. We wish we could do more for you in return. Okay onto the report........Thursday headed out at about 830am with the trailer hooked up to the bronco and about two blocks down the street I experience some severe Death Wobble as my son likes to say. So I made a few phone calls and got the bronco over to a certified tire to have an alignment and inspection done. Well my passenger side steering linkage (the long one was bent pretty badly) ball joints good and alignment way out of whack which I knew. The tech noticed a bunch of oil grease around the drivers side rear brake and went ahead and pulled the drum only to find I had a severely leaking axle seal
. This was not how I wanted to start the weekend for sure. SO I had the work done while we waited. By the time it was all said and done we were on the road by about 630 pm.....We decided to go ahead and make camp so we could have a good start Friday. Got out to johnson valley about 830 that evening to be greeted with gusting winds.....Oh no not cool. My brother got out about 130 am and we called it a night around 3am.Friday got moving about 630 am as we wanted to get the car tested and the pits set up. The wind had given us a small break..or so we thought. Well anyways we got into the car with Matt driving for a good run with all feeling good. We swapped out and I was behind the wheel to reacquaint with the 990. We ran up to mm 71 or so for the run into main. I Feeling pretty comfortable and the car running like a raped ape I head into a sweeping rutted out turn that required us to make a crossing to the left from the outside to avoid a pit lane. I made my crossing a bit to fast and a little sharp. As we started the cross over I felt the rear end swing around on me with little else I could do. I couldn't make the correction fast enough and the right rear bit into the sand sending us on a barrel roll landing back on all fours. Matt and I were good to go with me having a bit of a bruised ego. The car lost the two side mounted hids as the housing shattered. So we limp the car back with it feeling okay for a good once over. The car checked out and we headed out for the same test run once again with Matt driving. All seems well. For good measure I hop back into the car with BlackMarket Bryan riding co-dawg. Everything on the car seems good to all of us. THat was a relief. With the wind whipping at us we get the car loaded up for tech.
Got through Tech no issues and get back to the pits to get some food and have a few adult beverages with friends. Wind is now kicking our butts with gusts of sand! Dirt and sand relentlessly pounded us through the night causing those in tents to find shelter in their sleeping bags or have a covering of it on anything exposed..No Fun!
Saturday Morning Race Day! With no reprieve form the wind and a drop in the temperature we are all ready to go race. Final checks on the car and I got to give my daughter a ride in the Mighty 990! Priceless that girl was in heaven all day! So Matt and Gary are up for first two laps and suit up. We do a quick radio check and NO RADIO! WTF! Pressed for time we check connections etc with no joy. Send them up to stage where the panels get pulled and nothing. Suspect are the PTT button and antenna (Damage form roll over?) So I grab the spare PTT switch and pull the antenna off of a chase vehicle and get set to make changes as soon as they started. We got a cell phone at the last minute to car at the starting line and the decision was made to take the first lap minus radio communication.
Fourth off the line and into the dust....needless to say I am not a happy camper not having radio with the car so we wait. About an hour into the race the cell rings
The news is not good...Blown motor and mm 47.I call Tony (chase A) on the radio as he was at mm 57 with the bad news and they start moving to the car. Bryan, Philo,MIke and me take my bronco and head out. Tony finds the lifeless 990 with no good way to tow them out. Deep loose sand and hills. Quickly the chase A team is able to turn the car around and get across the course to tow it back. After much effort the chase A team found a way to get the car pulled over the and onto the power line road ( I will leave details to Tony on this as I was only able to listen in on the efforts while we waited)where we meet up with them. Race day for the Kaveman team is over
Suspect the motor lost a connecting rod or crank. The lower end had been run for 2 1/2 seasons We wont know until we get it pulled apart. The rest of the day was spent hiding form the wind and watching what was a dwindling field of cars into the night. The temperature fell into the low 40s and we woke up to the backside of big-bear mountains being covered in snow. Caught some rain on the way home as well.
Had a great time despite the weather. Thanks again to all the help we had, Sorry it was such a short race for us.
