R&B Racing, #1903 UTV Production 1000 Co-Driver Re-Cap
All in all I'm calling our first run at King of the Hammers a success, considering the course and not knowing what it was going to be until after we arrived. I learned a lot, and was awed by other competitors and their gracious nature.
I want to first start out by thanking R&B Racing Driver/Car Owner, Lyn Carstens (Rox) and her Husband Trent, for prepping the car from X-mas to race day. An amazing amount of work and time went into it and I wish I could have been there to help.
Rox is an amazing driver, very confident and fearless, I have always admired her skills and have worked hard over the years just to keep up with her on our wheeling adventures.
To our pit crew and helpers, you were awesome. Trent Carstens, Rick White, JK, Dave McQueary, Johnny and Emma Jo, we couldn't have done it without you.
To our Hammertown neighbors, Jeff Grass (MJ Motorsports), Bink Hurrey (Bink's Fabrication), Friends Daryl Dickerson, Jeff Love, Bunk, Matt Enochs, Sarah, Rob Usnick, Nathan Unruh, Craig Baum and the 4594 boys, Marc, Dylan, Brenden and Trent - all generous with their time, help, tools and answering my noob questions. Everyone of you offered good advice, and made helpful suggestions. I can't thank you enough. I feel like we made some lifelong friends this week and can't wait to hang with you all again.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon, quickly unloaded and made our plan to pre-run the desert section on Saturday. After we got the map Friday morning, we sat in shock as I counted up all the rock trails, and decided we didn't want to pre-run the rocks. Neither of us wanted to stay up all night analyzing our lines over and over again, or risk breaking the car. We figured it was better to deal with them as they came, the lines were probably going to change anyway.
I asked Matt Enochs to come over and do a quick pre-tech on our razr, to see if there were any glaring issues before we went to tech. He obliged and when he noticed that we were running the 12-inch Hyper Wheels, he warned us, and as he recounted his history from the year before, he pointed out, that from our pre-run, the wheels were deeply grooved where rocks had hung up in the calipers and gouged the rims, they were soon on their way to splitting in half. Not good.
Because of Matt's observation, the next day was spent looking for replacement wheels...desperately reaching out to vendors who had nothing in Hammertown. Then Rick found our Friend, Charlene Bower, she came through with a contact that had what we needed, Guy from Upland UTV out of Loma Linda. He was an hour and a half away from Hammertown, so Rox hopped in the truck the next day and went to pick them up at his shop. On the way home she stopped at numerous tire shops to find someone who could remount the Pit Bull tires on the new bead-locks.
Tech went well, surprisingly we only had one simple issue to remedy...and we were off to the races. We teamed up with Ken Hower's #1965 Team and Marc Zaboth's #4594 Team and split up fuels, tires, tools, tarps etc and made a plan to help each other man all 4 Pits. In the end this worked really well because what we didn't have, others did, and it made it all go smoothly for all three teams.
On race day when we started lining up, we were told 3 times, a different car number we needed to be next to. We had drawn 7th position and ended up taking off three cars behind the Production 1000 car in 6th position. I hope the times are adjusted properly, as we did not start 30 seconds behind #1962 like it says on the start times. It was frustrating. We just wanted to GO!
We took the green flag, hauling the mail passing several cars, both EMC and UTV. We were fast in the desert. When we made it to the first pit, we got some gas and got going again. When we arrived at RM 48's sand hill, there was about 5 UTV's waiting for another UTV with a broken axle on the sand hill. While Rox waited, I hiked up the hill with my gear in case we needed to winch, others were already winching. When it was her turn to hit the hill she nailed it, I had to huff my way to the top to catch her, and jump in the car. We were off and heading towards main pit.
Got to main pit, had the car looked over, more fuel...but the kicker is we both had to pee. We had a PETT tent arranged for Pit 2, but there was no way we were going to make it. We jumped out of the car and started running for the 2 blue boys next to the Genright tent. It was difficult trying to strip out of our suits and keep the sleeves from dropping onto the floor where it appeared guys had poor aim. (I would like to respectfully ask the ISA to adjust the rules for females to be able to use a 2 piece suit, logistically, it would save us a lot of time (comparable to a male), since we can't wear catheters
)
We jumped back into the car and were off to Aftershock. Rox drove like a mad woman, and upon arriving at the first little waterfall just before RM72, we needed to winch. As we were winching Dave Eulburg got passed us, gracious and a bit coy, Dave said - "Hi Bebe" with a smirk on his face as they moved on. We knew Ken Hower was already ahead, as he did not stop at main pit.
We got hung up in some rocks on the left line a little further up the trail, and saw a Red Jeep heading towards us. They offered us a pull, we accepted, and got us off the ledge. It later came to my attention that it was DJ Harmon. Thanks DJ404564x4LMNOP
We went a little further and realized we had broke a passenger front half shaft. I don't know his name, but another razr racer stopped to see if we needed help, and pulled the shaft for us. He had parts coming to repair his Rzr. We continued on in 3 wheel drive and got hung up again. The tie rod was bent making it difficult for Rox to hold a line in the rocks. This time our neighbors (Marc and Trent) in the 4594 ECORS Formula Toy happened by and they pulled us until we got to the second sand wash. They must have helped us for 10 minutes, and we finally told them to just go! I felt bad holding them up to help us.
At that point, we saw 4 other UTV racers that were already heading back. It was almost 2PM, and we were quickly approaching the cutoff. Rox and I parked the Razr (past RM 72.5) and decided to hike up to see what was in store if we continued to RM73. It was at that time we saw more than 6 EMC vehicles in the canyon, contorted, flopped and winching. As we were watching, Bailey Cole came up, struggling in his Toyota 4Runner, he had lost his power steering. I don't know who his TinBender spotter/co-driver was, but he was very patient with Bailey, and Bailey was working really hard to get through the course.
As we headed back to the Razr, we called it. Now it was about how to get back.
As we started back we realized we may have broken the front diff and were probably in 2 wheel drive. We continued and looked for a way back to camp, ran into some of the drag/sweep team, and got the OK to head back on the course to Hammertown. We called our crew to let them know our ETA, and to make sure the Adult beverages were at the ready.
As we arrived in town, we turned down Rugged Rd., our entire pit crew were standing out front, applauding and with proud smiles, I noticed Trent and Rick had tears in their eyes...so proud of their girls...they were bursting with pride and admiration. I think that moment was the best part of the whole adventure.
Sponsors - we didn't have any officially, but Dragonfire Racing gave a lot of help and guided Rox and Trent while they were building the car.
We learned a lot, we know what we did well, what we weren't prepared for, and what to plan for next time. That will only help us be more competitive...next year.
Thanks especially to Dave Cole, and all of the volunteers who bust their asses making this event happen, keeping us safe, and providing the most incredible racing venue in all of Desert Racing.
Bebe
