San Felipe 250

We left just before noon on Thursday to caravan down to San Felipe. Dan and Laurie were in his truck with the race truck in the box trailer and Thomas and I were in Laurie's truck with Thomas' prerunner on the flatbed trailer. The trip down was long but pretty uneventful and included a small detour to Kartek so Thomas could pick up a new wheel.

Friday we were joined by Chicken Lips (that's not his real name, but the name he goes by on the Race Desert web site. Since I never learned his real name, that's what he's called.) and a couple of his brothers. Mike, who Thomas also met on Race Desert, also showed up to help us out. First order of business was to take the truck out to the start and evaluate the suspension and tires. After coming back with a good report, it was off to contingency and tech where the truck was inspected for safety. After several hours we were registered and through tech and on our way.

Waiting in line at Contingency

While at tech Dan talked to the guys at BFG and decided that he was going to leave the experimental Core mud tires with the inner liners on the rear wheels but up the pressure by 3 lbs in both the inner liners and the tires. With that change made, it was back out on the course to see what difference the adjustment made. Happy with the result, it was back to camp and off to dinner at Pete's camp where they took forever to bring us our food, but it was good when we finally got it. After dinner we set to changing the oil, sorting pit boxes and doing a final check of the truck. Around midnight while trying to diagnose a problem with the engine, a bigger problem was created, causing the truck to run very poorly. It took until around 2am to get it sorted but finally it was running better and it was off to bed. (I admit, there were enough other hands to grab tools, so I was in bed a lot earlier.)

Race morning, we had a team meeting to make sure everyone knew where they were going and what the game plan was going to be. Then we were loading pit boxes, food and tools into the chase trucks and suiting up. We were scheduled to stage at 10am just as the Trophy trucks started off the line. The start of the race went really well, with the truck running smoothly over the long stretch of whoops that is at the beginning of the course.

Off the start, flying through the whoops

As the rear shocks started heating up, however, our rear end started bucking and we had to slow down considerably and couldn't really get on top of the never ending series of bumps. By race mile 15 we were going 30-35 mph instead of 50-55. By race mile 35 most of our competitors had passed us. Along this stretch, we also broke the bolt holding our passenger side front limit strap in place. Thomas was going to come up to check us out as we passed at race mile 70 but broke a rear brake line at the military checkpoint along the way and didn't think he'd make it there before us. He was on the road faster than expected though, and was able to give us a once over before following us down to Morelia Junction where Laurie, Jake and others were waiting to top off our fuel and give us the spare we needed to fix the limit strap.

Thomas checking out the dangling limit strap as the truck speeds by

The only spare they had was broken but we took it to the BFG pit where they welded us back up and refueled us again. An either or that took us across the dry lake bed caught us back up with some of our competition where many of us got stuck in silt. We were buried up to our axles but were able to get out with the pull-pal and wench. That thing worked awesome. It took us about 6 minutes to get moving on our own and 4 minutes for me to figure out how to fold it back up and put it back on the truck. Next time I'll be faster. Running in silt with a race suit and helmet on makes me hot, really fast. Someday I'll learn to take my helmet off for these kind of situations. Still, only about 10 minutes to get moving and no digging totally rocked. We were splashed again with fuel after checkpoint 4 and the group there took their pit stop duties very seriously. We had people ready with open bottles of water for us while others were fueling and checking over the truck. After running through the silt, that water tasted wonderful. The next section of the course consisted of traveling through numerous canyons. Many of them were really rocky and rough. Somewhere along that stretch we blew our passenger side rear tire. It took us a while to figure out that it was flat but we had confirmation when we hit a rock hard and the inner liner went out with a gush of hissing air. We continued driving knowing it was flat because we were in really soft stuff and knew we wouldn't be able to start up again if we stopped. By the time we got to where we could stop, we were close to the road and there were many people and pits set up. We quickly found a group we knew and they were happy to help us change our flat quickly. I didn't even have to get out of the truck. Dan did get out and help them get the tire off since he was wearing gloves. It was steaming hot! From there, the rest of the way to the finish line was rough but fairly uneventful. We came in third and were able to finish in the daylight, never having to turn on our lights.

After the race, being interviewed by a writer from Dusty Times

In celebration of our success, but mostly because we were all starving, we all went out to a taco stand for dinner where we could share our stories of our race experience. It's always fun to hear what happened to the chasers while you were in the race truck and they like to hear about the events during the race that happened while they were sitting patiently (yeah right!) in the pits waiting for the truck to arrive. Stories swapped and quesa tacos consumed, we were headed back to camp where we packed up quickly and after a shower, called it an early night.

Sunday morning we were up at 6am to finish loading up and get on the road home. Despite our early departure, we still waited at the border for over two hours before getting into the States and continuing on our way. Our stop for dinner was extended as the neck of the flatbed trailer with Thomas' truck on it snapped as we went over a speed bump in the parking lot. Grateful we were in a parking lot and not on the freeway when it happened, we were able to get the welder and generator going and patch it back up enough for the rest of the trip home.

The trucks lined up in the parking lot to fix the trailer

I was safely home before 10pm and able to get a good night's sleep before heading back to work Monday morning. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I have to go on these trips and for the continual blessing of safety that we have been provided. There are some guardian angels working overtime out there...