BRM OFFROAD

CORR 2007 RACE RECAP & PIX

Whew, things got wrapped up in time. We completed our new Single Buggy at the last minute, how does that phrase go... "if it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done." We would like to thank our friends that helped as much as they could as we got things buttoned up. With 2 passes up and down our street being our 'testing' we were loading the trailer and heading to the races. Friday mornings practice/qualifying served as our true test to see how well be built our car, and if we tightened everything up. Although we weren't too stoked on qualifying dead last we were impressed with how well our buggy handled and noted a few things that needed attention. We made some adjustments to our front suspension for Saturdays race and felt good going into it. Starting 36th we knew we had a lot of ground to make up and were just hoping for a strong finish without any breakage. At the drop of the flag, we were off for a short sprint. Troy Morgan had some issues before the end of lap 1, along with another buggy, so we had a red flag restart. Now that our hearts were pumping, we were ready to go. The green flag waved again and the dirt was flying. With Jeff behind the wheel in our BRM OFFROAD buggy, anything could happen. There was a lot of traffic ahead of him that he was constantly battling with. John Fitzgerald and Sean Kennedy were in their battle for 1st, but our eyes were focused on the back of the field as we watched Jeff pass a few racers and hold them off. Jeff was pushing it hard with another racer on the last lap heading in to what is known as the 'no contact zone'. It's the 4 jumps just as you come out of turn 4, at the top of Fig Mountain... this is also where we rolled it back in June. Knowing that our battle for 24th or 25th really had no effect on the points, we radioed up to Jeff to be smart and have fun. As the 2 buggies went in to turn 4, with Jeff on the inside and about even with the other racers back tire, Jeff let off a little making sure they both made it thru the technical area without bringing out the yellow flag. As they came down Fig Mountain and into turn 5, Jeff was right behind the other racer. They battled thru the last few turns and made for an exciting finish... for 25th. Although Jeff didn't get by this guy, it made for some great action and fun in the pits (they were pitted right next to us). John Fitzgerald finished 1st, The Menzies 319 finished 2nd, and Sean Kennedy took the 3rd place podium position. Back in the pits we went over our buggy to make sure everything would be looking good for round 10 on Sunday. We had some play in the back of our buggy and upon further inspection of the left rear, we discovered a broken bearing carrier. We want to say thanks to the guy from Pro-Am (Kar-tek) for giving us a new one so we could be back out there on Sunday. We also made more adjustments to our front suspension that turned out not to work in our favor, but you don't know until you try. As we started in 25th on Sunday we were instantly battling thru turn 1. The action was very close as everyone slid their way thru turn 2 on the nice slippery track. One has to wonder why do they bring the water trucks out before our race. The 1600 Single Buggy class is 80-90 horsepower, and with our limitations it's a challenge in itself not getting tangled up with others who are sliding all over the place, let alone constantly correcting the direction we're pointing. But racing is racing and it's a blast. Jeff was in some great battles again swapping positions back and forth with others. He made an awesome pass exiting turn 2, once again battling our pit neighbor (I just can't remember his name). As the 2 came out of turn 1 and over the jump, Jeff was on the outside going into turn 2. Using our quad mx skills, Jeff went deep, squared off the corner early and dove under the other buggy and made the pass stick by the time they went into turn 3. Jeff made some other good passes and pulled on a couple racers but wasn't able to make his way up thru the field as much as we were hoping. We settled for a 20th place finish. We'll be going thru a few things with our motor, suspension, and brakes to hopefully make things better for rounds 11 & 12 in Dallas. Round 10 on Sunday was full of excitement, especially from the Super Buggy and Pro-4 races. Tune to NBC Oct. 6 & 7 for 90 minutes of TV coverage. Below are some race pix of some of the action we were able to capture.

Well, after having a busy off-season with limited time to work on our buggy, we missed the first 2 weekends of racing (rounds 1-4), but we had a great time returning to Chula Vista, CA for rounds 5 & 6. This was a completely different track from last year, as well as a new location. The "Quarry" as it is now known was great for both racing and spectating. The pits however, were a different story, but that will probably be all ironed out before the September races. The track was laid out great, using the rock quarry elevation to it's maximum advantage for racers and spectators. The track was fast and rough, leading to a lot of excitement. From a spectators point of view, the track layout was much better than last year. The grandstand lined the entire straight-away and the track layout was perfect for being able to see every aspect of the track, even from the lower seats. The stands were nearly packed on Saturday for Round 5 and it was a full house on Sunday for Round 6. That surprised us, we expected Saturday to be the busier day out there and we did our part on Sunday to entertain the fans the most exciting way we knew how.... a few rollovers. Of course these were unplanned events and thankfully the rollover in practice Sunday morning didn't keep us from being able to race later that afternoon. The Single Buggy class had a record number of racers, 35, lined up both Saturday and Sunday. Round 5 on Saturday was amazing. The start was jam packed with 7 buggys wide for a standing start. There were a number of buggys that got together in turn 1 (it was still a little slick from the water truck) but that just helped us work our way thru the field a little quicker. We started 24th and had a lot of traffic in front of us. The track was very slippery for the first few laps, but dried out and held up great the remainder of the day. With so many other racers out there, there was a lot of tight action to follow. We did pretty well, battling all the way up to 16th on Saturday with a lot of excitement around us at the top of Fig Mountain. That area seemed to eat a lot of racers up in all 9 races. The 3 sets of doubles leading up to the huge downhill ski jump was intense. But that was nothing compared to the exciting action of John Fitzgerald who completed a pass in the last turn to take 1st. Sunday morning practice, we had a rollover in turn 4 but the only damage was to the roof skin. The start of Round 6 on Sunday afternoon was quite exciting. This time the entire field was inverted and the buggys were lined up 5 wide to give everyone a little more room. That didn't keep some racers out of trouble though. Paul Borio got tangled up with another racer, right next to us, and swerved across the wet track right into the wall (photo below), causing a red flag and re-start. The restart was exciting and suspenseful for the first few laps as the field stretched out little by little. We were doing a good job working thru some traffic up to 11th position and had some great battles going on until the doubles on Fig Mountain got the better of us around lap 8 or 9. We came out of turn 3 a little sideways and didn't get squared up in time for the first doubles and that was just the start of one sideways swap to another followed by a couple of rolls. We ended up on our roof and the sky-cam caught the whole thing and played it over and over on the jumbo-tron. Unfortunately this rollover left us with 2 flat tires and the roof skin was once again damaged, or should we say, torn off. Our race day was over, but in the remaining 3 laps there was once again a battle for first, with John Fitzgerald not quite being able to repeat his passing move in time, landing him in 2nd for the day. Below are some pix of both Rounds 5 & 6.