Oh we were so close!!
Preparation was good, motor was running great, pre-race activities were a blast, but……..
Coming from Oregon to race BITD is always on the top of our list although the cost to get there sometimes hinders our progress, its always a $1500 fuel bill for each of our 2 motorhomes. We knew there was no way we were going to miss the Mint 400, plus we brought our sandrails and quads along for a little R&R at Dumont the week after the race (thus the delay in this report
). On race day the morning came early, so off to the start line we went, we were camped at pit 2 so getting to the start line was pretty easy, a little traffic going in but not too bad. It felt so familiar since our last race down there was Henderson and we at least had an idea of some of the terrain.
We started 23rd off the line so there was no where to go but up, well except Parks was behind us but that gave us a reason to be on our toes. We had friends at home watching the race and it was extremely helpful to get texts every 3-5 minutes on our progress. It didn’t take long to start picking off the field:
1935 is 14th 12 miles off the lead at 7:40am
1935 is 10th 13 miles off the lead at 8:15am
1935 is 7th 11 miles off the lead at 8:43am
1935 is 4th 12 miles off the lead at 9:34am
And so on…..
We were chasing in pit #1 on the second lap and watched the 2 Can-ams pull thru and about 10-12 minutes later both our 1935 and the 1926 orange XP came thru at the same time, that put is in 3rd place on corrected time. We followed the XP for quite a while hoping for a mistake but that was not to be, and then it happened…..
Right around race miles 65 of the second lap we were trying to get around a very slow Hummer thru some tight trails, when they finally saw us and pulled over BAMM! we got rear ended by a single seat buggy that collapsed our rear driver’s suspension to the point where the wheel (not tire) was touching the back of the drivers seat panel. The buggy’s suspension looked pretty damaged, the driver said his wrist was hurting really bad and the next thing we know he’s backing up and took off. We looked to the front side and the Hummer was also long gone….so there we sat by ourselves with a wounded ute in the middle of nowhere.
After 2 hours of disassembling the suspension and pounding it with rocks it finally got back to the point where we could put it back on and drive to a secure location to be towed back into pit 2.
It was a hell of a run that day and we are very happy with the performance of the car, fast enough for a good challenge and rock steady thru all the woops and tough terrain. Our GBC tires were stellar except for one flat we got driving into a 12” boulder we couldn’t see cause of the dust. Oh well it was still a blast, a little local racing for the next few months and then we will see you all at VtoR.
We want to thank all our sponsors, Tech3 Sandcars, Head Painting and Concrete, GBC tires, Fabtek Metal Processing, Unique Metal Products for all their support.
Gary, Rocker, and Cory
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