Parker Arizona, February 7, 2009: Two weeks after winning the Laughlin Desert Challenge, Racers Only Motorsports loaded up the race car and headed for the epic Parker 425. This race is notorious for eating up race cars and we knew we had to be careful not to get caught up racing too hard too early.
We woke up race day to some scattered rain showers but by the time the sun came up it had all went away…or so we thought. Our class had nine entries, which started dead last behind every race car entered. Yours truly drew the very last starting position. Turns out we had a late entry in our class so he got the honors, now I was only the 274th race car off the line instead of the 275th!
The first lap was a prerun lap for me since I never got a chance to see the course so I would be taking it easy the first time around. The course was already swallowing race cars with approx 30 broke or upside down within the first 60 miles of a 150 mile loop. We passed 26 cars in the first 21 miles and had passed all but two cars in our class, which put us in 3rd place. I knew it would be a long race so I continued to pace myself. Pete VanRooy was pointing me in the right direction with the GPS and keeping me aware of danger spots. By the time we reached race mile 37, I knew the Overall leaders in class one and the Trophy Trucks (TT) would soon be catching us so I told Pete to keep an eye out.
Around race mile 49, I saw a flash of light in my rear view mirror and knew it was the first TT. Andy McMillin was running his Vision X LED light bar on the front of his truck and it made it very easy for us to see him coming, even through the dust. I was looking for a place to pull over, doing approx. 65 mph and saw my chance and turned off when my car caught a ditch and almost sent us over. I’m pretty sure Andy got a kick out of it but Pete was not impressed. No harm, no foul, we proceeded to our first fuel stop at Midway, pit three.
Trey and Dan from Chuck Hovey’s pit flagged us in, topped us off with fuel and sent us on our way in 52 seconds…GREAT STOP. We had passed 40 race cars on the course at this point, not counting the 30 broken down so we kept that pace going. The race course was really fun at this point, smooth roads, tight, twisty, sorta technical, but then we noticed that it was starting to sprinkle. We were somewhat prepared with towels and the water was not too bad until we hit the “Goat trail” at race mile 119. From that point on, this race was not turning out to be very fun. The race car was running great, we never had a motor problem with our MSD ignition and our Turnkey engine. Our biggest problem now was visibility, the rain was coming down pretty hard now and all our dry towels were soaking wet. By the time we made it back to the main pits, the car was unrecognizable, covered with mud, but our 12” LED Vision X light on the front was easy for our crew to spot as they flagged us in.
Turns out we were in 1st place in our class, no one else had come through. Pete was getting out and Matt Bare was set to ride the last lap. Unfortunate for Matt, we did not have the luxury of an intercom or radio due to the rain. TT racer Brian Collins was helping at the pit when he grabbed my helmet and applied some RainX to the visor to help me see. He handed it back to me with a little snicker as if to say he was glad he didn’t have to go out and race in those conditions. I was freezing cold but my Ironclad gloves were keeping my hands warm, although that was the only dry place on my whole body. While we sat in our pit, one of our competitors (#1886) slipped by so we hurried up and set out on our last lap.
The infield was 9 ½ miles long and I could see #1886 making his way through but by the time we got out of the infield I could not see him anymore and was pretty sure he had pulled into his main pit. We were having a hard time seeing out our mirrors watching for class one’s and TT’s. This was a really nervous time for me since I did not want to get rear ended by a faster car because we could not see them coming up on us. Most of all the leaders had head lights on so it made it a lot easier to see them in the dirty mirrors. At race mile 21, my fears came to life as we were racing down the course and a TT came up on us.
Finding out later, he was trying to make up some time, came up on me and was just going to give us a slight nerf when my car went into a whoop-de-do, the back of my car went down, his TT went up and he landed on the back of our car, crushing the manifold, putting us out of the race. I know it was a racing accident but it still didn’t make us feel any better. When ever you are taken out of a race and it’s not of your doing, it’s a tough pill to swallow, so instead of another win, Racers Only motorsports goes away with its first DNF in the TT Killer.
I have to give a big thanks to everyone who helps us out: JETJOC, TriState CareFlight, Wide Open MRI, BFGoodrich (still no flats in any of our races), Vision X, MSD, King shocks, Beard seats, C&R racing, Ironclad, Artistic Curbing and Got Sand. Chuck Hovey and Collins motorsports were kind enough to let us pit with them and they went above and beyond the call of duty to help us with anything we needed. I felt we were in there way a bit but they made us feel at home, THANKS GUYS! To Pete Corwin, Matt Bare, Pete VanRooy, Mike Lindquist (& Kim), my wife Tracy and the rest of the guys out on the course getting soaking wet in the rain waiting for us to come by, WE THANK YOU. If all goes well, we will see you at the MINT 400. By the way, anyone got a spare Manifold for a 5.3L Chevy lying around????
No comments:
Post a Comment