You bunch of (short) whiners!
(Hey Red - I think Odyknuck's just about your height)
Welcome to the madness Fed. This place is a good one.
Back in the saddle again. WTF, right?
Phoenix was good for/to me and I have a nice new perspective going.
Quick run down on the Snowflake Desert Race of last weekend:
Finally got the very few bugs worked out (had driven clutch rubbing issues
that we're still not quite how/why it happened - but a spacer fixed it great - will be pulling the tranny to check the input shaft for possible problems) and went to the track on Friday.
Ran the poker run (free lap) and was able to scope out the track - was a
great thing to do. The downhill we crashed on last year is SCARY!!! (even
at slow speed) Jay and I decide, during the race, that we wouldn't have made it through the g-out at the bottom of the hill if we'd made the landing. It's just a nasty, mean hill.
We were 4th off the line - two 900 class cars in front of us, car #1200, first in our class. Each car launched 30 sec apart. By mile marker 8 we'd passed the two 900 cars and were right on 1200's bumper. Followed him for about 2 miles and decided to say "See ya".
First lap through was 34 minutes (I forget the seconds) Second lap was
33:35, third was about 6 min slower (stuck behind lapper, broke belt, slow getting going again - let Jay get buckled in this time) and the fourth lap was 1:00.16
* If we'd not had issues on lap 4, we probably would have turned a mid 31 - I'd stepped it up quite a bit, as the track conditions had come around big time and the Dez was really happy with them.
We were +3 min by the first lap over second place. The second lap was the second fastest lap turned by ANYONE - pro or sportsman. Fastest lap was done by a Pro Trophy Truck that ran a 33:32 - Not bad!
Fourth lap was the pisser - the race was 108 miles long (four 27 mile loops), the Dez has a fuel range of 104 miles. (everyone that knows the Dez (ATVR guys) has always said it would go 120 miles - guess we were all wrong. I would have bet pink slips it would...) Yes, we were running out front, had the class and the over all sewn up and we run out of fuel 4 freaking miles from the finish line! Fortunately our pit crew was able to steal a quad from the people next to our pits and show up with a splash of fuel.
The overall of it was that we finished 2nd, only blew one corner (my only
driving screw up!), lost one belt, the rear brakes faded pretty badly and I
finally got to bump someone that wouldn't get out of the way (been wanting to for a long time).
Next year we stop on lap 3 for a splash of gas, kick ass and take names!
The race was killer and after my results Neil said "Looks like we've finally made a Race Car outta the Dez". Man I'm glad to hear it!
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*not positive on lap times, as they were what I was told - I don't recall the actual times except for the 33:35, which I remember seeing.