Congrats to Marc on the win. Nice work! Congrats to Branden and Justin on getting on the podium.
While we are not too thrilled with a 5th place finish, the whole team had a blast racing this year's 500.
Why RS?: A lot of people have asked why I decided to rear start this year's race. There are benefits to starting up front and benefits to a rear start. I have to say that after I pre-ran our section from the start to RM 265, I knew it was a mistake because there might be many many bottlenecks. And there were.
Recap:
We were waved off of the line at approximately 11:50 am on Saturday as the 17th and last UTV off the line. We just settled into a smooth pace heading up to Ojos. The car was running great and I could tell all of the changes we made in testing after the AV250 were really helping.
By the time we hit Ojos we had moved up four positions and within the next ten miles we got by another three utes, putting us into 10th physically. We hit our first bottleneck and it cleared pretty quickly and lost only two minutes. The next bottleneck was longer and we tried to find a way around it but there was no way. This one had us sitting nine minutes. We continued to pick off UTV's and then at another bottleneck we simply bush wacked about 15 yards away and got around this whole group. This put us in 3rd physically at approximately RM60. So at this point I thought the rear start was a good thing. But then we lost 4wd.
We came into Urapan and had JXBS in Chase 1 see if he could find anything obvious but he didn't see anything and the indicator light was out confirming that 4wd wasn't working. We lost a couple of minutes at this stop and gave a couple of positions back. Glascraft was now right behind us as we went down the highway towards Santo Tomas.
We hit the fun beach section but driving on the rally roads in 2wd was tough. While only having 2wd didn't hurt us in the fast or straight sections it slowed us down in the tight sections because the thing wanted to swap ends every time you got into the throttle. Simms got by us here but we were able to gap Glascraft and were able to keep Angal behind us.
At Erindia at RM 110 we stopped for fuel and Chase 5 got intel from Chase 2 to see if a fuse was blown. We screwed around with the fuse box for around 5 minutes but they couldn't fix it, so we continued on in 2wd. At this point I am guessing that we were in 4th or 5th physically. We struggled in the deep sand in 2wd, but made it to our fuel splash at RM 175. This stop was quick and JXBS was able to shove a fuse in and we got 4wd back, but the fuse cover was missing. Angal got by us at this stop but in a couple of miles going up the rocky wash we reeled him in and could see his blue light. But then we lost 4wd AGAIN at RM 180. I was super nervous to do the Mike's loop in 2wd, so I pulled over and Keith tried to see if he could find where the fuse went. He tried for about 4 minutes, then I told him to get in and we would give 'er hell in 2wd.
We took off right in front of the Murray's but they were faster in the tight stuff with their 4wd and got by us. We stayed with them until we got to the first bottle neck at around RM 180. We sat there for around 10-15 minutes and finally we got through. We got to the next bottle neck and this one cleared in about 3 minutes, but a lot of the UTV's and other classes were now bunched up.
We got to our third bottle neck at RM 210 and waited for a around 30 minutes. There were around 25 cars parked and Keith hiked around but couldn't find any way around. The car causing the problem was a class 10 and the Angal UTV Inc car pushed it up the hill and thus the 1920 got clear. Next up was the RPM class 8. It got complexly stuck trying to get up the hill and now they blocked the course. All of the co-drivers got out and tried to get the truck clear, but no dice. So Derek Murray acted like a parking attendant and we got all of the cars waiting, off to the side so Donald Moss in his class 3 4wd Bronco could snatch the Class 8 out backwards and off course. Another 40 minute had now passed but now the Moss Bronco wouldn't move off of the course because he wanted to go first as his 'reward' for clearing the course. So another couple of minutes went by while his co-dog dicked around with the high lift jack, put away the tow strap and putting his helmet on. This was absolutely painful to watch and now the sun had gone down. He finally went up the hill, followed by the Murray's. I made it up no problem in 2wd, followed by Cognito.
If you are wondering what these hills look like, they typically about 50 - 100 yards long with two trenches about 18 inches deep filled with silt and hidden baby-head rocks. These roads were cut into the side of a mountain so going around is next to impossible.
We took off but there was zero breeze and despite only two cars being immediately ahead of us, the dust was blinding. This was made worse because both of our lower lights were pointed at the sky and one was loose and bobble-heading around. We had Chase 5 at RM 220 so we pulled in to see if they could aim the lights. I told them that I HAD to get out ahead of Cognito even if it meant driving with messed up lights. But they mistook the single lower light on the Cognito car for a local with a flashlight and Cognito drove right by while we were parked. Doh! So I decided not to dick around any more and we took off about a minute behind them with our lights still loose and pointed up. All in all we were only parked for about 3 minutes.
On the way to Mike's we saw the Murray's on their side and both Cognito and we got by. We chased Cognito all the way to Mike's and got to about 20 yards behind them going up one of the steep rocky hills at around RM 245, but I couldn't get to their bumper without potentially driving off of a cliff.
At the drivers change at RM 265 we pulled in just as Cognito was pulling out. Other than the 4wd issue the car was in perfect condition. While Jason and Joey D got in, we fixed and aimed the lower lights, fueled the car, Brandon shoved a new fuse into the fuse box and we finally got 4wd back. Whooo Hoo!
So they took off and things were going well except the belt temp sky rocketed every time they tried to go WFO. So I told them to just peddle it until the temps came back down. Coming back up from the dry lake, they center punched a rock and were worried that they might have destroyed the front end. So they pulled over at RM 320 for a quick look and while they had put a dent in one of the A-arms and the front of the skid plate was torn from it's mount, everything else looked good and they were still good to go.
When they were at RM 360 we heard that the car was cutting out and it stalled a few times. So at the RM 370 we did the final fuel stop, Brandon found a wire that had come off of the T-MAP sensor. He fixed this, we adjusted the top light bar and Jason and Joey took off.
We saw them at the Ojos cross over and we instructed them to just bring it home. But they were still pushing hard and were trying to catch the 1920 Angal car. But the pace took out both rear CV's and they had to drive the last 20 miles in Fwd. Thank God we fixed the 4wd!
We were all super stoked to see our car get to the finish line with all of the drama of the day. I want thank the whole team for all of their hard work and keeping the car moving forward. So the rear start would have been great, but the bottlenecks wrecked our plan. I would love to have had the hour and 45 minutes that we sat waiting for stuck cars back, but that is racing.
The UTV's continue to get faster and I am guessing that SCORE will move us up in the starting order so we don't continue to get blocked by slower classes. I can't wait for the next race in September and I am really looking forward to the epic run to La Paz in November.