COMPLAINE
03-05-2009, 01:04 PM
Let’s Tarantino this sucka and see if you can put it together.
We pull into the final pit stop (CalRocs Pit) at the bottom of Wrecking Ball slow but frantic; I am completely worn out and stressed worried about facing a torn up Sledgehammer and having it bring an end to my already handicapped rig. First things first; my Dad pours gallons of water over the front diff while my brother checks the gas. Yup, water on the diff.
So, what brings a 300hp racer who’s almost in last place to the point of driving slow but still racing sunset, and needing water on the front diff at the pits? Let’s rewind a bit to the beginning…
“3… 2… 1…” I mash the skinny pedal and come out of the start gate a bit on the squirrely side. What the heck? I had double-checked everything: tire pressure, every bolt, the number of raisins on my oatmeal that morning, etc., but I had forgotten to put the shifter in 4wd. So, I click it in to four-by as I shift in to third (yup, a manual tranny in KOH; who would have thought?). Already sick of being in the dust of the guy in front of me and on the rev limiter “taa taa taa taa”, I swing wide and cut early to block pass the guy IN THE FIRST TURN. That got my heart pumping and now it was time to start reeling the cars in front of me in.
We started late in the pack (62nd) so I was really looking forward to passing a fleet of guys in the first 30 miles. And that’s just what we did. Pumped on adrenaline and at full speed, my car was doing better than it ever had before. We were entering areas and choosing the “rough” line that no one else was on and just flying by guys. I couldn’t even count the number of people we passed in those early miles. Between the ones that were flat-out slow and the one that were broken, I kept looking at the GPS thinking “I’m not going that fast, am I?? (scratching head)” Passing all accept Dean Bulloch, with whom we played cat and mouse with for at least 20 miles.
We make the big U-turn into the narrower canyons heading back towards Boon Road where the trails start getting tight and technical and we come upon our first chance to fairly Nerf someone. I start yelling over the intercom, “honk, honk, honk” to my co driver Shawn, and then go to give the guy a “tap”. But they throw their hands out the window in surrender and pull off into the rocks. At this point I’m almost bummed; can you imagine if we finish this race and never get the chance to Nerf anybody? I mean, what would they talk about on the Pirate Board if nobody gets into a scrabble? We’d be left with threads titled “Should Shannon Campbell be tested for steroids?” and “Jason Scherer’s thoughts on the Mortgage Bailout.” The wheeling world would come to an end. Wait, where am I going with this?
Right about this point in the race I start making a few mistakes, got stuck behind some broken guys and, for no known reason, the motor starts running horrible. But we are hauling ass at this point and still passing guys, so I couldn’t be too bummed as we continue to send it.
We come out into some washes and approach Dean Bulloch again. This time we literally fly past him as we head wayyyy too fast into the most MONSTER set of whoops I have ever driven through! We slammed so hard I lost my vision and was convinced that all of the shocks had blown off the car. We were on one front tire, then, “slam”, up on one rear tire staring at the sky, “slam”, all the while holding my foot to the floor trying to drive out of it. After we flew across four lanes of whoops sideways (and dirtying my draws) I finally had control of the vehicle. “Hey, Shawn!!!” “everything cool on your side?”… “looking good” he responded. “Wow, I thought we were going to die!”
Continuing on, we came through Checkpoint One sliding to a stop using Dean’s spare tire to slow us down and hammer the gas as we get waived on. We make good time up and around the sand dune finally heading-out toward a part of the course I was looking forward to along the 29 Palms border. It’s a fast and gravely section where we were trying to pass a guy that Dean just got around. However, I couldn’t see anything through the dust, and therefore try to make the move to Nerf the guy, but just can’t see. So I make a bold choice to pull out through the sticker bushes to another route to make the pass.
Now, we’re bombing along trying to get around Dean when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see Tracy Jordan climbing out of his upside-down car. At this same moment the film crew helicopter swings in for the shot and I can feel the draft of the rotor push on my goggles. Just when I thought that was crazy enough, and momentarily distracted by the action, I turn my attention forward again an instant later… Holy SH#T! Dean had slammed on his brakes to see if Tracy was OK, and he was stopped right in front of me! We swerve through the wash that put Tracy on his lid, and now I’m driving Bo and Luke Duke style on two tires coming out of the wash!!! I steer in and bring it back on all fours while Shawn and I reach the conclusion that we didn’t really need to stop for Tracy because the helicopter and Dean were already checking on him. Play through!
As we entered the first rock trail (Aftershock) we pass Kevin Yoder, but get stuck in some rocks fairly quickly. The ARB in the front is not engaging. We decide to fix it at the first pit (assuming that the air line is the problem). We continue and flog the crap out of the rig to get it up the trail with an open front diff. At the top of Aftershock I had meant to check the fuel because I knew the motor was chewing through it because you could smell raw gas in the exhaust. But, with all of the haste about the ARB, I forgot to check. One of my best friends (Greg Hussey) in Car 238 blows by us as we are re-organizing ourselves at the top of Aftershock.
Now, all of those late night, smack talking, welding and wrenching sessions came to mind. The chase was awn. I was going to Nerf Greg, or die trying. We flew down the goat trail with my foot to the floor and caught Greg about a mile down the road. And, as any good friend would, I “forgot” to sound the horn and gave him a firm nudge. They turn their heads to see me and return the favor by stabbing the skinny pedal and denying me a pass. They fly around the next corner so hot on the gas the car bicycles up on to two wheels, but Greg saved it without missing a beat. So, we follow him for a while and then leave the trail (stayed within a 100 feet) and blew over some small rock piles, through a dry creek flying out the other side and landing just in front of Greg. Although I knew that with an open diff I shouldn’t hold him back, so as we began up Devils Slide I pulled off and let him by knowing his rig was 100%.
Coming down the backside of Sunbonnet the rig began to sputter. I knew immediately what was going on. Damnit! We were out of gas. I got chills of anger as I realized that I forgot to check the gas at Aftershock and that mistake just cost me the race. I was so bummed I wanted to kick my own ass for such a stupid move. We coasted down the hill and off the trail and immediately grabbed some food and began to hike. It was about 3 miles uphill to the BFG pits where 10 gallons awaited me. Honestly, what a miserable hike. Down in a canyon with no view and no breeze. Thankfully, one of the Lovell’s threw water bottles at us as they passed. I tried hitchhiking when racers passed but nobody stopped. We hiked up to our pit crew and grabbed a five gallon can, passed a high-lift handle through the handle of the gas can, and carried it between us starting our journey back down. On the way back I came up with a plan… Shawn would dump the gas in, and I would investigate the ARB leak and then we’d be on our way. That’s just what we did, sort of.
Shawn pours in the 5 gallons of gas as I start looking for the leak on the ARB. I follow the whole line down but can’t find the leak. So, I listen. “Pssssss” I hear coming out of the diff cover. I find that the diff cover no longer seals, has no oil, and the bottom of my 60 has a 6” crack from the bottom heading toward the pinion!!!! “Holy shit, Shawn, check this out!” I yelled; “Do you remember that big set of whoops we hit?” He says “yeaaaah???” with a look on his face exclaiming –“you mean when you tried to kill me?!!”
“Dude, I think it did some damage” From then on, we had to drive slower because the diff would not hold gear oil, and I knew that if I was easy enough on it that it might last the remaining 50 miles of the course. Having gassed-up we headed on up to the BFG pit (pit 1). When we get there my Dad adds 5 more gallons of gas and I tell the crew (my family) the bad news. My Dad tried to talk me out of continuing as I let the clutch out and headed to Outer Limits.
Both Shawn and I were sorta bummed and quiet as we drove through the MDR course at the 20 mph speed that I told myself was the fastest we could go and not burn-up the diff. After that, I got bored and started daydreaming and singing as the miles slowly ticked away. I started thinking that we would need to cool the diff at the pits. My Dad had a bunch of water in the support truck and we could use that up. Yup, we’ll pour water on it at each pit and that would keep us going. (No, I really didn’t think it would do much good, but it was worth the effort). So, that’s just what we did.
Let’s rewind back to the beginning of this story, where I am pulling out of the final (CalRocks) pit, I had my gas, cooled my diff, and had eaten my Cliff Bar. Shawn was looking like he wanted some more excitement and I knew it was coming.. There was no more help waiting; my family watched us take off from the pit and went back to wait at the finish line, and I wasn’t going to let them down! It was awn at this point. Jack North was HARD! I was Tom Wayes’ing the snot outta my car. Taking runs at ledges from five feed back slam, taa taa taa taa taa rev limiter, swinging the wheel left and right looking for traction. Up to the ridge and then down Jack, only to get stuck going DOWN. But the sun is setting and now here we sit with no other racers around, in the back of pack racing the sunset. No time to waste, we start stacking rocks, getting the rope out and firing-up the winch. I wrapped the rope back around the bumper instead of reeling it back on the spool because I knew we would need it again soon on Sledge.
We pull around the corner on Sledge, up the first waterfall to get a look at the canyon and couldn’t believe the number of people there! There must have been a few hundred spectators sitting on the walls of the canyon! We winch up the second right hand waterfall and pull up onto the ledge by the plaque. The ledge was heavily undercut; worse than I had ever seen before. We begin to winch, and it sucks me into the Volkswagen bus-sized rock. The winch was stalling and the rig wasn’t moving. At that moment I was pretty much to the point of throwing in the towel. Shawn looked like he was having the same thoughts too, as he stood outside the car waiting for it to inch forward. I keep my hand on the trigger of the winch and my foot to the floor and slowly but surely, inch by inch, the rope drags me into the large rock step. After a few painful minutes of pinning my rig with 9,000 lbs of line tension, my rig pops-up and I find myself staring at the back of Rob Park’s rig that is now in my way. He was stuck and broken. His winch couldn’t pull him out. I don’t really know Rob, but I know his reputation so I yell to him “you keep winching and I’m going to slam into the back of you.… OK?” Rob tells me to “Get it”
I back-up a few feet, put it in second, and drive into the back of his buggy. It didn’t work too well because nothing was making contact until my tires were on his roof and my front diff made contact with his spare tire. But, after 6 or 5 or something slams, his rig finally moved forward.
Shawn ran up the rest of the trail and we winched one more time because I diffed out on some rocks. On we head up to the beautiful and scenic Fissure Trail. At this point, my front ring and pinion sounds like someone taking a giant can opener to the side of the Exxon Valdez! Creek, groaaan, grrrrrrr, sccccccc. From pre-running Fissure Trail I knew that I would need 4wd to get up at least four of the hills, so we couldn’t pull the slugs out of the hubs just yet (thereby allowing me to stop turning the front diff gears, but then only having 2wd). I’m trying to stay slow, but my patience is GONE. So, I’m flying down Fissure Trail with my arms shaking like a 6 year old who got into the coffee beans; because I am so nervous that we had been held up too long on Sledge and we weren’t going to make it in to the finish by the cutoff time (sunset).
Up climb one, up climb two, up climb three, then scrrrrs, skid, stall! The front diff seized solid. I knew what needed to be done so I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and punching Shawn in the shoulder, “ Lets get out of the car, get out of the car, get the tools, get the tools, go go go!” I get the caps off and find that the slugs were under load. “Quick, Shawn, get the impact gun and the jack” I hollered. We jack up the front of the car to free the load on the axle shafts, pull the slugs, and throw everything in the tool bag and GO!.
Now I’m worried and I really didn’t think we could make this last climb in 2wd, but I was going to give it hell. I head into the climb with the rear tires on fire doing about 40 mph with the tires spinning 100 mph, literally roasting tread! We fly up the thing sideways dirt track style never lifting. Whaaaa hoooo! We’re going to make it, I’m already getting excited. No more diff to worry about. I have my car back! Waaaaa hoooo! Shawn comes in on the intercom… “Dude, is it always this squirrely in 2wd?” I reply “Oh yeah, it’s flat out dangerous; this car really only works in 4wd at speed,” I admitted. “All I gotta do is keep it on all fours for 12 miles and were good” I continued. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy”(yea we didn’t believe that statement either) We proceeded out into the main valley with the lake bed in sight traveling at a conservative 30-40mph through the moderate whoops.
I thought back to when I was first staring at the big crack in the bottom of the diff housing, and instantly realized that there was two steps to the process if we continue to race:
Step 1. Eventually the diff will seize. And I knew that this was almost 100% likely to happen. And it did.
Step 2. The crack will propagate and the axle housing will break in half. I really thought that this would never happen unless I did something really dumb. Let’s give it 50%, because I was mixing racing, fatigue and adrenaline so “dumb” happened half of the time.
I knew there were points at which these steps were acceptable. Step 1 was acceptable after the 4th climb on Fissure Trail. It happened after the 3rd but I pulled it off. At this point I was positive Step 2 was out of the question. Let’s go back to the race.
We fly up on some guys out in the desert and I suddenly remember that the real finish was a half mile out in the desert for safety reasons. The guys stop us and record our time and congratulate us. Shawn and I are pumped. We made it. We sure as hell didn’t win but we busted our butts and beat on a broken rig for almost 9 hours and made it! We were slowing driving toward the “fake” finish line (with the big finish sign and crowd) giving high fives and laughing! I was jumping up and down in my seat. We make the final turn and pull into victory row about 200 yards from the big finish sign and SLAM skiiiiiiiiiiiid. The frond axle housing broke in HALF! Just 50 feet after the after finish line the two front tires go their own directions. We hop out of the car in shock and are immediately surrounded by a crowd of people cheering and yelling and congratulating us. My family (pit crew) came running up so happy to see us. They were so stoked that we made it to the finish and gave us both hugs and high fives. All of my friends came running up; it was a frenzy of high fives, hugs, pictures, and more “holly sh#t’s” than I have ever experienced in my life. We made it by the skin of our teeth, er, diff??
I couldn’t have finished this race without my co-dawg Shawn Opitz; he kept me on track, got me unstuck, ran the rope on Sledge, and put up with blistering heels in work boots for a few miles to cary 5 gallons of gas! Thank You! Besides who else would listen to my horrible mid race jokes.
I have to give a huge thanks to my Mom, Dad, and Brother. They were my pit crew and it is pretty unique to have your family as a pit crew and I couldn’t be more proud of that. They did a great job, had everything organized, and above all else put up with me and my franticness. They are the best!
It was a blast and it all hasn’t even all sunk in yet 4 days later. Jeff and Dave you have one bas a$$ event, I cant wait to do it again.
We pull into the final pit stop (CalRocs Pit) at the bottom of Wrecking Ball slow but frantic; I am completely worn out and stressed worried about facing a torn up Sledgehammer and having it bring an end to my already handicapped rig. First things first; my Dad pours gallons of water over the front diff while my brother checks the gas. Yup, water on the diff.
So, what brings a 300hp racer who’s almost in last place to the point of driving slow but still racing sunset, and needing water on the front diff at the pits? Let’s rewind a bit to the beginning…
“3… 2… 1…” I mash the skinny pedal and come out of the start gate a bit on the squirrely side. What the heck? I had double-checked everything: tire pressure, every bolt, the number of raisins on my oatmeal that morning, etc., but I had forgotten to put the shifter in 4wd. So, I click it in to four-by as I shift in to third (yup, a manual tranny in KOH; who would have thought?). Already sick of being in the dust of the guy in front of me and on the rev limiter “taa taa taa taa”, I swing wide and cut early to block pass the guy IN THE FIRST TURN. That got my heart pumping and now it was time to start reeling the cars in front of me in.
We started late in the pack (62nd) so I was really looking forward to passing a fleet of guys in the first 30 miles. And that’s just what we did. Pumped on adrenaline and at full speed, my car was doing better than it ever had before. We were entering areas and choosing the “rough” line that no one else was on and just flying by guys. I couldn’t even count the number of people we passed in those early miles. Between the ones that were flat-out slow and the one that were broken, I kept looking at the GPS thinking “I’m not going that fast, am I?? (scratching head)” Passing all accept Dean Bulloch, with whom we played cat and mouse with for at least 20 miles.
We make the big U-turn into the narrower canyons heading back towards Boon Road where the trails start getting tight and technical and we come upon our first chance to fairly Nerf someone. I start yelling over the intercom, “honk, honk, honk” to my co driver Shawn, and then go to give the guy a “tap”. But they throw their hands out the window in surrender and pull off into the rocks. At this point I’m almost bummed; can you imagine if we finish this race and never get the chance to Nerf anybody? I mean, what would they talk about on the Pirate Board if nobody gets into a scrabble? We’d be left with threads titled “Should Shannon Campbell be tested for steroids?” and “Jason Scherer’s thoughts on the Mortgage Bailout.” The wheeling world would come to an end. Wait, where am I going with this?
Right about this point in the race I start making a few mistakes, got stuck behind some broken guys and, for no known reason, the motor starts running horrible. But we are hauling ass at this point and still passing guys, so I couldn’t be too bummed as we continue to send it.
We come out into some washes and approach Dean Bulloch again. This time we literally fly past him as we head wayyyy too fast into the most MONSTER set of whoops I have ever driven through! We slammed so hard I lost my vision and was convinced that all of the shocks had blown off the car. We were on one front tire, then, “slam”, up on one rear tire staring at the sky, “slam”, all the while holding my foot to the floor trying to drive out of it. After we flew across four lanes of whoops sideways (and dirtying my draws) I finally had control of the vehicle. “Hey, Shawn!!!” “everything cool on your side?”… “looking good” he responded. “Wow, I thought we were going to die!”
Continuing on, we came through Checkpoint One sliding to a stop using Dean’s spare tire to slow us down and hammer the gas as we get waived on. We make good time up and around the sand dune finally heading-out toward a part of the course I was looking forward to along the 29 Palms border. It’s a fast and gravely section where we were trying to pass a guy that Dean just got around. However, I couldn’t see anything through the dust, and therefore try to make the move to Nerf the guy, but just can’t see. So I make a bold choice to pull out through the sticker bushes to another route to make the pass.
Now, we’re bombing along trying to get around Dean when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see Tracy Jordan climbing out of his upside-down car. At this same moment the film crew helicopter swings in for the shot and I can feel the draft of the rotor push on my goggles. Just when I thought that was crazy enough, and momentarily distracted by the action, I turn my attention forward again an instant later… Holy SH#T! Dean had slammed on his brakes to see if Tracy was OK, and he was stopped right in front of me! We swerve through the wash that put Tracy on his lid, and now I’m driving Bo and Luke Duke style on two tires coming out of the wash!!! I steer in and bring it back on all fours while Shawn and I reach the conclusion that we didn’t really need to stop for Tracy because the helicopter and Dean were already checking on him. Play through!
As we entered the first rock trail (Aftershock) we pass Kevin Yoder, but get stuck in some rocks fairly quickly. The ARB in the front is not engaging. We decide to fix it at the first pit (assuming that the air line is the problem). We continue and flog the crap out of the rig to get it up the trail with an open front diff. At the top of Aftershock I had meant to check the fuel because I knew the motor was chewing through it because you could smell raw gas in the exhaust. But, with all of the haste about the ARB, I forgot to check. One of my best friends (Greg Hussey) in Car 238 blows by us as we are re-organizing ourselves at the top of Aftershock.
Now, all of those late night, smack talking, welding and wrenching sessions came to mind. The chase was awn. I was going to Nerf Greg, or die trying. We flew down the goat trail with my foot to the floor and caught Greg about a mile down the road. And, as any good friend would, I “forgot” to sound the horn and gave him a firm nudge. They turn their heads to see me and return the favor by stabbing the skinny pedal and denying me a pass. They fly around the next corner so hot on the gas the car bicycles up on to two wheels, but Greg saved it without missing a beat. So, we follow him for a while and then leave the trail (stayed within a 100 feet) and blew over some small rock piles, through a dry creek flying out the other side and landing just in front of Greg. Although I knew that with an open diff I shouldn’t hold him back, so as we began up Devils Slide I pulled off and let him by knowing his rig was 100%.
Coming down the backside of Sunbonnet the rig began to sputter. I knew immediately what was going on. Damnit! We were out of gas. I got chills of anger as I realized that I forgot to check the gas at Aftershock and that mistake just cost me the race. I was so bummed I wanted to kick my own ass for such a stupid move. We coasted down the hill and off the trail and immediately grabbed some food and began to hike. It was about 3 miles uphill to the BFG pits where 10 gallons awaited me. Honestly, what a miserable hike. Down in a canyon with no view and no breeze. Thankfully, one of the Lovell’s threw water bottles at us as they passed. I tried hitchhiking when racers passed but nobody stopped. We hiked up to our pit crew and grabbed a five gallon can, passed a high-lift handle through the handle of the gas can, and carried it between us starting our journey back down. On the way back I came up with a plan… Shawn would dump the gas in, and I would investigate the ARB leak and then we’d be on our way. That’s just what we did, sort of.
Shawn pours in the 5 gallons of gas as I start looking for the leak on the ARB. I follow the whole line down but can’t find the leak. So, I listen. “Pssssss” I hear coming out of the diff cover. I find that the diff cover no longer seals, has no oil, and the bottom of my 60 has a 6” crack from the bottom heading toward the pinion!!!! “Holy shit, Shawn, check this out!” I yelled; “Do you remember that big set of whoops we hit?” He says “yeaaaah???” with a look on his face exclaiming –“you mean when you tried to kill me?!!”
“Dude, I think it did some damage” From then on, we had to drive slower because the diff would not hold gear oil, and I knew that if I was easy enough on it that it might last the remaining 50 miles of the course. Having gassed-up we headed on up to the BFG pit (pit 1). When we get there my Dad adds 5 more gallons of gas and I tell the crew (my family) the bad news. My Dad tried to talk me out of continuing as I let the clutch out and headed to Outer Limits.
Both Shawn and I were sorta bummed and quiet as we drove through the MDR course at the 20 mph speed that I told myself was the fastest we could go and not burn-up the diff. After that, I got bored and started daydreaming and singing as the miles slowly ticked away. I started thinking that we would need to cool the diff at the pits. My Dad had a bunch of water in the support truck and we could use that up. Yup, we’ll pour water on it at each pit and that would keep us going. (No, I really didn’t think it would do much good, but it was worth the effort). So, that’s just what we did.
Let’s rewind back to the beginning of this story, where I am pulling out of the final (CalRocks) pit, I had my gas, cooled my diff, and had eaten my Cliff Bar. Shawn was looking like he wanted some more excitement and I knew it was coming.. There was no more help waiting; my family watched us take off from the pit and went back to wait at the finish line, and I wasn’t going to let them down! It was awn at this point. Jack North was HARD! I was Tom Wayes’ing the snot outta my car. Taking runs at ledges from five feed back slam, taa taa taa taa taa rev limiter, swinging the wheel left and right looking for traction. Up to the ridge and then down Jack, only to get stuck going DOWN. But the sun is setting and now here we sit with no other racers around, in the back of pack racing the sunset. No time to waste, we start stacking rocks, getting the rope out and firing-up the winch. I wrapped the rope back around the bumper instead of reeling it back on the spool because I knew we would need it again soon on Sledge.
We pull around the corner on Sledge, up the first waterfall to get a look at the canyon and couldn’t believe the number of people there! There must have been a few hundred spectators sitting on the walls of the canyon! We winch up the second right hand waterfall and pull up onto the ledge by the plaque. The ledge was heavily undercut; worse than I had ever seen before. We begin to winch, and it sucks me into the Volkswagen bus-sized rock. The winch was stalling and the rig wasn’t moving. At that moment I was pretty much to the point of throwing in the towel. Shawn looked like he was having the same thoughts too, as he stood outside the car waiting for it to inch forward. I keep my hand on the trigger of the winch and my foot to the floor and slowly but surely, inch by inch, the rope drags me into the large rock step. After a few painful minutes of pinning my rig with 9,000 lbs of line tension, my rig pops-up and I find myself staring at the back of Rob Park’s rig that is now in my way. He was stuck and broken. His winch couldn’t pull him out. I don’t really know Rob, but I know his reputation so I yell to him “you keep winching and I’m going to slam into the back of you.… OK?” Rob tells me to “Get it”
I back-up a few feet, put it in second, and drive into the back of his buggy. It didn’t work too well because nothing was making contact until my tires were on his roof and my front diff made contact with his spare tire. But, after 6 or 5 or something slams, his rig finally moved forward.
Shawn ran up the rest of the trail and we winched one more time because I diffed out on some rocks. On we head up to the beautiful and scenic Fissure Trail. At this point, my front ring and pinion sounds like someone taking a giant can opener to the side of the Exxon Valdez! Creek, groaaan, grrrrrrr, sccccccc. From pre-running Fissure Trail I knew that I would need 4wd to get up at least four of the hills, so we couldn’t pull the slugs out of the hubs just yet (thereby allowing me to stop turning the front diff gears, but then only having 2wd). I’m trying to stay slow, but my patience is GONE. So, I’m flying down Fissure Trail with my arms shaking like a 6 year old who got into the coffee beans; because I am so nervous that we had been held up too long on Sledge and we weren’t going to make it in to the finish by the cutoff time (sunset).
Up climb one, up climb two, up climb three, then scrrrrs, skid, stall! The front diff seized solid. I knew what needed to be done so I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and punching Shawn in the shoulder, “ Lets get out of the car, get out of the car, get the tools, get the tools, go go go!” I get the caps off and find that the slugs were under load. “Quick, Shawn, get the impact gun and the jack” I hollered. We jack up the front of the car to free the load on the axle shafts, pull the slugs, and throw everything in the tool bag and GO!.
Now I’m worried and I really didn’t think we could make this last climb in 2wd, but I was going to give it hell. I head into the climb with the rear tires on fire doing about 40 mph with the tires spinning 100 mph, literally roasting tread! We fly up the thing sideways dirt track style never lifting. Whaaaa hoooo! We’re going to make it, I’m already getting excited. No more diff to worry about. I have my car back! Waaaaa hoooo! Shawn comes in on the intercom… “Dude, is it always this squirrely in 2wd?” I reply “Oh yeah, it’s flat out dangerous; this car really only works in 4wd at speed,” I admitted. “All I gotta do is keep it on all fours for 12 miles and were good” I continued. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy”(yea we didn’t believe that statement either) We proceeded out into the main valley with the lake bed in sight traveling at a conservative 30-40mph through the moderate whoops.
I thought back to when I was first staring at the big crack in the bottom of the diff housing, and instantly realized that there was two steps to the process if we continue to race:
Step 1. Eventually the diff will seize. And I knew that this was almost 100% likely to happen. And it did.
Step 2. The crack will propagate and the axle housing will break in half. I really thought that this would never happen unless I did something really dumb. Let’s give it 50%, because I was mixing racing, fatigue and adrenaline so “dumb” happened half of the time.
I knew there were points at which these steps were acceptable. Step 1 was acceptable after the 4th climb on Fissure Trail. It happened after the 3rd but I pulled it off. At this point I was positive Step 2 was out of the question. Let’s go back to the race.
We fly up on some guys out in the desert and I suddenly remember that the real finish was a half mile out in the desert for safety reasons. The guys stop us and record our time and congratulate us. Shawn and I are pumped. We made it. We sure as hell didn’t win but we busted our butts and beat on a broken rig for almost 9 hours and made it! We were slowing driving toward the “fake” finish line (with the big finish sign and crowd) giving high fives and laughing! I was jumping up and down in my seat. We make the final turn and pull into victory row about 200 yards from the big finish sign and SLAM skiiiiiiiiiiiid. The frond axle housing broke in HALF! Just 50 feet after the after finish line the two front tires go their own directions. We hop out of the car in shock and are immediately surrounded by a crowd of people cheering and yelling and congratulating us. My family (pit crew) came running up so happy to see us. They were so stoked that we made it to the finish and gave us both hugs and high fives. All of my friends came running up; it was a frenzy of high fives, hugs, pictures, and more “holly sh#t’s” than I have ever experienced in my life. We made it by the skin of our teeth, er, diff??
I couldn’t have finished this race without my co-dawg Shawn Opitz; he kept me on track, got me unstuck, ran the rope on Sledge, and put up with blistering heels in work boots for a few miles to cary 5 gallons of gas! Thank You! Besides who else would listen to my horrible mid race jokes.
I have to give a huge thanks to my Mom, Dad, and Brother. They were my pit crew and it is pretty unique to have your family as a pit crew and I couldn’t be more proud of that. They did a great job, had everything organized, and above all else put up with me and my franticness. They are the best!
It was a blast and it all hasn’t even all sunk in yet 4 days later. Jeff and Dave you have one bas a$$ event, I cant wait to do it again.