2016 Mayhem Off Road #1989
Mint 400 Race Report
22nd place
Mint 400 Race Report
22nd place
Might be a bit long
Let me know what you think, more of a story than report.We started our morning out extremely confident in our cars, knowing we did our due diligence with prep and testing. Also with the understanding that our 1989 car would reveal some first race bugs.
At the start line, I notice the check engine light is on and moments before the race was to start. We crossed our fingers and began driving. About five miles in I felt the car was not in 4x4, this wasn’t a concern knowing our team drove our first RZR in the 2014 Baja 1000 in 2 wheel drive for about 800 miles and took an 8th place finish.
Right off the bat cars were on their lids on both sides of the track, Pat Rubin, my copilot and I decided on a moderate pace in the beginning of the race to save the car and the mentality of "lets get a finish" . RM 30-32 we punctured the right rear tire and had it changed in about 9-10 mins (Pat is fast). We figured at least we got that out of the way and can hope to continue our race without anymore issues.
We pass through the first remote pit, swap out the spare and continue on. The morning was perfect with no dust and our jitters had settled around RM60. That's where the fun begins. At RM65 I notice a strong vibration in the front of the car. We slowed our pace and made it to out remote pit. Some how the bolts had backed out of the front diff. It was loose and stripped out on two bolts. After talking with the pit crew we all felt confident that the issue was addressed and continued on.
Three turns out of the 2nd remote pit, the entire diff started bouncing in the front of the car. Pat and I jump out of the car and come to terms with the fact that we are about to smash our hands for a good hour or so trying to remove the roll pin connecting the front shaft too the diff. We remove the axels and diff from the car while being filmed by a wandering camera crew asking what happen to our car and what we were doing to fix it while upside down hammering the pin. Great timing on their part for an interview. After an hour + in the sun we were back on our way to the start finish. The back side of the track is nothing but whoops and straightaways that the car soaked up and did very well with. We come into the infield section and start drifting some turns that was made easily possible because of a pretty stiff 188 rear sway bar. I was having some fun sliding around and thought “hey lets slide around this next right”. A little to much pedal put us up on two wheels, which with to no avail of trying to steer out of it I end on my driver side. Lucky for us Casey from BITD was right there with a vehicle to flip us back over and continue to the pit.
Back at the pit we are beat up, tired and starting too doubt that we would complete another lap, the team fuels us and changes the rear axel that snapped during my attempt to have fun sliding the car around.
2nd LAP
5.5 miles in we hear the skid plate slightly dragging, hit a nasty bump and now it feels and sounds like a rocket taking off. The front of our skid plate was dragging like a shovel in the center of the ruts. We pull over and asses the damage and notice a very strong piece of skid plate had bent back, but was still protecting the fuel cell, we both felt that it might be to dangerous to continue the race because if the plate ripped completely of the bottom of our car the cell would be exposed to damage and the smell of fuel was very strong in our helmets and around the car.
We jimmy rigged the skid plate with hose clamps and bailing wire and our race jack, which only took us and hour. I looked at Primm and said "I think we could walk and make it there in an hour or so and be drinking cocktails soon enough”. We shrugged that idea off, jumped back into the car to continue on our way. Moments after getting back on the track we see Sims and Lambert fly by.
We start driving and the repairs we just made failed and we are back to dragging the plate, which stayed on for the rest of the 100+ miles of abuse we put it through. The next 50 miles I can't really remember but I think the car felt great
We pass the first pit with no issues and right before we get to the quarry it feels like the a rear axel is broken, the car is pulling hard hard right whenever any traction was available which made navigating the quarry difficult to say the least. The car was uncontrollable going through the silt bed right before the 2nd remote pit. At the pit the crew checked the car over and agreed that the axel was not broken and that it must be my driving (but of course it was, and the way it snapped would catch itself and seem to be fine because of where it snapped in the CV). One of the pit crew looked at us and said “You’ve got 30 miles just make it to the end!!” We thought in 30 miles what else could go wrong!! Ill finish this up because its getting a bit long. At the big whoops at the last spectator area the rear axel finally breaks completely and the car turns into a pissed off bull and and is slapping left and right while hitting the whoops at speed almost causing the car to tumble. We check our pants and pull over again. We are exhausted, hungry, beat up and want to back at the main pit. The In-board cv is stuck in the housing and is refusing to budge.We try everything to get some leverage to get the cv out for about 45 mins and call in that we are stuck out in the desert and we are not going to make it back. In our haste at the main pit, someone removed our 17mm socket and wrench, which meant we needed to use a crescent wrench to remove the radius rods and get the broken axel out.
Thankfully our team mate and awesome driver Ben Wilson with his co pilot Kenny Green of the 1927 car were coming through the pits on there third lap and grabbed a bag of tools to throw at us while passing by on their way to a 6th place.
Pat wrapped bailing wire around the bell to just watch it snap each time we pulled. We removed the clip from the bell and Pat created a basket woven with bailing wire through the spider and made the holy cv puller/best trophy ever tool!!
At this point TT are on course and blasting past at un godly speeds. We hammer the spider back in, I almost jinx us by saying that we only had one pull to get this done. Pat yanks and out she pops!! The next 20 miles or so back were extremely tense going down the long straights knowing the trucks would ass pack us without ever seeing us in the dust, once the helicopters started flying over we would jet off the course and let them come by with the hopes that we were not cutting anyone off coming back onto course. We popped a belt right before the lake bed from dragging our skid plate for so long. Another stop, the belt gets replaced, and off we go to the end. We get tapped by a TT on one of the straights, pants check and continue on.
All in all, we had a great time at the Mint 400, met a lot of great people and got two to laps in. We were excited that we got too the end and saw the flag.
This is my first race report and might have gone a bit into to much detail, but I'm excited to get the car tight and be ready for the Laughlin Challenge. Thanks to BITD and the rest of the teams for a exciting and challenging race.
If it wasn’t for my co-poilt and pit crew we wouldn’t have stood a chance, and big thanks to Kevin Fox for building a competitive car and running the pits, and everyone else that came together for this race!!
Parts -
One flat and one side wall bubble
2 Rear axels
Front Diff
Skid Plate ( Factory-UTV) Best skid plates that took a beating and got us home safe
Lower Control Arm (From jumping of track in a hurry to get out of the way of the TTs)
Thanks for reading
Thats the jist of it-
