Desert Toyz Cory S
DeSeRt ToYz RhInO - UTVUnderground Approved
Oh la! Just got back from Baja 500. Baja Billy, his son Nate Dog and I went to chase the bay side for Mike Lanskey and his Avid racing, H Town, Turn Key, Canam Commander. I was schedualed to drive the race Commander from mile 100 to 240. We arrived thursday night at the Bahia Hotel in down town Ensenada. The Avid team of 5 guys had everthing just about ready, they even had the Commander tech inspected and tagged. Baja Billy, Nate and I, can't go to Baja without rolling the race car through contingcey. We had brought lots of "Steekers" MM candy and T-shirts to give away. Baja Billy and I woke up at 5am, it is a big thrill for us to be in the front of the line. We got there and there were 6 other racers already waiting. About 30 seconds later the Viladosa Red Bull TT pulls up behind us, that was sweet. Contingcey went great lot of people and press, all the locals were very nice and polite. Saturday Baja Billy and I headed out at 9am for Ojos Negros rm mile 40. We got to watch the whole field go by, when I started to see class 11 cars comming through I new something was wrong. A 12 car stopped to pit by us and I ran over to ask If they had seen 1803 Commander, he said yes, it was 6 miles back broken. We jusp in the Chase truck and headed out on the course to find them. This section was public roads so we were able to go backwards on the course. We finally got radio contact with the Commander and they said they were moving very slow with a broken front spindle. We were useing Baja pits for pit service, I contacted them to let them know we needed a welder. It took about 2 hours to remove and weld the spindle. I was made of cast iron, I was using a arc welder and the part that broke had a very small attachment area. I added a few gussets to try to make it stronger and even welded the top of the ball joint to the spindle. Mike and corider Dale left out of Ojos about 3pm and we headed to rm mile 80 which was right on the highway. The race Commander was about rm mile 60 when they hit something in the silt and the repair broke ending our race. It was my first DNF in 40 years of racing Baja and kind of tough to admit defeat, but there was no fixxing that spindle. We finally got the Commander back to the hotel about 11pm. Thanks to Mike Lanskey and team Avid racing for the good times. Here are a few pics we took.
