slowrockr
I wanna be Dave
For those that are interested read on, otherwise move along trolls.
I'll try not to make this a novel but can't promise anything. There's so much to tell but I'll try to hit on most of it.
Our trip started a day and a half later than we planned but we were still buttoning things up on the rig so not much we could do about it. Finished the rig, only seat time was out the shop and into the trailer, not the way I like to start the trip to the biggest race of my racing career, little un-nerving to say the least.
Drive out was un-eventful and we pulled on to Means dry lake bed late monday night. Tuesday saw a few more zip ties and double checking everything was tight, etc than off to backdoor to see what the fuss was about. Pulled up to the waterfall and there was a fellow LCQ'er trying his hand with no luck. We asked how it was going and his answer was 2.5 hours and still can't get up the wall. He moved and let us try and bam one shot and up we went. Gotta love them red lables. "thumbsup"
Seeing how we were mainly concerned with getting into the race our main focus was on the Backdoor trail. Ran that several times with little to no issues. Needless to say we were feeling pretty confident with our chances at earning a spot in the big show. We ran off to pre run some of the desert sections and man o man some of them whoops are big. Drivers meeting at 4, gps clock says 3:30, run back and realize clock is hour fast. Back to the LCQ course for a quick run through before drivers meeting. Pulled up to the waterfall and tried few times before realizing only 1 rear tire is pulling. Nothing we could do till after drivers meeting.
After meeting we pulled the 3rd and right away noticed the broken tooth off the ring. With the help from fellow XRRA racer Brian Shirley we pulled the arb apart and the lock ring was toast. At this point I'm kinda freaking out, we have to line up at 7AM, WTF are we gonna do. In walks Rick Dermo, says he has a spare 3rd all setup, tells me swap your yoke on it throw it in and worry about your race. Talk about a great group of guys, can't thank Rick and Brian enough for their help. In goes the 3rd and we can focus on tomorrow.
LCQ day, line up and try my best to keep the butterflies down. The worst part of lining up for that was just the time I get the stomach to settle down VROOM next car takes off and nerves start jumpin again. 3-4 more than our turn, is it too late to jump out and pee? Our turn, co-dawg says you better not lift till the top of that hill. Full throttle assault lettin them LS ponies run and we're off like a rocket. Hit the rocks and see all the cars and people, not sure how they all crammed into that little canyon but WOW. Crowd was kinda silent as we started to approach the wall so Doyle starts blarin the siren and crowd goes nuts. Had to take one back on the big wall and than up she went, over second ledge and we're flyin through the desert. Cross the line, make manditory stop than hauled to the porta pot, hey still had to pee. LCQ ended and still was unsure how we did, found Dave Cole and gave him my name, he hung his head low than looks up says congrats you made it, now get your stuff and get in line for tech. Holy hell we did it, WE'RE IN!
Race day comes and my nerves are surprisingly low, we qualified 7th in LCQ which with the already decided starting line up put us 89th off the line, 2nd to last row. Our turn comes, drag race off the start and we win to the first corner and off into the desert we go. I couldn't say how many cars we passed in the first 23 miles but man there was some carnage. We kinda played the race conservative, the goal was to just finish, don't care where just finish. Flyin across the lake bed at 74 passing cars was a total kick, kinda scary in a rock rig but man what a ride.
We had a few issues, lost a clip off the rear atlas shifter, co-dawg had to cut the boot off, use a screwdriver fish the linkage up and hook it back up everytime we had to shift from high to low. Also made it impossible to do front digs, coulda came in handy couple times. We lost that at the top of aftershock, after passing the car-b-q. Than we're tooling along and Doyle says, "and we're out of purple line to follow." Uh what you say, look over and sure enough the gps didn't load all the map. Had to reload it on the fly and thank god it came back up or we'd have been some lost fools.
We stuck to our game plan of not beating the car too bad and I'll be damned if we didn't make it to that finish line. Started 89th, crossed the finish line in 15th, took 6:58 and change. I was shocked when someone leaned in and says good job boys, that right there is a top 20. I couldn't believe it, I'd have been happy to be the last one in but to pull a top 20 with the list of drivers there was a big shock. I could go on and on about this race, it was such an awesome experience and such a good time. I can't wait for next years race, KOH 2010 starting line here we come!
Thanks again for the help with the stickers Jason. "thumbsup"
Few random pics and vids...
Got stuck, needed a shove.
Vid of us on the ledge on sledgehammer
CLICK
I'll try not to make this a novel but can't promise anything. There's so much to tell but I'll try to hit on most of it.
Our trip started a day and a half later than we planned but we were still buttoning things up on the rig so not much we could do about it. Finished the rig, only seat time was out the shop and into the trailer, not the way I like to start the trip to the biggest race of my racing career, little un-nerving to say the least.
Drive out was un-eventful and we pulled on to Means dry lake bed late monday night. Tuesday saw a few more zip ties and double checking everything was tight, etc than off to backdoor to see what the fuss was about. Pulled up to the waterfall and there was a fellow LCQ'er trying his hand with no luck. We asked how it was going and his answer was 2.5 hours and still can't get up the wall. He moved and let us try and bam one shot and up we went. Gotta love them red lables. "thumbsup"
Seeing how we were mainly concerned with getting into the race our main focus was on the Backdoor trail. Ran that several times with little to no issues. Needless to say we were feeling pretty confident with our chances at earning a spot in the big show. We ran off to pre run some of the desert sections and man o man some of them whoops are big. Drivers meeting at 4, gps clock says 3:30, run back and realize clock is hour fast. Back to the LCQ course for a quick run through before drivers meeting. Pulled up to the waterfall and tried few times before realizing only 1 rear tire is pulling. Nothing we could do till after drivers meeting.
After meeting we pulled the 3rd and right away noticed the broken tooth off the ring. With the help from fellow XRRA racer Brian Shirley we pulled the arb apart and the lock ring was toast. At this point I'm kinda freaking out, we have to line up at 7AM, WTF are we gonna do. In walks Rick Dermo, says he has a spare 3rd all setup, tells me swap your yoke on it throw it in and worry about your race. Talk about a great group of guys, can't thank Rick and Brian enough for their help. In goes the 3rd and we can focus on tomorrow.
LCQ day, line up and try my best to keep the butterflies down. The worst part of lining up for that was just the time I get the stomach to settle down VROOM next car takes off and nerves start jumpin again. 3-4 more than our turn, is it too late to jump out and pee? Our turn, co-dawg says you better not lift till the top of that hill. Full throttle assault lettin them LS ponies run and we're off like a rocket. Hit the rocks and see all the cars and people, not sure how they all crammed into that little canyon but WOW. Crowd was kinda silent as we started to approach the wall so Doyle starts blarin the siren and crowd goes nuts. Had to take one back on the big wall and than up she went, over second ledge and we're flyin through the desert. Cross the line, make manditory stop than hauled to the porta pot, hey still had to pee. LCQ ended and still was unsure how we did, found Dave Cole and gave him my name, he hung his head low than looks up says congrats you made it, now get your stuff and get in line for tech. Holy hell we did it, WE'RE IN!
Race day comes and my nerves are surprisingly low, we qualified 7th in LCQ which with the already decided starting line up put us 89th off the line, 2nd to last row. Our turn comes, drag race off the start and we win to the first corner and off into the desert we go. I couldn't say how many cars we passed in the first 23 miles but man there was some carnage. We kinda played the race conservative, the goal was to just finish, don't care where just finish. Flyin across the lake bed at 74 passing cars was a total kick, kinda scary in a rock rig but man what a ride.
We had a few issues, lost a clip off the rear atlas shifter, co-dawg had to cut the boot off, use a screwdriver fish the linkage up and hook it back up everytime we had to shift from high to low. Also made it impossible to do front digs, coulda came in handy couple times. We lost that at the top of aftershock, after passing the car-b-q. Than we're tooling along and Doyle says, "and we're out of purple line to follow." Uh what you say, look over and sure enough the gps didn't load all the map. Had to reload it on the fly and thank god it came back up or we'd have been some lost fools.
We stuck to our game plan of not beating the car too bad and I'll be damned if we didn't make it to that finish line. Started 89th, crossed the finish line in 15th, took 6:58 and change. I was shocked when someone leaned in and says good job boys, that right there is a top 20. I couldn't believe it, I'd have been happy to be the last one in but to pull a top 20 with the list of drivers there was a big shock. I could go on and on about this race, it was such an awesome experience and such a good time. I can't wait for next years race, KOH 2010 starting line here we come!
Thanks again for the help with the stickers Jason. "thumbsup"
Few random pics and vids...
Got stuck, needed a shove.
Vid of us on the ledge on sledgehammer
CLICK
