Moss Brothers Racing

[300]

It's just easier writing it all down once, but it ends up being a loooong read, so here it is:

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Moss Brothers Racing
2011 Baja 1000 Race Report

The 2011 Baja 1000 took place November 17-20, starting and finishing this year in Ensenada as a 700 mile loop race. The KC HiLites Moss Brothers Racing Bronco is once again the winner in SCORE class 3! Most racers had seen the course earlier in the year as it was made up of the combined Baja 500 and Baja 250 loops. The Baja 250 course was used again in September to replace the Primm race. Needless to say, the course was worn out, rough and rocky. On top of that, it had rained hard in the region the week before and there were ponds of water in Ensenada. On the bright side, the rain knocked down the dust on most of the course.

This year, after 2 years of scraping to find work, I have been swamped with several construction projects so I have had little time to prepare the truck. We had run the Laughlin race in January and then the Baja 500 in June. The King shocks and Beard seats had been rebuilt right after the Baja 500, but a lot of the prep did not occur until just before the race. We are fortunate that several of the team members arrived for a couple of weekends to help. The front axle was removed and received new gears at River City Differentials. We had run the backup transmission at the Baja 500, so the primary transmission was re-built in a new case after it was damaged at the Baja 1000 last year. We had experienced some trouble with the new engine quitting and running hot at the Baja 500, so we found a chassis dynamometer to test on before we left for the race. We found a bad fuel pump that likely caused a very lean condition and the high temperatures. KC HiLites provided a couple of their new dust lights with yellow lenses, so we have a complete set of the 70 watt “Pods” now.

We were able to get most of the technical inspection, registration, BFG meeting, and the tracking device installed on Wednesday, with contingency on Thursday, and the race on Friday. As usual, contingency day was a circus, with tons of t-shirt vendors but not too many race vendors. With everything done, we were able to cruise through the inspection. Rick and I then went out to pre-run the start of the course. The massive construction project continues just east of Ensenada, and this is where the course runs. In addition to the housing project, they are now building a highway that will bypass the city through this area. The highway includes a massive bridge as well. You can imagine the chaos of running a race course through an active construction area. Stay tuned. It was a good thing we pre-ran as there more than 20 miles of brand new roads that were added before the course even reached Ojos Negros. The new road was carved through the thick brush in the hills.

Race day was Friday, and we anticipated a 12:30 start and arrived in town at the appropriate time. From the staging area we can usually hear the race cars entering the wash heading out of town. Sometime around 11:30 we heard a few Trophy Trucks leave, but then it went strangely quiet. It turns out there was a massive traffic jam occurring just about 4 miles from the start near the bridge construction area. A truck had tried to beat the racers during the 4 hour intermission between the motorcycles and race trucks and it had become jack-knifed and then turned over blocking the race course completely! SCORE had little choice, and had to collect up all of the Trophy Trucks that had not started yet along with the officials and dignitaries and parade them out to the traffic jam. As soon as the overturned truck was removed, they restarted the Trophy Truck race there. After that, all of the officials had to return to the original start line to start the rest of the race classes. In all, it delayed our start by something like an hour and a half and we left the line at about 2 p.m.

We were the third of 7 total racers in Class 3 to start. The first two entries were early Broncos and Rick and I caught them both at the end of the muddy wash in town. The Dave Moore Bronco started behind us, and then a Toyota FJ, the Kia and then the black Jeep now owned by Billy Bunch. We had run nearly 800 miles side by side with the Moore Bronco last year at the Baja 1000, and the Bunch Jeep had led most of the Baja 500 this year, but this time we never saw either again for the rest of the race. We passed a number of other class vehicles and had to push a stalled Baja bug out of the way just before the highway section at the infamous KM 77. At the BFG pit at RM 81 we got fuel and Dan replaced Rick as the navigator. The Bronco was running well and felt OK but the steering was a little vague. Because of the late start, it was dark by RM 100 and we were fortunate that the KC HID lights were working perfectly as we began the ascent of the Summit. In this area and for the next 50 miles you don’t want make the slightest mistake as it would take forever for a chase crew to get to you with assistance. We carefully and literally crawled our way up and over the Summit. We arrived at Laguna Salada expecting to really open it up and see what this new engine would do, but the dust from another racer and surprisingly rough conditions on the dry lake bed made it impossible to run any more than about 80 mph. After the lake, the course dumps into silt beds. Even with the rain, the area looked like strings of Christmas lights made up of stuck vehicles. We were able to carefully pick our way through the mess and with many thanks to the requirement that our class have four-wheel-drive, we went on to the most horrible road ever that eventually ends in the area known as Borrego.

At RM 198 we finally arrived at the BFG pit 2 where I was barely able to get myself out of the truck. I was spent from nearly 200 miles of abuse. Ken and Dennis got in and headed into the San Felipe loop. Borrego is sort of what I imagine the Burning Man gathering to be like, all except for the speeding unlimited race cars screaming by. It is always dark, dusty and windy with thousands of racers and spectators milling around in the middle of nowhere. I was able to grab a couple of homemade tamales from a vendor in an equally homemade trailer before we climbed into the chase truck to be transported to our next contact with the Bronco south of San Felipe at BFG 3. I was able to get some sleep during the trip. We had been getting reports from Iowa Pete via the internet tracking site, and we started to realize that we had developed somewhat of a lead on the other entries in the class. However we still had more than half the race to go and our biggest competitor would be the time limit to finish. With 32 hours to finish, any downtime at all begins to push the time limit, so we continued to keep up our pace. What we didn’t know was that the tracking transmitter we had was operating intermittently and to most watching it appeared that we were parked for extended amounts of time and the other entries were driving by us. For this reason IRC now provides a second GPS receiver device that actually records the time and position of the vehicle for the race. When the Bronco started to get close to BFG pit 3, Dennis called in and said we needed to adjust the shocks. Not the most fun thing to do in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, but we got the tools out and some adjustments were made. I am not sure how much of the difference the changes made. I think it was just that the course was so bad, not that the shocks were that far out of adjustment. We later talked to a Trophy Truck driver and he told us that the San Felipe loop was even extremely rough for them! Cliff and I got in at BFG 3 and headed out to cover two of the big washes along with the whoop section north of town. For the second year in a row, Cliff was there for some foreign objects entering the cab. Last year it was the buzzard down by Loreto, this year it was a nice juicy Cholla cactus that exploded into about 20 six inch long pieces when I got a little too close. With the triple layer suit, they are pretty easy to pick off and throw back out the window. About 10 minutes later another chunk falls down onto my arm that must have stuck to the roll cage padding, and then another 10 minutes later another falls down between the seat and my back! Help Cliff!

We arrived at Borrego for the second time as the sun was coming up, and I had to admit that it seemed like the shocks were working better in the same section I had covered before. At BFG 4 we added some oil for a rear main seal that had been leaking and Ken and Craig got in to cover the cross-over back to the Pacific side. We met them again for a visual pit at Valle de Trinidad and three of our four chase trucks made their way to Ojos Negros for an expected 5 or 6 hour wait for them to come back around. We had planned to have crew chief Dave and Gary get in the truck at Llano Colorado and run the truck up the beach section. While we waited I got a call from Ken on the sat phone. He said I had probably heard the news, but I assured him I had heard nothing, so he filled me in on a little incident they had 5 miles from Llano Colorado. To keep from alarming any of our sensitive readers, let’s just say a certain part slipped off of another and Ken experienced some vehicular directional instability and the truck encountered a vertical section of earth near the marked course. The parts were reunited and the tire that had been knocked off a rim were changed but it was found that both rear brake calipers and both rear main leafs were broken behind the axle. It isn’t clear how the parts in the rear were related to what happened in front, but they had just survived the worst beating ever in the 250 mile San Felipe loop. The rear calipers were removed, the brake line capped off going to the rear, and we just let the broken main leafs ride. We estimate we lost about an hour with the down time. Dave and Gary got in at Llano Colorado and proceeded up the beautiful Pacific coast section of the course. At least it was daylight this time and there was no fog, but it was at a slightly slower pace having only front brakes. They handed back off to Ken and Craig again at Santo Tomas for the run back to Ojos Negros. At Ojos, I got back in to replace Ken and took it in to the finish in Ensenada for a total time of 25:28:56 and average speed of 27.67 mph. The results show us as the 55th overall 4 wheel finisher. The former Endeavor Bronco and the Kia were still running, but timed out around BFG 4 and did not finish.

As always there is a huge list of people and vendors that get the truck out to the race, help get it around the course, and watch over it from behind a computer screen. Thanks to Dave, Ken, Rick, Gary and Cliff for coming out and helping with the prep and making it happen in record time. Thanks to Craig for setting us up with the new mufflers and Cliff for providing the new steering components. Thanks to Iowa Pete, Chris, Daphne and Leslie for tracking our race progress. Thanks to Dan for working out the race logistics and setting us up with our pit books. Every once in a while we get the opportunity to bring some new members along with the team, and this year we were able have Mike (owner of Powdercoat-It.com) and Krystian join us. Both were overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what goes into one of these races, and both loved every minute of it! Robert and Susie weren’t able to make it this year, and I hope Susie’s health issues work out. And finally thanks to Michelle for putting together and sending out our press releases since we formed the team back in 2000.

We would very much like to thank KC HiLites for all they have done for us. Their lights really make the night sections a non-issue. We would also like to thank BF Goodrich once again for their superior pit support and for a tire that puts up with incredible abuse. We have had only one single tire lose air in a race this year, and that’s because it got knocked off the rim. Thanks also to Slime that we combine with the BFG tires to prevent flats. Thanks to Midstate Barriers for their substantial assistance, and of course River City Differentials, RuffStuff Specialties, PowderCoat-It.com, Sunoco fuel, King shocks, Deaver springs, West Coast Broncos, Driveline Service in West Sacramento, and Autofab.

[SteveG]

Great summary, Don! I had no idea you guys had all that down time. You guys still killed, even with that!

another 10 minutes later another falls down between the seat and my back! Help Cliff!

Ouch!

[RyanDS650X]

That was a great read! Congrats guys, it was a blast sitting behind the computer and watching that little 300 dot on the RDC map just keep going and going.

[tcm glx]

Awesome read, and congrats on another win!!

[BajaF250]

Don,
Congrats to the entire 300 race team on another epic win. You always seem to pull it together and blast the competition. Well done across the board. Another Baja 1000 and 2011 SCORE Class three champion. Thanks for sharing the story.

[broncosbybart]

Great writeup! Enjoyed every second of it. Congrats on the well deserved win!!!

I don't race in the desert, but if I ever do, note to self- stay out of the cacti. That didn't sound like my idea of a good time...

[Broncodawg]

Great write-up! Almost like being there! Haha! Chalk up another one to a bad-ass old truck!
Now that the engine is tested, what kind of dyno numbers did she make?

[300]

Now that the engine is tested, what kind of dyno numbers did she make?

Believe it or not, we made a whopping 198 hp, and that's what we won with. It really laid down after 4000 rpm. Still got some work to do!

[SuperSixAxis]

Wow, This was so much fun to read and I had so much fun cheering you guys on!

Well done Truck #300!!!!!

[Polarcub]

Congrats on another great race for the team! Love the read I was laughing as I was reading about the cati! Some of the things that happen out there....Well done!

[Ford 4 US]

Well 300...... Let's hear the 2013 story......


Please....