1600 SINGLE BUGGY 2007-'08
WSORR - BARK RIVER, MI 2008
How does that race saying go??? Oh yeah, 'If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.' At 2:00 on Wednesday afternoon we loaded up and started heading northeast for our 1900 mile adventure from Fountain Hills, Arizona to Bark River, Michigan to compete in Rounds 5 & 6 of the World Series of Off-Road Racing tour (WSORR). We were hoping to get there in time for practice on Friday afternoon, and even with the 3 hour time zone loss, we made it by an hour. God blessed us with an easy drive, but it sure seemed like forever to get thru Kansas. One place in particular that we stopped was in Greensburg, Kansas, right on highway 54. 95% of this town was devastated by a 2-mile wide EF5 tornado on May 4, 2007 and the change was amazing. What once was a good size town is now rebuilding neighborhoods, schools, businesses, etc. The remaining trees are twisted and ripped in a very clear path of destruction. Foundations are visible from hotels, gas stations, houses etc, but there is still a lot of rebuilding to be completed.
Once we arrived in Bark River, we followed Evan Evans team in, we quickly got our pit, registered, thru tech, the drivers meeting, and were ready for practice. One thing that is so great about the WSORR staff is their genuine sincerity when talking with team members. The staff workers at registration greeted us warmly and were happy to see that we were able to make it. We know this trip was a last minute decision for us, but a lot goes into consideration when it comes to making a trip this big. We would like to express our appreciation to the WSORR for not charging us a late registration fee, when we were totally expecting to pay it. We would also like to thank Irene for re-introducing herself to us. Back in 2005 she was with CORR, before the whole WSORR/CORR change took place, and she helped watch our daughter (7 months old at the time) so that we could both debut in our first ever CORR race. Now we're proudly racing as much as we can with WSORR and hope to hit more races this year and all of them in 2009. One of the most memorable things that happened in Bark River was when the announcer was shooting the breeze with us at the back of our trailer and answered the person on his radio by saying, "I'm with the Jesus people." All the glory to God that we made it!
The Bark River track is awesome. At Rounds 1 & 2 in Wheatland, MO we were told by Tiffany (WSORR) that "Bark River will knock your socks off." She was dead on. The 1.5 mile track is fast, exciting, challenging, and has several elevation changes from the natural terrain. We were pretty slow in practice as we were trying to learn the track, just ask Mike Vanden Heuvel as he went blowing by us. Mike also won all 4 of his races on the weekend, very impressive! Although we would have benefited from a few more practice laps, we were anxious for Saturday morning practice. Friday night there was a pretty good rain shower that passed thru and it caused practice to be canceled so the track crew could get things ready for the opening ceremony's at 11am. They did a great job too. The first race of the day was the Classix followed by the Enduro Trucks, who gathered most of the mud on their vehicles making the track pretty stinking awesome for every class that followed :)
We were ready to go at the drop of the green for round 5 on Saturday. We got an 'ok' start, mostly just trying to stay out of the way of the guys in the points battle (we missed rounds 3 & 4). But Jeff quickly settled in and began battling his way thru traffic. The BRM OFFROAD crew taped round 5 and it was exciting to watch and had a few good pointers for round 6 on Sunday. When the checkers waved on Saturday, we took 12th out of 16. Sunday Jeff was more confident with the track. No surprises, no worries. He got a much better start coming out of turn one in the middle of the pack. Going into turn one, Mike Vanden Heuvel led the way (and checked out). On the far outside were Mike Seefeldt followed by Terry Fitzgerald and Mark Steinhardt. Coming into the left-hander to take the green, Fitzgerald and Steinhardt got tangled up and ended up coming across the track and taking Jeff out. Smashing our new beadlocks, bending our left rear hub assembly, and spinning us out (along with a few others behind us). Thankfully the beadlocks did their job and we didn't lose a tire. It was Steinhardt who came across the track on us in Round 2 at Wheatland on the first lap to nail us and leave us with a flat... also forcing our hands at popping for the beadlocks (once again, money well spent). Jeff recovered from the spin and took the green in a distant 13th. Steinhardt and Fitzgerald were able to get straight quicker, must be the experience there, and took off. As Steinhardt was making his way up the back side of the track heading up the hill towards the rhythms, I looked back to check on Jeff in the Cemetery Corner to radio to him that there was a stalled buggy in the rhythms. I then heard metal on metal and looked back to my left to see Steinhardt in the vertical position and Jesse Plawman in the 384 resting on top of the stalled buggy in the rhythms. Steinhardt came down on his end and rolled into the wall. This brought out the red flag signaling a restart. Steinhardt was taken to the hospital and later released. Plawman was out with a messed up front left (blue buggy in photo). On the re-start, Jeff didn't do quite as well but was in a great battle with 4 other buggy's, just near the back of the pack. For a few laps Jeff was battling with the others, each of them swapping lead changes. Each time Jeff would get by 1 or 2 of them, he would mess up a shift and have to work his way back up. He finally got by Chris Ernster in the 381, Travis Dinsmore in the 343, Terry Fitzgerald in the 311, Jeff Villemure in the 379, and made a late pass on Daniel Martin in the 313 to secure a 9th place finish. The racing action, although it wasn't near the top, was very exciting as Barrett, Martin, Ernster and Dinsmore kept mixing it up. We had a great time, were much happier with our finish on Sunday, and left us wanting more.
There are several photos below of the 11 different race classes and each of those classes had exciting racing the entire weekend. It was once again a great time, both on and off the track and we look forward to when we can do it again.
Rounds 7 & 8 are just 2 weeks away, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and we would love to be able to make it, but it's a pretty expensive haul from AZ so we'll just have to see how it goes. Overall, it was well worth every dollar of diesel we pumped in the tank, along with the extra expense for necessary repairs on our last 10-hour leg back to AZ. We would really like to thank the Chevron owners in Milagro for their help and West Truck Service in Moriarty, New Mexico for being so helpful and getting us back on the road quickly.
Once we arrived in Bark River, we followed Evan Evans team in, we quickly got our pit, registered, thru tech, the drivers meeting, and were ready for practice. One thing that is so great about the WSORR staff is their genuine sincerity when talking with team members. The staff workers at registration greeted us warmly and were happy to see that we were able to make it. We know this trip was a last minute decision for us, but a lot goes into consideration when it comes to making a trip this big. We would like to express our appreciation to the WSORR for not charging us a late registration fee, when we were totally expecting to pay it. We would also like to thank Irene for re-introducing herself to us. Back in 2005 she was with CORR, before the whole WSORR/CORR change took place, and she helped watch our daughter (7 months old at the time) so that we could both debut in our first ever CORR race. Now we're proudly racing as much as we can with WSORR and hope to hit more races this year and all of them in 2009. One of the most memorable things that happened in Bark River was when the announcer was shooting the breeze with us at the back of our trailer and answered the person on his radio by saying, "I'm with the Jesus people." All the glory to God that we made it!
The Bark River track is awesome. At Rounds 1 & 2 in Wheatland, MO we were told by Tiffany (WSORR) that "Bark River will knock your socks off." She was dead on. The 1.5 mile track is fast, exciting, challenging, and has several elevation changes from the natural terrain. We were pretty slow in practice as we were trying to learn the track, just ask Mike Vanden Heuvel as he went blowing by us. Mike also won all 4 of his races on the weekend, very impressive! Although we would have benefited from a few more practice laps, we were anxious for Saturday morning practice. Friday night there was a pretty good rain shower that passed thru and it caused practice to be canceled so the track crew could get things ready for the opening ceremony's at 11am. They did a great job too. The first race of the day was the Classix followed by the Enduro Trucks, who gathered most of the mud on their vehicles making the track pretty stinking awesome for every class that followed :)
We were ready to go at the drop of the green for round 5 on Saturday. We got an 'ok' start, mostly just trying to stay out of the way of the guys in the points battle (we missed rounds 3 & 4). But Jeff quickly settled in and began battling his way thru traffic. The BRM OFFROAD crew taped round 5 and it was exciting to watch and had a few good pointers for round 6 on Sunday. When the checkers waved on Saturday, we took 12th out of 16. Sunday Jeff was more confident with the track. No surprises, no worries. He got a much better start coming out of turn one in the middle of the pack. Going into turn one, Mike Vanden Heuvel led the way (and checked out). On the far outside were Mike Seefeldt followed by Terry Fitzgerald and Mark Steinhardt. Coming into the left-hander to take the green, Fitzgerald and Steinhardt got tangled up and ended up coming across the track and taking Jeff out. Smashing our new beadlocks, bending our left rear hub assembly, and spinning us out (along with a few others behind us). Thankfully the beadlocks did their job and we didn't lose a tire. It was Steinhardt who came across the track on us in Round 2 at Wheatland on the first lap to nail us and leave us with a flat... also forcing our hands at popping for the beadlocks (once again, money well spent). Jeff recovered from the spin and took the green in a distant 13th. Steinhardt and Fitzgerald were able to get straight quicker, must be the experience there, and took off. As Steinhardt was making his way up the back side of the track heading up the hill towards the rhythms, I looked back to check on Jeff in the Cemetery Corner to radio to him that there was a stalled buggy in the rhythms. I then heard metal on metal and looked back to my left to see Steinhardt in the vertical position and Jesse Plawman in the 384 resting on top of the stalled buggy in the rhythms. Steinhardt came down on his end and rolled into the wall. This brought out the red flag signaling a restart. Steinhardt was taken to the hospital and later released. Plawman was out with a messed up front left (blue buggy in photo). On the re-start, Jeff didn't do quite as well but was in a great battle with 4 other buggy's, just near the back of the pack. For a few laps Jeff was battling with the others, each of them swapping lead changes. Each time Jeff would get by 1 or 2 of them, he would mess up a shift and have to work his way back up. He finally got by Chris Ernster in the 381, Travis Dinsmore in the 343, Terry Fitzgerald in the 311, Jeff Villemure in the 379, and made a late pass on Daniel Martin in the 313 to secure a 9th place finish. The racing action, although it wasn't near the top, was very exciting as Barrett, Martin, Ernster and Dinsmore kept mixing it up. We had a great time, were much happier with our finish on Sunday, and left us wanting more.
There are several photos below of the 11 different race classes and each of those classes had exciting racing the entire weekend. It was once again a great time, both on and off the track and we look forward to when we can do it again.
Rounds 7 & 8 are just 2 weeks away, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and we would love to be able to make it, but it's a pretty expensive haul from AZ so we'll just have to see how it goes. Overall, it was well worth every dollar of diesel we pumped in the tank, along with the extra expense for necessary repairs on our last 10-hour leg back to AZ. We would really like to thank the Chevron owners in Milagro for their help and West Truck Service in Moriarty, New Mexico for being so helpful and getting us back on the road quickly.
WSORR - WHEATLAND, MO 2008
We hit our first WSORR race this past weekend and had the time of our life!! Our finishing positions didn't fair well, but the overall experience with the World Series of Off-Road Racing was something we'll never forget. The race was held at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri and it is an exceptional facility. Pits are paved with power and water hook-ups, grandstand seating on both sides of the track, sky boxes on the west side and an excellent spotters area on the east side above the bleachers. It's everything you could ask for in a facility from the suites, indoor restaurant, gift shop, crisp speakers throughout the pits, all the way to the 4 pressure wash stations that really came in handy.
The WSORR staff was amazing! They were polite, respectful, and more than willing to find someone to help you out if they couldn't. The organization also put on a wonderful dinner on Friday night for all the racers and teams. It was flattering to have them personally thank us for traveling to Missouri... and we race in the Sportsman class. What was even more amazing was that they sent us a 'thank you' email after the event. We don't expect to be noticed by anybody and yet this is a group that truly appreciates all it's racers and is more than willing to tell you. It was a great feeling to be a part of an organization that cares as much for their Sportsman racers as it does their Pro racers. Not to mention that the series announcer, Shane, came over to our pit late Friday night to introduce himself and shoot the breeze with us for over an hour. And to top it off, Pro 2 driver, Dan Vanden Heuvel cruised over and shared some good stories too. He even took the time to talk with our 3 yr old daughter who was pointing out the 7's on his golf cart. We also met a great family from Wisconsin who races in our class, Jesse Plawman, his sister Veronica, and their dad Al. A great family who was more than willing to help us out with our carb issues. We got some great video action of Jesse and a few pictures of his late roll-over on Round 2. The track crew rolled him back on all 4 and he was able to still finish the race.
The weather played havoc almost from the get-go. It was crazy. We had thunderstorms following us through Texas and western Oklahoma. We continued east on I-40 thru Oklahoma to move away from the storm path. That slew of storms moved NE ahead of us and soon effected the racers coming down from Wisconsin. We arrived on Friday afternoon with a few hours to spare before practice and the WSORR dinner that followed, and the weather was great... sunny & 85º. But by the end of the night we knew things were changing. Saturday we had severe thunder storms, tornado watch, and more rain than we've seen in years. It was kind of exciting but we really wanted to race. Sunday was much better with sunny skies once again, and that sure helped the track conditions.
Friday nights practice went fair for us. It was good to get a look at the track and what to expect, but we were struggling with more carburetor issues. We had a crack in our 2-to-1 hose that connects the boost bottle to the carb. We sealed that up and thought we were ready for Saturday's practice. We didn't even get a full lap in on Saturday morning when we brought our buggy back into the pits to work on the carb, again. We adjusted the float, needle & seat, and were anxiously awaiting our 7pm start time. Mother nature had other ideas though. The winds picked up, followed by the rain... buckets of rain. Hickory county was soon under a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch for the rest of the day. And unfortunately the Lucas Oil Speedway was right in line with the numerous storms passing through. The races were delayed about 4 hours and then the Super Trucks finally took to the track. They got their race in while rain doused the track and made it just a sloppy mess. The trucks were having such a hard time getting any traction. It was like watching a bunch of rookie drivers on an icy road. They were everywhere. The drenching rains eventually postponed the rest of the races until Sunday morning. Teams were up all hours of the night pulling layers of mud from their trucks. It was wild. Sunday morning came with clear blue skies early and held for the majority of the day. Our class, 1600 buggy, was the 2nd race of the morning and it was a sloppy, slippery, track. Jeff Barrett in the BRM OFFROAD GRAPHICS #334 had a terrible time getting his Toyo Tires to hook up. We just needed more grooves cut to get some bite out there. Jeff didn't have much of a choice but to finish 11th in round 1, but the good news was the carb problem seemed to be solved J. With the sun and other races drying the track, we were anxious for Round 2 to see what we could do. Top finishers in Round 1 were Terry Fitzgerald, Mark Steinhardt, & Mike Seefeldt.
In between races we washed off the 20 pounds of mud or so, had Toyo groove the tires, ate lunch, and were ready to go for the next race. We started well and were in a 3-way battle for 2nd by turn 2 when things just fell apart. Jeff was coming down the back stretch and passed Chris Ernster in the #381 on the inside while at the same time Mark Steinhardt in the #331 passed Chris on the outside. The 3 of them were coming into the left-hander of turn 2 with Jeff on the inside, Chris in the middle, and Mark on the outside. Soon Mark made a very aggressive move and went from the outside of the track to the inside of the corner, pinching Jeff between Marks side and the berm to his left. The contact and braking action hung Chris out to dry and he wasn't able to react in time before slamming into the back of Jeff's buggy. It only got worse from there. In a sense Mark caused a 4 buggy pile up as Chris was then slammed from behind by another racer, followed by Kyle Lucas in the #314 slamming into the 3rd victim and trying to force his way thru the pile (there's a great picture in the JP3 link below, #81, showing Chris into the back of Jeff and Chris' right rear tire off the ground from the force of Kyle trying to make something happen). That gave Mark a lot of separation between 2nd and 3rd place while Brad Erickson tried his best to hold the lead for 1st. At the checkers it was Mark Steinhardt, Brad Erickson, & Terry Fitzgerald on the podium.
There are more pix on the WSORR site and http://www.jp3photo.com/p976187514/ (select photos 3, 4, 30, 56, 81, 82, & 98 to see our BRM OFFROAD 1600 Buggy in action).
The WSORR staff was amazing! They were polite, respectful, and more than willing to find someone to help you out if they couldn't. The organization also put on a wonderful dinner on Friday night for all the racers and teams. It was flattering to have them personally thank us for traveling to Missouri... and we race in the Sportsman class. What was even more amazing was that they sent us a 'thank you' email after the event. We don't expect to be noticed by anybody and yet this is a group that truly appreciates all it's racers and is more than willing to tell you. It was a great feeling to be a part of an organization that cares as much for their Sportsman racers as it does their Pro racers. Not to mention that the series announcer, Shane, came over to our pit late Friday night to introduce himself and shoot the breeze with us for over an hour. And to top it off, Pro 2 driver, Dan Vanden Heuvel cruised over and shared some good stories too. He even took the time to talk with our 3 yr old daughter who was pointing out the 7's on his golf cart. We also met a great family from Wisconsin who races in our class, Jesse Plawman, his sister Veronica, and their dad Al. A great family who was more than willing to help us out with our carb issues. We got some great video action of Jesse and a few pictures of his late roll-over on Round 2. The track crew rolled him back on all 4 and he was able to still finish the race.
The weather played havoc almost from the get-go. It was crazy. We had thunderstorms following us through Texas and western Oklahoma. We continued east on I-40 thru Oklahoma to move away from the storm path. That slew of storms moved NE ahead of us and soon effected the racers coming down from Wisconsin. We arrived on Friday afternoon with a few hours to spare before practice and the WSORR dinner that followed, and the weather was great... sunny & 85º. But by the end of the night we knew things were changing. Saturday we had severe thunder storms, tornado watch, and more rain than we've seen in years. It was kind of exciting but we really wanted to race. Sunday was much better with sunny skies once again, and that sure helped the track conditions.
Friday nights practice went fair for us. It was good to get a look at the track and what to expect, but we were struggling with more carburetor issues. We had a crack in our 2-to-1 hose that connects the boost bottle to the carb. We sealed that up and thought we were ready for Saturday's practice. We didn't even get a full lap in on Saturday morning when we brought our buggy back into the pits to work on the carb, again. We adjusted the float, needle & seat, and were anxiously awaiting our 7pm start time. Mother nature had other ideas though. The winds picked up, followed by the rain... buckets of rain. Hickory county was soon under a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch for the rest of the day. And unfortunately the Lucas Oil Speedway was right in line with the numerous storms passing through. The races were delayed about 4 hours and then the Super Trucks finally took to the track. They got their race in while rain doused the track and made it just a sloppy mess. The trucks were having such a hard time getting any traction. It was like watching a bunch of rookie drivers on an icy road. They were everywhere. The drenching rains eventually postponed the rest of the races until Sunday morning. Teams were up all hours of the night pulling layers of mud from their trucks. It was wild. Sunday morning came with clear blue skies early and held for the majority of the day. Our class, 1600 buggy, was the 2nd race of the morning and it was a sloppy, slippery, track. Jeff Barrett in the BRM OFFROAD GRAPHICS #334 had a terrible time getting his Toyo Tires to hook up. We just needed more grooves cut to get some bite out there. Jeff didn't have much of a choice but to finish 11th in round 1, but the good news was the carb problem seemed to be solved J. With the sun and other races drying the track, we were anxious for Round 2 to see what we could do. Top finishers in Round 1 were Terry Fitzgerald, Mark Steinhardt, & Mike Seefeldt.
In between races we washed off the 20 pounds of mud or so, had Toyo groove the tires, ate lunch, and were ready to go for the next race. We started well and were in a 3-way battle for 2nd by turn 2 when things just fell apart. Jeff was coming down the back stretch and passed Chris Ernster in the #381 on the inside while at the same time Mark Steinhardt in the #331 passed Chris on the outside. The 3 of them were coming into the left-hander of turn 2 with Jeff on the inside, Chris in the middle, and Mark on the outside. Soon Mark made a very aggressive move and went from the outside of the track to the inside of the corner, pinching Jeff between Marks side and the berm to his left. The contact and braking action hung Chris out to dry and he wasn't able to react in time before slamming into the back of Jeff's buggy. It only got worse from there. In a sense Mark caused a 4 buggy pile up as Chris was then slammed from behind by another racer, followed by Kyle Lucas in the #314 slamming into the 3rd victim and trying to force his way thru the pile (there's a great picture in the JP3 link below, #81, showing Chris into the back of Jeff and Chris' right rear tire off the ground from the force of Kyle trying to make something happen). That gave Mark a lot of separation between 2nd and 3rd place while Brad Erickson tried his best to hold the lead for 1st. At the checkers it was Mark Steinhardt, Brad Erickson, & Terry Fitzgerald on the podium.
There are more pix on the WSORR site and http://www.jp3photo.com/p976187514/ (select photos 3, 4, 30, 56, 81, 82, & 98 to see our BRM OFFROAD 1600 Buggy in action).
CORR ROUNDS 13 & 14 - PRIMM, NV 2007
This was by far our favorite track layout/design. It was awesome!! It was laid out more like a motocross track (we have been mx racing our quads since '92) with step-ups, flat corners, banked corners, tables, whoops, everything we love on our quads. We had a great weekend of racing. This was the second race weekend for our new chassis, and the only testing was at rounds 9 & 10 in September. We had one interference problem with our front suspension, but other than that it was great. During the time between it's debut and this race we were able to fix our interference problem and we were ready to go. We qualified 24th, out of 31 or so, for Saturdays race action. Jeff drove great out there with just a couple minor mistakes, but we weren't really able to gain much ground on the competition. We made some passes, gave up a couple spots, and finished in 25th. Later that night we switched our rear tires to lighter weight ones. We knew we were taking a risk with these other tires though as they have a softer sidewall. We were concerned that if we landed a jump wrong, over slid a turn, or if we got hit in the rear wheel area, we would probably blow a bead and DNF. We were hit in the back by Terry Kennedy during our race on Sunday, but the only damage he did was a nick in our exhaust. No hard feelings on our end, but we have heard the rumors about his overly aggressive racing style. But, we also know what they say about rumors... they start with a kernel of the truth. Jeff drove great on Sunday, and the tire switch proved to be an advantage. We started 25th and only worked our way up to 21st by the time the full course caution came out with 3 laps to go. As soon as the green flag was waving, Jeff started making his late moves J. He worked his way up to 18th and was battling Cissy Baldwin for that next position. He managed to make the pass right as they were taking the checkers and finished 17th! It was an incredibly exciting finish. We have just a few minor modifications to make in the off-season and we're going to try and secure sponsorship support for 2008 from Toyo Tires, Racer Offroad, Pro-Am/KarTek, & VP Fuels. We would like to thank Doug at Racer Offroad for the parts support he gave us and for coming by our pit and saying "hi". We would also like to thank Mike, the owner of Pro-Am (KarTek) for giving us a rear hub assembly at Rounds 9 & 10. We wouldn't have been able to race without their help. We'll be talking with someone at VP Fuels too. We were receiving sponsorship support up until the Primm race. They had a new guy working the track and wouldn't honor our sponsorship. We couldn't figure out why, so we'll be taking a look at that in the off-season. It was a great race season and we are ready to go for a full-season in 2008. Scroll down to see some Race and Practice pix.
CORR ROUNDS 9 & 10 - CHULA VISTA, CA 2007
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 single 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.
CORR 2007! May, Rounds 5 & 6
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
