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For Immediate Release:

Emmitsburg, MD February 29, 2008-Bigelow Motorsports owner and driver Doug Bigelow took home a top 5 finish with a 4th place finish at the Johnson Valley, CA "King of the Hammers" off road race February 22, 2008. The race featured 44 of the top four wheel drive racers in the industry and the race was a tough one with only 26 of the 44 drivers finishing the race. Held in southern California's Johnson Valley ORV area the 49.2 mile race covered fast sections of the local desert terrain along with 90% of the tough and famed rockcrawling "Hammer" trails. Bigelow finished with a time of 3:59:54 in his first time ever at the Hammers and after driving 2600 miles to attend the race from Maryland.
Bigelow drew a starting position for the race at the very back of the pack starting in 42nd position out of 44 drivers. Commented Bigelow, "We knew we didn't have the fastest race truck this weekend so starting at the front and pushing the vehicle beyond its limits wasn't the idea. Starting at the back actually allowed us to run our race and focus on what we needed to do. We knew this would be a race of attrition and fortunately our game plan paid off".
When asked about his thoughts on the 49.2 mile race Bigelow had this to say, "I had the most fun doing this type of racing. After seeing so many pictures of the Hammer trails and knowing what type of competition would be there with the likes of eventual winner Campbell and the likes of Pistol Pete, Cameron Steele, Dean Bullock and Tracy Jordan we knew we had to step it up. When we ran out of gas coming into the 3rd pit stop after passing a few racers only to have them pass us again I was pretty determined to get it back. I ran the buggy as hard as I could through the rocks and passed the guys again and got to the desert section and was able to put some space between us. About mile marker 40 I noticed the buggy hit 230 degrees and was overheating. I figured at that point it would blow or we would make it. When we rounded the corner to the finish line to have our drive flange fall off, with the tire wobbling and the headers being melted down about 4 inches due to the heat I was elated, one of the greatest feelings ever finishing a race like that much less coming in 4th".
Bigelow Motorsports will be in action again next at the XRRA Eastern Series opener in Gray Rock, Alabama April 19th. They would like to thank all of the sponsors for staring 2008 with a great finish.

www.bigelowmotorsports.com

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any pictures of the motor afterward?
will it still run, or is it due for a complete rebuild?

any pictures of the motor afterward?
will it still run, or is it due for a complete rebuild?

I checked it out at the top of Sledge the next day. The exhaust on the right side is hanging down a few inches from getting so hot!! He was out hammering on it and having a blast on the sand hills too.

Very Impressive.....:smokin:

We definitely need to see the header pics....:laughing:

Sweet, sounds like you made it into the finish just in the nick of time. Congrats on the 4th Place, a well-deserved result, especially since you didn't know the area like other competitors.

motor runs like a champ. when we were in Kingman, AZ the night before we got there I changed the motor and put a quart of the high dollar Lucas oil stuff in there. I think that helped a little bit. Yes the header hangs down a little bit. I'll have to get a before and after pic.