Spotter's Wife
02-29-2008, 07:14 PM
Now that we’ve had a week to rest and reflect on the most amazing race we’ve yet to participate in, I’d like to share our story with all of you.
Our Campbell Enterprises Pro Modified Rock Buggy was designed and built for technical crawling. When we made the decision to enter the race, our initial thoughts were to bring out the old four seat trail rig that we used to compete with in 2007. Everybody said you had to have coil-over shocks and a big V-8, both of which were already in place on the four-seater. But we thought, heck, let’s see what this little four-banger Ecotec crawler on air shocks can do.
We quickly began race modifications to the buggy, including a 15-gallon fuel cell, new tires, new driveshaft, lights, window nets, GPS system, Ham radio, and super fancy air horn. Having day jobs, this meant Frank and I were up late in the garage every night after the kids went to bed trying to get ready.
The Monday before the race was met with some frustrating news. The new driveshaft that had just arrived by UPS was not working with the transfer case and we were experiencing an extreme vibration in high range. Thinking that the problem was stemming from the Atlas, Frank pulled the transfer case and had the entire thing torn into a bazillion pieces by 2 in the morning. But everything looked fine. So now what??
Tuesday morning, after thinking it might actually be a problem with the new shaft, I drove round trip from Las Vegas to Pomona for parts. Ten hours later, back in Vegas, we had the buggy running fairly well in high range. We had less than 12 hours before we were supposed to be testing the suspension at the Hammers, but realized we still needed one more part and ran back to Pomona Wednesday morning.
By Wednesday afternoon, we stopped for firewood in Lucerne Valley only to be met by wind, rain, sleet and hail. Boy was this going to all be worth it. I hate the cold weather and wanted to go home. But alas, Boone Road was nearly insight as the sky began to clear and suddenly a full rainbow arched beautifully over Means Lake. OK, so maybe I would stick around. By the time we teched in, it was getting dark, and prerunning would wait till morning.
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/rainbow.jpg
Thursday was a beautiful day to lose our fuel pump. And then another. But in between fuel pumps, we were able to fine-tune the air shocks. After about six different setups, we had it dialed in to what we felt would work. We got about 15 miles of prerunning the fast section completed by the end of the day, and everything seemed to work well.
Friday morning, race day, five minutes before lineup, no fuel pressure. Jimmy-rigged our last fuel pump, which had all the wrong fittings, and fired it up. Thanks to Dustin Webster, Dean Bulloch and RJ Brown for giving us some fittings that made the jimmy-rig possible. It seemed to be running (cross your fingers) so we took our place 33rd in the starting order.
What we quickly realized is that this would be a long, hard race on our bodies. Immediately, we felt beat up, like we’d been riding on a rickety wooden roller coaster far too long already. But the little buggy that could topped out at 67 miles an hour, slow by comparison to the big V-8s, but fast enough to get us there. The crawling was easy, the trails were fun, and even the whoops were cool and the buggy did just fine. We never even lost ONE tire, and we never had ONE mechanical failure of any kind.
We did, however, manage twice to get lost and took an hour and a half extra to run the scenic route. All said and done, we ran Jackhammer, Aftershock and Sunbonnet TWICE. As we never saw anyone around us on the second time getting lost, we just assumed we were really far behind the pack. By the time we realized the mistake, all we could do was scream, yell, then figure out how to get back on track.
I just kept concentrating the whole time on not crashing, or breaking, or running out of fuel, which was desperately getting low. Pulling into the finish line was an amazing feeling, almost like a miracle. I couldn’t believe we finished the race, and 15th at that! The little buggy that was never meant to go fast went fast after all!
P.S. Airshocks don’t do that bad in the whoops, especially when they get hot!
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/small.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/1331small.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/side2.jpg
We’d like to thank Pro Comp Tires for providing us with very exceptional rubber for the race. Not losing one tire and running 70 miles instead of the required 53 was simply amazing. We’d also like to thank Fi Car Audio for their continued support, PRP seats for saving our backs, QA1 and the Tin Benders and Brown's Fabrication for their pit support, and Mike Julian for busting his butt along side of us!
Nicole and Frank Johnson
Johnson Motorsports #814
Our Campbell Enterprises Pro Modified Rock Buggy was designed and built for technical crawling. When we made the decision to enter the race, our initial thoughts were to bring out the old four seat trail rig that we used to compete with in 2007. Everybody said you had to have coil-over shocks and a big V-8, both of which were already in place on the four-seater. But we thought, heck, let’s see what this little four-banger Ecotec crawler on air shocks can do.
We quickly began race modifications to the buggy, including a 15-gallon fuel cell, new tires, new driveshaft, lights, window nets, GPS system, Ham radio, and super fancy air horn. Having day jobs, this meant Frank and I were up late in the garage every night after the kids went to bed trying to get ready.
The Monday before the race was met with some frustrating news. The new driveshaft that had just arrived by UPS was not working with the transfer case and we were experiencing an extreme vibration in high range. Thinking that the problem was stemming from the Atlas, Frank pulled the transfer case and had the entire thing torn into a bazillion pieces by 2 in the morning. But everything looked fine. So now what??
Tuesday morning, after thinking it might actually be a problem with the new shaft, I drove round trip from Las Vegas to Pomona for parts. Ten hours later, back in Vegas, we had the buggy running fairly well in high range. We had less than 12 hours before we were supposed to be testing the suspension at the Hammers, but realized we still needed one more part and ran back to Pomona Wednesday morning.
By Wednesday afternoon, we stopped for firewood in Lucerne Valley only to be met by wind, rain, sleet and hail. Boy was this going to all be worth it. I hate the cold weather and wanted to go home. But alas, Boone Road was nearly insight as the sky began to clear and suddenly a full rainbow arched beautifully over Means Lake. OK, so maybe I would stick around. By the time we teched in, it was getting dark, and prerunning would wait till morning.
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/rainbow.jpg
Thursday was a beautiful day to lose our fuel pump. And then another. But in between fuel pumps, we were able to fine-tune the air shocks. After about six different setups, we had it dialed in to what we felt would work. We got about 15 miles of prerunning the fast section completed by the end of the day, and everything seemed to work well.
Friday morning, race day, five minutes before lineup, no fuel pressure. Jimmy-rigged our last fuel pump, which had all the wrong fittings, and fired it up. Thanks to Dustin Webster, Dean Bulloch and RJ Brown for giving us some fittings that made the jimmy-rig possible. It seemed to be running (cross your fingers) so we took our place 33rd in the starting order.
What we quickly realized is that this would be a long, hard race on our bodies. Immediately, we felt beat up, like we’d been riding on a rickety wooden roller coaster far too long already. But the little buggy that could topped out at 67 miles an hour, slow by comparison to the big V-8s, but fast enough to get us there. The crawling was easy, the trails were fun, and even the whoops were cool and the buggy did just fine. We never even lost ONE tire, and we never had ONE mechanical failure of any kind.
We did, however, manage twice to get lost and took an hour and a half extra to run the scenic route. All said and done, we ran Jackhammer, Aftershock and Sunbonnet TWICE. As we never saw anyone around us on the second time getting lost, we just assumed we were really far behind the pack. By the time we realized the mistake, all we could do was scream, yell, then figure out how to get back on track.
I just kept concentrating the whole time on not crashing, or breaking, or running out of fuel, which was desperately getting low. Pulling into the finish line was an amazing feeling, almost like a miracle. I couldn’t believe we finished the race, and 15th at that! The little buggy that was never meant to go fast went fast after all!
P.S. Airshocks don’t do that bad in the whoops, especially when they get hot!
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/small.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/1331small.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg137/nicandfrank/buggy/side2.jpg
We’d like to thank Pro Comp Tires for providing us with very exceptional rubber for the race. Not losing one tire and running 70 miles instead of the required 53 was simply amazing. We’d also like to thank Fi Car Audio for their continued support, PRP seats for saving our backs, QA1 and the Tin Benders and Brown's Fabrication for their pit support, and Mike Julian for busting his butt along side of us!
Nicole and Frank Johnson
Johnson Motorsports #814