2011 NORRA Results

[Broncodawg]

Always an adventure teaming up with Ken Leavitt (Anger Issues Racing) and this race was no different. Ken had dropped in a new-used engine just days before the race and after completing tech there was still alot the F150 needed. We dove into it and by early morning race day the truck was ready to go. Fired the truck up next morning to head to the start and lost all spark before we even cleared the hotel parking lot. Scrambled around Mexicali for Mallory parts and struck out, so we packed it in and headed North to regroup for the Plaster City Snore Race.
Great time visiting with the other teams at tech and around the hotel despite the DNS. Best of luck to Ken at the Snore race.

Hope you fared better Tom W? Who were you racing with?

[PBR]

that sucks!

[BajaF250]

Hope you fared better Tom W? Who were you racing with?

Actually, not a whole lot better... We were helping Bob Howle with his buggy, car #30. The team set him off from the start and we were staged to meet him at the beginning of SS2 Day 1 at Borrego and we planned to chase him down to BOLA. We heard on radio while we were waiting there at the SS2 start that Bob had a problem. So, we packed up and headed up to the intersection of the highway and the dry lake bed at the end of SS1. We found out that Bob had blown his engine about 22 miles form the start. So, we headed backward up the course to find him. As it turned out, we must have had the wrong GPS file. More on that later.

On the way north across the dry lake bed, we can across two bikers flaked out under a tree, with only one bike. As it turns out, one of the two had blown his head gasket 30 or 40 miles north and they doubled up to make it to the highway. It took them a while to figure out that it was way too much to ride double in the deep sand and silt and it exhausted them. So, Jules and I scrunched up and we wedged the rider in while his buddy headed for the end of stage 1. We found his bike about 35 miles north and we proceeded to load the bike into the back of the BajaF250 (after much rearranging). We headed off to find Bob and the buggy.

We finally found them about 15 miles off course. Somewhere along the line either we got the wrong course load or they changed the course at the last minute. So, either he was on the wrong course or we were... hmmm... still don't know.

Anyway, we hooked Bob up to Bill's prerunner and we proceeded to tow Bob and I had the bike and we made our way 52 miles south through the dry lake bed to the end of SS1 at the highway. We were lucky as we had radio communications with the chase team at the highway and they were able to contact the bike rider's chase crew and they stayed to meet up with us. The bike team was from Odessa Texas, never been to Mexico... wholely unprepared. Much more to that story!

Somewhere along the way, Bill lost the retaining bolt to his power steering pump (we didn't know it at the time) and it started to emit a very loud clanking sound... Bill was afraid his motor was gone. He also started to overheat, so at the end of the day, we headed north to Mexicali, stayed overnight at the Colonial and then he had his guys bring his trailer down from San Diego so we could trailer his prerunner back. We got back into San Diego late on Friday evening.

All in all, we had a great time and other than a little excess tranny temp in the sand and silt, the BajaF250 ran GREAT.

[Broncodawg]

The Baja F2Fitty shines again. Way to help out those in need and atleast you guys got off the line.
Watching tranny temps is no fun....haha!