Tfab
March 8th, 2009, 11:01 PM
I wanted the thank Frank and The Rock Gods for supporting the team at KOH. I am sorry we did not do better in the race but we did have a good time and would like to try again next year if we can qualify for the race.
This year it was hard getting the car ready for the race. A busy schedule in the months before the race left no time for prerunning or suspension tuning. Some last minute changes were made to the car for the race. A 22 gallon fuel cell to improve range and some CV drivelines to smooth vibrations at high speed. I knew the CV's were now the weekest link in the drivetrain but they worked very well and the car could now go 100 mph with out vibrations. With the lenth of KOH rumored to be 100 miles I thought the vibrations from the U joints in my old driveshafts would lead to a failure of somekind.
We arrived at the lakebed monday morning and started prerunning. Chris Ridgway my co driver got there monday night and we agreed the car needed some suspension tuning. Over the next few days Chris preran the course 20 times on a motorcycle while I worked on car preperations and our race strategy.
In the days before the race we put almost 100 miles on the car and we revalved the shocks 4 times. The car had some intermitent running problems and Jay Form IVM scanned and found a bad O2 sensor. After that the car was running perfect, the suspension felt just right, and all drivelines had no vibrations at all. The car was race ready.
Chris and I decided that he would drive the first 30 miles of the race because he had done so much prerunning on the bike. We would switch seats on the first trail and then I would drive the rest of the race.
The race started off bad when the rear driveshaft CV joint broke in the first few miles. It took about 20 minutes to install the spare and at that point we were in last place. From there Chris drove a good race passing an estimated 68 cars in the first 30 miles. We got to the first trail we encountered our first traffic jam. We kept passing cars and getting stuck in traffic jams. At one point I rolled the car and we spent a lot of time trying to winch it over. Every time the car was about to be winched over the rock we were winching off of would move and the car roll back over. Kevin Yoder pulled up and let us winch off of him.
We got to the first pit in 21st place according to our pit crew. Not bad considering we had started 24th, broken, rolled, and spent time in traffic jams. From there we didn't see many cars. We were still moving at a good pace and every now and then we would pass a car. Dropping back door was fun, the canyon was full of spectators. The next few trails went by fast except for a flat tire. We put on our spare and radioed the Cal Rocs pit that we were coming in with a flat on the rear of the car and we wanted gas and a new spare tire. Kurtis and Glenn from Cal Rocs, and Joe The Toe of the Pirates got us in and out in 3 minutes.
Things were going well and we were only about 10 miles from the finish when we broke the second rear driveline CV. At that point our race was over.
A big thanks to
The Rock Gods Interco Tires
ROCKCRUSHER PRP Seats
Griffin Thermal Products Torchmate
Team Tube
JE Reel
RP Films
Raceline Wheels
Ramsey Winch
This year it was hard getting the car ready for the race. A busy schedule in the months before the race left no time for prerunning or suspension tuning. Some last minute changes were made to the car for the race. A 22 gallon fuel cell to improve range and some CV drivelines to smooth vibrations at high speed. I knew the CV's were now the weekest link in the drivetrain but they worked very well and the car could now go 100 mph with out vibrations. With the lenth of KOH rumored to be 100 miles I thought the vibrations from the U joints in my old driveshafts would lead to a failure of somekind.
We arrived at the lakebed monday morning and started prerunning. Chris Ridgway my co driver got there monday night and we agreed the car needed some suspension tuning. Over the next few days Chris preran the course 20 times on a motorcycle while I worked on car preperations and our race strategy.
In the days before the race we put almost 100 miles on the car and we revalved the shocks 4 times. The car had some intermitent running problems and Jay Form IVM scanned and found a bad O2 sensor. After that the car was running perfect, the suspension felt just right, and all drivelines had no vibrations at all. The car was race ready.
Chris and I decided that he would drive the first 30 miles of the race because he had done so much prerunning on the bike. We would switch seats on the first trail and then I would drive the rest of the race.
The race started off bad when the rear driveshaft CV joint broke in the first few miles. It took about 20 minutes to install the spare and at that point we were in last place. From there Chris drove a good race passing an estimated 68 cars in the first 30 miles. We got to the first trail we encountered our first traffic jam. We kept passing cars and getting stuck in traffic jams. At one point I rolled the car and we spent a lot of time trying to winch it over. Every time the car was about to be winched over the rock we were winching off of would move and the car roll back over. Kevin Yoder pulled up and let us winch off of him.
We got to the first pit in 21st place according to our pit crew. Not bad considering we had started 24th, broken, rolled, and spent time in traffic jams. From there we didn't see many cars. We were still moving at a good pace and every now and then we would pass a car. Dropping back door was fun, the canyon was full of spectators. The next few trails went by fast except for a flat tire. We put on our spare and radioed the Cal Rocs pit that we were coming in with a flat on the rear of the car and we wanted gas and a new spare tire. Kurtis and Glenn from Cal Rocs, and Joe The Toe of the Pirates got us in and out in 3 minutes.
Things were going well and we were only about 10 miles from the finish when we broke the second rear driveline CV. At that point our race was over.
A big thanks to
The Rock Gods Interco Tires
ROCKCRUSHER PRP Seats
Griffin Thermal Products Torchmate
Team Tube
JE Reel
RP Films
Raceline Wheels
Ramsey Winch