First off I have to say I am totally gutted by the tragic day at the 500. This race was a nightmare. The loss of life and shear stupidity of the course design makes all the hard work and financial expense seem like a waste. I may be just too raw from the experience, but this was a bad day of racing. Sorry for the downer, but it was bad...
Here is the report:
Race assignments were Kent Pfeiffer and Rick Little take the first 200, Dave Nance and Jason Henninger take RM 200 to RM 335 and Kent Pfeiffer and Zach Goemer take RM 335 to RM 477.
I have not had much time to talk to Kent and Rick about the first section, but I got the basics. After the initial delay related to the tragic accident at the beginning of the course, Kent and Rick began the race. They had a very smooth start until "THE HILL" came into play. All I know about this section from Kent is that is was a lot of middle fingers and bad will. We were in contact with the car and realized once the batch of PRO UTVs got free and we were still 50 cars back with no more bypass, it was going to be a long day. It was now all about making time with the car. After Kent finally got free from the bottleneck, he started making good time.
Then the gremlins came in. We had 2 issues, first was the belt kept slipping, which glazed the belts and we had to keep replacing them. We then realized that the belts in the Chase Trucks were Turbo Belts, not NA belts. We have 2 cars, so you can imagine the chaos when we realized the mistake. Thank God for Bill Whittington and his team. Seriously they saved our ass and making this mistake not cost us the finish. Seriously Bill thank you. That was very cool of you...
The second issue is that we were having was the car kept going into Limp Mode, we found out why last night. It happened about 30 times. The car would just not make power until you completely turned off the car and restarted it. In those narrow areas, I can only imaging how tense it was out there for Kent and Rick. Turns out that we fried the motor. We just kept resetting the computer and it would go, but rings and pistons and cam all cooked. Makes a really nice sound when you turn it over. Actually all good. We got a win at the SF 250 and finished the 500 with this power plant. That motor has served us well. Now do we put the turbo power plant in the car? That is the big question that the team needs to decide next.
My time in the car was supposed to start at around 6 ish at RM 200. As we watch the temp climb and after listening to Weatherman all day, I was about to call the race for our team. There is no way I am going to risk the safety of our group to complete a race in 116 degrees. Won't happen. We will do just about anything to finish, but that type of risk is not going to happen. Racing is risky, but to go into the oven was not going to happen. As the day went on the temp came down, we made the call to keep going. We took Kent and RIck out, put me and Jason in. Replaced another glazed belt and took off.
As we sat at RM 200, we saw a lot of the big teams go by. Wayne, Johnny, Cognito and Burnett to name a few. Cognito was moving fast, but Wayne was on rails. Hauling Mail as it were. We saw Johnny go by really slowly and then saw him off to the side limping back to his pit. Don't think he is going to be in a good mood.
My race started off pretty much as my San Felipe race. Heading into the dark with miles and miles of whoops in front of me. Apparently that is my lot in life, I am the whoops guy. I feel like I am 100 years old right now. Took a beating. Passed a lot of broken down vehicles and had a fun little race with a turbo car. They passed me on a flat section and then we chased them down on the power line road. Got passed them and then once we hit another flat section, they were gone. Our plan is to learn in the NA this year and then put the Turbo Power plant in for next season. So it was a small victory to mix it up for a bit.
Jason and I settled in for our shift and ran without issues for 3.5 hours. It was really nice out there. Only had one small hit from a Class 8 as he went passed, but all good. Almost hit a brown cow that was eating on the side of the course. Wonder if anyone else saw her. I am calling her Lupe...
We brought the car in without issue and got the car back to Kent and Zach. They brought it home on a glazed belt, we packed and got on the road. No waiting around. We knew that the hill killed our chances of winning so we packed up and ran for the border.
We had such a great build and had so much fun at contingency. We really thought this was ours to win. I know the other teams are solid, but we have a 4 time baja 500 winner doing most of the driving, we have a Penhall build, Alba power and STI 32" tires and wheels. Build was good, power was good and tires were perfect. We just had the belt issue and the limp mode motor frying deal. UTV racing is interested. There are some insane builds out there now and they all have different issues. Good to know we just have motor and belt issues. Those can be solved with $...
I want to thank Penhall for building us this sick build, STI for the 32" Chicane and HD5 and our Rustfish team. Congrats to Wayne and John for the wins. I want to make our team MVP announcement. Our Pit Boss Ryan Williams, who is actually a co-driver for Hatch Racing, came down and chased the entire race. Him and his main guy Sergio did 450 miles of chasing after one of our chase trucks went down with a blown transmission.
Finally we want to say how sorry our team is for the teams that lost their racers and to the family of the child who was killed. We cannot express how profound your loss is felt by our team. God bless you and help you through this time.
Dave
Rustfish Racing...
Here is the report:
Race assignments were Kent Pfeiffer and Rick Little take the first 200, Dave Nance and Jason Henninger take RM 200 to RM 335 and Kent Pfeiffer and Zach Goemer take RM 335 to RM 477.
I have not had much time to talk to Kent and Rick about the first section, but I got the basics. After the initial delay related to the tragic accident at the beginning of the course, Kent and Rick began the race. They had a very smooth start until "THE HILL" came into play. All I know about this section from Kent is that is was a lot of middle fingers and bad will. We were in contact with the car and realized once the batch of PRO UTVs got free and we were still 50 cars back with no more bypass, it was going to be a long day. It was now all about making time with the car. After Kent finally got free from the bottleneck, he started making good time.
Then the gremlins came in. We had 2 issues, first was the belt kept slipping, which glazed the belts and we had to keep replacing them. We then realized that the belts in the Chase Trucks were Turbo Belts, not NA belts. We have 2 cars, so you can imagine the chaos when we realized the mistake. Thank God for Bill Whittington and his team. Seriously they saved our ass and making this mistake not cost us the finish. Seriously Bill thank you. That was very cool of you...
The second issue is that we were having was the car kept going into Limp Mode, we found out why last night. It happened about 30 times. The car would just not make power until you completely turned off the car and restarted it. In those narrow areas, I can only imaging how tense it was out there for Kent and Rick. Turns out that we fried the motor. We just kept resetting the computer and it would go, but rings and pistons and cam all cooked. Makes a really nice sound when you turn it over. Actually all good. We got a win at the SF 250 and finished the 500 with this power plant. That motor has served us well. Now do we put the turbo power plant in the car? That is the big question that the team needs to decide next.
My time in the car was supposed to start at around 6 ish at RM 200. As we watch the temp climb and after listening to Weatherman all day, I was about to call the race for our team. There is no way I am going to risk the safety of our group to complete a race in 116 degrees. Won't happen. We will do just about anything to finish, but that type of risk is not going to happen. Racing is risky, but to go into the oven was not going to happen. As the day went on the temp came down, we made the call to keep going. We took Kent and RIck out, put me and Jason in. Replaced another glazed belt and took off.
As we sat at RM 200, we saw a lot of the big teams go by. Wayne, Johnny, Cognito and Burnett to name a few. Cognito was moving fast, but Wayne was on rails. Hauling Mail as it were. We saw Johnny go by really slowly and then saw him off to the side limping back to his pit. Don't think he is going to be in a good mood.
My race started off pretty much as my San Felipe race. Heading into the dark with miles and miles of whoops in front of me. Apparently that is my lot in life, I am the whoops guy. I feel like I am 100 years old right now. Took a beating. Passed a lot of broken down vehicles and had a fun little race with a turbo car. They passed me on a flat section and then we chased them down on the power line road. Got passed them and then once we hit another flat section, they were gone. Our plan is to learn in the NA this year and then put the Turbo Power plant in for next season. So it was a small victory to mix it up for a bit.
Jason and I settled in for our shift and ran without issues for 3.5 hours. It was really nice out there. Only had one small hit from a Class 8 as he went passed, but all good. Almost hit a brown cow that was eating on the side of the course. Wonder if anyone else saw her. I am calling her Lupe...
We brought the car in without issue and got the car back to Kent and Zach. They brought it home on a glazed belt, we packed and got on the road. No waiting around. We knew that the hill killed our chances of winning so we packed up and ran for the border.
We had such a great build and had so much fun at contingency. We really thought this was ours to win. I know the other teams are solid, but we have a 4 time baja 500 winner doing most of the driving, we have a Penhall build, Alba power and STI 32" tires and wheels. Build was good, power was good and tires were perfect. We just had the belt issue and the limp mode motor frying deal. UTV racing is interested. There are some insane builds out there now and they all have different issues. Good to know we just have motor and belt issues. Those can be solved with $...
I want to thank Penhall for building us this sick build, STI for the 32" Chicane and HD5 and our Rustfish team. Congrats to Wayne and John for the wins. I want to make our team MVP announcement. Our Pit Boss Ryan Williams, who is actually a co-driver for Hatch Racing, came down and chased the entire race. Him and his main guy Sergio did 450 miles of chasing after one of our chase trucks went down with a blown transmission.
Finally we want to say how sorry our team is for the teams that lost their racers and to the family of the child who was killed. We cannot express how profound your loss is felt by our team. God bless you and help you through this time.
Dave
Rustfish Racing...
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