pass
We pull up to the start line to unload and get checked in. The first car's are leaving the line while i'm signing insurance waiver's. the crew is prepping the car for the start, but it won't start! WTF!!! battery's dead? WTF??? a quick jump start and we're in buisness, of course we're directed to the back of the pack, behind the rhino's. No big deal. we're the only car in our class who care's how fast we go?
As we get in line, we realize the intercom isn't working? WTF??? then we get rushed to the middle of the Rhino pack? Either way, we were off. the new 5.13 gear's added a level of acceleration i hadn't felt in the car before as it ripped off the line sideway's all 4 tire's blazing... about the time I grab 2nd gear I see Pook's arms waiving like he's having an epileptic seizure, I look ahead and realize there's a 90+ degree corner lined with cones, a quick stab of teh brakes to scrub some speed, forgetting we had just installed the new TubeWorks brakes I almost send Pook out the windsheild as the car locks all 4 wheels up, WOW! we look like some assclowns!!!
We finish the small start line infield as i get a better respect for the new power, and stopping power i've got, and start down the whooped out gravel roads, just following the rhino's in the dust, remebering, the car wasn't driven 1000ft before being loaded into the trailer and send off the starting line!
With no communication, Pook was making hand gestures on corner's and what he could see through the stagnant dust. Just cruising along. We got to mile 4 or so, and hit the pavment, I shifted back to 2wd and stood on it the car raced up to the back of a Rhino who would NOT move over to let us pass, so at 64mph we cruised while he went from shoulder to shoulder like a drunk person.
On teh high speed pavment the car felt like it was pulling right a bit, Meh, we never did check the toe after having the front end fully stripped down. A few miles later the reality set in that i did nick the side wall at about RM2 trying to go wide for clean air. It was going down slowly, so we pushed on trying to make sure we didn't hit anything with that tire. That lasted until RM 19 or so. one of those unavoidable VW sized boulders in the middle of the tire rut through the boulder field....
So with the right front churning and kicking rocks up, we slowed down a bit, but hit almost 50mph on the totally shredded, now inverted casing on teh right front. when Pook start's waving and pointing at the trans temp gauge, 250+ degrees? WTF? it's below freezing out! So we pull over to the side of the course, well when i come to a stop I notice the motor is stalling about 3k rpm and won't come down WTF? so i figure, it's been running an hour, teh battery must be charged.... the cooler plug wasn't making a good internal connection so we just cut and twisted teh wires together to get us going again. but guess what?? the Battery was DEAD! like no nothing DEAD!
Pook hike's back over a mile to get a BITD official to jump start us. And we're off, still rockin the right front digger, and it's creating a sand blast that you can't imagine on poor Chris's side of the car, he can't see anything. but we have 3 miles to teh pit, so we limp on at 20-25mph. arriving in the pit to the throttle being stuck again, this time we knew it was just the small rocks the tire was flinging up sticking in the return spring on the throttle body. So the crew chip's them out, the engine idles down, and they go to work on the flat tire.....
And the engine just dies. car is 100% dead. again. Well since we got the jump, as we were limping along, i was watching the volt's gauge creap to 17-18 volts, and the motor would start to stumble and die, and as the rpm's droped, the volt's would too, and the engine would refire. and start slowly creaping up again, doing this once a minuite or so? After a few min in the pit, we realized that there was no internal connection in the battery, and NO ONE had an oddessey, we could have gotten 50 optima's, but not a single oddessey to be found, not even the side x side teams had oddesseys!
So in fear of the car stalling out again, frying the electrical system, or any other possibly expensice damage, and already being over a lap down, we decided it was time to just take it as a lesson learned, enjoy the fact we got start points, and sit down and watch the afternoon race.
Pook was kind enough to smuggle a case of Molson Canadian down in his luggage for us, so between the 5 of us, we sipped through the box of ice cold beer, stanging in 30 degree weather watching really cool go fast car's race past us, and checking out the scenery
I have to give a Huge thanks to Mike & Shaffer's Offroad, for the shop space, the design ideas the Cad work, and the CNC cutting of all the part's.
Phil Remington (yotaphil) aka Tripple F for the tube work, welding, and general bad ass fab!
Tim Priess (Prius ) for being up here ever single night doing all the **** work and helping out with everything!
Steve Springborn for the diff setup's and the last min help to push the car out the door!
and Levi Stott's for stepping in the last day being the sane one who had slept in the last 24 hours to keep us from killing eachother, and for towing everything to Vegas for us while we all slept in the truck!
And the sponsor's that made it all possible
Trail Gear
Bilstein Shocks
Superior Axle & Gears
Shaffer's Offroad
Race Line Wheels
PSC Motorsports
BFGoodrich Tires
Big Country Customs
And hopefully for 2010 Timberline Pool & Spa
And another huge thanks to the Karson Krew. the most disfunctional, yet amazing chase crew a team could ask for, you guy's work your asses off!!
oh yea, and that one Hoser too Pook
Photo Credit's to Ben Napier & Levi Stott's
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