Tough day for us at the bestinthedesert SS300! With a fantastic starting position of 9th I was able to quickly capitalize and carry a minute and a half lead coming into pit 3 at race mile 100. About 1 mile before pit 3 a terrible noise started coming from the rear of the car. Once we pulled into pit we were able to determine that the motor mount had sheared the tube and had to be repaired. With the help from the chase truck next to our pit we were able to borrow a welder/generator and weld the tube up as best as possible and continue on. We raced hard to gain the time we lost back. As a matter of fact I even got to do my first "nerf" ever and it happen to be on a spec trophy truck #6149. Out of everyone I caught that day this guy was the most inconsiderate one that I found. His pride must have been to great to allow a "golf cart" to pass his $250k truck. I nerfed hm 3 times pretty hard before I realized he wasn't going to move and I was going to have to follow him through the mountain pass with no way to pass him unless he pulled over. We fought our way back up to the front of the pack and coming into pit 5 the engine mount broke again. I decided to try and limp it to the finish, but it was allowing the engine to move to much and it was pulling my wiring harness apart and I was loosing spark. We were able to devise a way to strap the engine in the car to allow me to continue on. We reached the last 50 miles of the race and we're still in the lead by seconds and I knew it was going to take all the car had to win so I held the pedal to the floor. At race mile 294 roughly 8 miles from the finish a loud noise from the rear of the car and a revving up engine led me to determine that we blew a belt. We jumped out and founds shreds of belt and string wrapped up in the clutches. After minutes of pulling and freaking out I was able to get the clutches cleaned up enough to get the new belt on. I raced to the finish and crossed the line 1st in our class, but unfortunately not 1st on corrected time.... My best friend Jake was right on us and took the win on corrected time and for that deserves a huge congrats! After the times were all calculated I ended up with a respectable 4th place finish which I was impressed with considering the amount of issues and down time we had..... Thank you to my pit crew and my dad as well as each and all of my partners that help make this possible and believe in me
