Baja 1000: What took you out?

[jaggedx]

Mechanical? Logistical? Driver?

The purpose of this thread is to get some insight as to the things that affected the UTV teams who did not finish this race. This may help all the teams to prepare for future races and make the overall class even stronger.

The Jagged X Polaris RZR4 900 had a pretty good run but we did have some flat tires, a few radio issues and lost a big chunk of time to a broken throttle cable.

So what took the biggest toll on your team?

 

[ALBANATE]

Guess I might as well voice my opinion here....

We are very disappointed with the sportsmanship of the 1942 Scott McFarland car. We were hit from behind directly on the right rear tire by him with NO horn and NO bumper contact causing a catastrophic failure. Straight bullshit. This is not our first year in the SCORE series as we hold 4 SCORE Sportsman UTV championships and to be taken out by a fellow racer before MILE 75 is bullshit. There were over 800 more miles for you to pass!!! There is this thing called a HORN!!! There is a reason we all have BUMPERS!!! there is not one scratch on our bumper or our rear number plate... We worked so hard to get to the race in time and even helped his team locate spare parts locally the days before the race.

My message to the driver of the car at the time of the incident is LEARN SOME F%$#ing etiquette!!!! We all work and SPEND a lot to do this and your poor decision not only cost us the chance to finish, but thousands of dollars. I really hope that you broke shortly after due to your poor and reckless decision... and trust me I doubt there will be any kind words exchanged between Tom Graves and yourselves if we meet again.

Nate
Alba Racing

 

[rappy60guy]

First and Foremost Nate THANK YOU for the huge favor on wednesday morning. Second I heard of an accident taking the glaskraft out. Sucks man. Sorry to hear.

As far is the issues Cognito had I will let team leader chime in but baja was an adventure. We had alot of issues but with the team we had and the efforts put in by many we were able to overcome those challenges and finish in the required time. VIVA!!!

 

[rappy60guy]

Oh and great topic Bill, Ive always wondered what other CHALLENGES other teams have had and how they overcome.

 

[sanduras]

Guess I might as well voice my opinion here....

We are very disappointed with the sportsmanship of the 1942 Scott McFarland car. We were hit from behind directly on the right rear tire by him with NO horn and NO bumper contact causing a catastrophic failure. Straight bullshit. This is not our first year in the SCORE series as we hold 4 SCORE Sportsman UTV championships and to be taken out by a fellow racer before MILE 75 is bullshit. There were over 800 more miles for you to pass!!! There is this thing called a HORN!!! There is a reason we all have BUMPERS!!! there is not one scratch on our bumper or our rear number plate... We worked so hard to get to the race in time and even helped his team locate spare parts locally the days before the race.

My message to the driver of the car at the time of the incident is LEARN SOME F%$#ing etiquette!!!! We all work and SPEND a lot to do this and your poor decision not only cost us the chance to finish, but thousands of dollars. I really hope that you broke shortly after due to your poor and reckless decision... and trust me I doubt there will be any kind words exchanged between Tom Graves and yourselves if we meet again.

Nate
Alba Racing

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!. is all I can say.i have had many oppurtunities (not in this caliber of racing) to bump, but never once, because I felt there would be a better place on the trail to eventually pass and not ruin someones car or risk their injury.yet to ram to the point of takin someone out is TOTALLY uncalled for,.especially with all the coin involved in the Baja. sportsmanship (especially with the looked down on utv class) should have been at the highest level.someone obviously missed that point.sorry to hear of this.

 

[ALBANATE]

KC think I saw you pull into RM78 area, but was trying to figure out the logistics of getting our car on the trailer... wish we could have had a few beers afterwards...

Tony, thank you. I am glad it is just not us that feel their actions were not acceptable. I hope they realize what comes around goes around and we should all be helping each other. I offered any and all of my support and spare parts to ANYONE that needed them down there including them at the starting lineup.... just the way it should be.

Nate
Alba Racing

 

[Rusty5150]

KC think I saw you pull into RM78 area, but was trying to figure out the logistics of getting our car on the trailer... wish we could have had a few beers afterwards...

Tony, thank you. I am glad it is just not us that feel their actions were not acceptable. I hope they realize what comes around goes around and we should all be helping each other. I offered any and all of my support and spare parts to ANYONE that needed them down there including them at the starting lineup.... just the way it should be.

Nate
Alba Racing

Sorry you guys ended up knocked out of the race. Joey and I had a few minutes to talk with on Saturday night. I could tell it really bummed you guys out to be on the side lines. I hope we see the Pro UTV Baja class grow. Better luck next time.


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[Bajaxp]

Great thread JXBS!
I have always wanted to see UTV desert racing grow and it looks like it is happening. Can we get 25 or 30 Utes at next years Baja 1000?

But on the previous subject...if UTV took out another UTV by nerfing a corner and not a bumper...all with out a horn. WTF's up with dat? We are a pretty tight group and that is unacceptable. Personally, I am not a fan of nerfing, but there are times when it is necessary. But only...only...only after you have filled their mirrors, and ears with car and horn. Who is this guy that nerfed?

The issues that 1932 had were a very loud front driveline squeal at RM 240 which caused the guys to get out of the car to check and for a longer pit to check things out at RM 270. We had radio issues (swamped in Frog Canyon) and didn't know where our pits were at our southern most pit. Had to change a rear axle shaft because of a torn CV boot. Four tire issues that were taken care of in the pits and one on course. And finally our throttle cable let go when we were leading the race with 80-ish miles to go. But that is racing and that is Baja. I am hoping all teams had a great time and will come back next year.

 

[facteryfmf]

It's a scary thought that I have previously and including this race, noticed that most any cars would touch tires before bumpers if even hit squarely. Jagged was behind us in contingency all day and pulled up tight to our car. You could clearly see their tires would touch our rear tires before bumpers. I would be willing to bet that it would also be catastrophic. We are talking about making our rear bumper longer on the next build.

 

[facteryfmf]

Not saying that is what happened but is a similar case. But obviously unintentional if it were to happen

 

[BiggJim]

We broke 2 rear axles, Had 2 flat tires, broke the frame up front 2 different times in 3 different areas, and had the silt stick our primary clutch in high gear. We had a total of 6 hours of down time making repairs to keep us in the race....Oh and we had one sick co-pilot....Thank to Staggs for taking my seat.

 

[tatum]

It sounds like a lot of people had the same radio issues, we lost a couple hours trying to find our car and fueling it.Then after the silt beds had a steering rack lock up and had the car so filled up with silt that the front end was 5 inches off the ground. We spent several hours at 525 repairing the car and scooping out hundreds of pounds of silt.After making check 5 by a couple of minutes I got in the car and it was working great until a lower a arm bolt failed at RM 735 and ended our chance of making the next check point in time.

Special thanks to 1907 for flying by at race pace and knocking the car off of the jack while I was trying to repair it.

 

[Desert Toyz Cory S]

We had 4 flat tires. 2 we changed on course, 1 in the pit at mikes sky ranch and 1 at the highway after mikes. We also got water in the cvt at the base of the mikes run in deep water. It took about 10 minutes to dry out the belt and continue. We got stuck in 3 different bottle necks between rm 570 and 680. The Maverick ran perfect for all 28 hours! There were no mechanical failures or problems.

 

[ROTAX]

this is a great thread. Im not even a racer. But learning a lot from the discussions.

 

[Brian B]

I raced with the 1930 of Speed Energy Nor Cal.

Logistics was a huge challenge but went as expected. Chase was 10 minutes late for fuel and tires at Cocos Corner. Chasing from SF to Cocos was not fun. Definite advantage having two trucks, one on each side... Traffic on the 3! WE WERE NEARLY KILLED IN A HEAD ON COLLISION THAT WE MISSED BY ABOUT 6 FEET WITH A LOCAL CAR. MANY OTHER SKETCHY RUN-INS WITH TRAFFIC. Chasing was by far scarier than being on the race course.....

We had 1 belt failure, 1 tire failure, also lost race siren........

What ended our day was very odd to say the least. After a nearly flawless run all the way to our pit at rm770, the car only had one cylinder after driver change. The car ran flawlessly up until we turned it off. Both spark plugs were destroyed and had no compression in one cylinder once restarted. Any theories? Mexican gas? Car ran 12.5:1 all day, no dirt passed filter.....

 

[Brian B]

Our car lost brakes being towed in from rm770. We sat on the side of the highway till 1:30 am waiting for recovery. Huge thanks to Team Ford for stopping and offering to trailer our car back into town.....

 

[badassmav]

The Baja 1000 Race Report
Sorry it took me this long to report to you guys what happened in Baja. The week of the race I was sick and had to come back home two days before the race. When I got back down to Baja it was Thursday Contingency day. I had my guys go down and bring my cars thru tech which went well with all the people down there. The next day the race started at around 11:00 am. Everyone told me to drive very slowly in this race which I did. As the race started we got to Ojos Negros and we passed a few cars before we got there. As I proceeded around the 90 mile marker we were currently around 5th place or so. We started 18th in the race. I wasn’t really keeping track as to who I was passing. I was just driving my car like a Sunday driver. When we got to the dry bed lake I was told that we were in 2nd place at that point. Right after that the belt broke. It took us about 25 minutes or so to replace the belt. We saw all the competitors drive by as I waiving them on. We got going again and we notice that one of skid plates was gone. At that time I made sure we stopped into our pit at approx. 192 mile marker. It took us a while to make some sort of skid plate for the bottom of the car. After we got going again we hit a booby trap with all sharp stakes in it. It flatten all four tires on the vehicle and we had no other tires with us beside the tires that were on our pre-runners that we still had from our pre-runner car to use as a replacement until we got down the road farther. After that we started picking up the pace a little more and getting closer and closer to the lead runners again. We made a very bad mistake somewhere around Gonzaga Bay, we missed our pit being that we couldn’t see it cause of the heavy dust. We missed the pit at approx. 324 mile marker. That cost us a lot of time. As we proceeded we passed Arctic Cat Wildcat in the whinny road going toward Coco’s Corner that’s when we caught site of the Murray Brothers on the side of the road. We braked really hard and turned around to make sure that they were ok or if they needed anything. They told us that the motor blew on the car. They wished us good luck and we were off on our way again. We were now back in the dust behind one of the Tonka Toy Wild Cats UTV. We again had to pass them and then proceeded to get thru Coco’s Corner and all the big wash in Calamajue. We then ran out of gas. Lucky for us we ran out of gas on a flat road. We were very fortunate to locate a person after 15-20 of running out of gas that could help us. He towed us for approx. 3/4 mile to our next pit. Unfortunately our team did not make it on time to meet us at the pit because the trailer that had the spare Can-Am on it broke an axle. So we were able to speak to them on the sat phone and told them not to come down to meet us at this pit. We proceeded to go thru check point number 3 into the really bad section with no pit support or support from our team. Now we are going way slower because everyone told me that I drive the car too fast or too hard and I did not want to have a problem in this section. That particular section of the Baja from mile 410-460 it was graveyard of vehicles everywhere. We could not believe how many vehicles were stuck from local to race vehicles. We got to our Baja pit on 441 mile marker and we realized we had to make up some more time. So we started speeding up and about a mile later the clutch blew up. So now we are not only dealing with the belt issue but now we also had clutch issues as well. As we proceeded to put a new clutch on the vehicle the main bolt that holds clutch on broke off on the crank. When this happened I was totally feeling like shit. I knew it was going to be rough after that happened. We had to call the Baja pit guys to come out and get me a drill to try and drill it out. They had very little tools to get the job done right but the guys were very helpful and courteous and tried to help as much as they could. If I did not have the drill I would still be sitting in the middle of the desert looking at the sky. After I drilled the hole on the broken bolt I had nothing to pull it out with so I had to improvise. I used everything I had in my tool box and his to pull it out. I forgot to mention that I had red Loctite on the bolt which made it harder to get out. I sat there for about 4 hours trying to get the bolt out and finally I managed to get it out. We got going again and I was worried that my secondary clutch was beat up really bad and also concern that the belt was going to break because of how damaged it was. So I started off driving very slow. As we started to realize the time, I was getting really close to check point 4. At that point I also realized there was a vehicle close behind us and I was over driving like Miss Daisy. I decided to turn it back up to Marc Burnett’s speed not caring what broke. We got check point 4 approx. 3 minutes before it closed. We worked on the vehicle and replaced the secondary clutch along with other parts that needed work. I thanked my pit crew for a great pit. As I proceeded out of the pit everything was going great for approx. 15 miles. Then we got into more heavey dusty area. We were going 60 miles an hour to 0 when the motor blew-up. That ended my day at the Baja after that happen. I’m still trying to learn two things on the vehicles that I haven’t been able to figure out or overcome. The clutch and also the airbox both seem to be a problem. The car was amazing all day long besides those two issues. The suspension, the car itself still looks brand new. This is definitely the worst year I’ve had racing in my entire racing career. I believe I raced 5 races and I have DNF in every race. People have commented that I drive the car too fast and those are where the issues are. On this race I drove the car 50% and it didn’t matter. I’m still looking for to finish one of these races. If I can finish I know I can win. I would like to thank Can-Am, Monster Energy and General Tires for their support and all our other sponsors that have contributed to us this year. We have all put a lot of money into the program. I feel really bad that we have been unable to prove ourselves in the class. I also like to thank the Murray brothers for all their help and support this year. When we first broke our belt in the dry bed they were going to stop and help us but I waved for them to keep going. Also like to thank my pit crew and co-drivers for all help and support. Looking forward to a better race season in 2014.= Marc Burnett

 

[Logan G.]

Guess I might as well voice my opinion here....

We are very disappointed with the sportsmanship of the 1942 Scott McFarland car. We were hit from behind directly on the right rear tire by him with NO horn and NO bumper contact causing a catastrophic failure. Straight bullshit. This is not our first year in the SCORE series as we hold 4 SCORE Sportsman UTV championships and to be taken out by a fellow racer before MILE 75 is bullshit. There were over 800 more miles for you to pass!!! There is this thing called a HORN!!! There is a reason we all have BUMPERS!!! there is not one scratch on our bumper or our rear number plate... We worked so hard to get to the race in time and even helped his team locate spare parts locally the days before the race.

My message to the driver of the car at the time of the incident is LEARN SOME F%$#ing etiquette!!!! We all work and SPEND a lot to do this and your poor decision not only cost us the chance to finish, but thousands of dollars. I really hope that you broke shortly after due to your poor and reckless decision... and trust me I doubt there will be any kind words exchanged between Tom Graves and yourselves if we meet again.

Nate
Alba Racing

The 1942 must have been very generous race day, on the back side of the summit in a slow technical section with traffic he too tag the backside of the 1917 pretty good. Guess that was the best place to pass

 

[ALBANATE]

The 1942 must have been very generous race day, on the back side of the summit in a slow technical section with traffic he too tag the backside of the 1917 pretty good. Guess that was the best place to pass

Thanks for chiming in Logan. Not cool 1942...

Nate
Alba Racing

 

[NIKAL]

I have raced in several different classes. 5/16, 10, 1 and been apart of several TT & class 1 programs over the years.

I will say nerfing is part of our sport, if you dont like it then you need to watch you mirrors more, or try another sport. The horns used in our sport are a joke most of the time. Even if used, 75% of the time you cant even hear them in a helmet with intercom over your own engine, the other guys engine and the gap between you & them.

Now with that said, there is abusive nerfing! Abusive is when you are not given a chance to get out of the way, when vehicles are damaged or taken out of a race then that is abusive! No argument! Now since I have not raced a UTV, I dont know if there is a gentleman's agreement that you dont tap or hit? Is there? If so then the drivers of 1942 need to be pulled aside with a stern warning, that he does this crap again his races will end before he gets on the track. Now I also think 1942 needs to learn what its like to be on the other side of this. I've had to teach this lesson before. I wont take a guy out, but I have taken a few for a ride before. You catch them, you put your bumper against theirs and you dont lift! The pressure of you being on their rear bumper and the fact you now control their fate, is very scary. Trust me they will get off the gas peddle fast, and they will be looking for any chance to get out of the way. Usually the slightest movement on their part will slingshot them right off the course and into what ever is out there. Lesson learned and you did no damage.

Does anyone know 1942's history? Are they new to the sport? Maybe they have watched to much Dust to Glory?


Rarely should their be an excuse for a unlimited class vehicle to hit a slower limited class vehicle. Also there are classes you just dont touch like class 11. Personally I dont think Jeepspeeds should get touched either. To much body damages happens and that is not cool.

But if a guy in my own class slams me, trust me its coming back around!