by Goatman » February 13th, 2013, 9:11 am
We got through this section and finished the first loop and stopped at main pit a little after 10:00. Cal and I got a quick snack and a bottle of water while the guys did a quick look over of the car, and in our excitement we told the pit crew to not fuel us, we'd fuel in pit 2. Dumb. At this point it looked like we were in 3rd place on course. OK, not pushing hard and we're in good position. We went through more fast desert, mixing it up with a couple of 4500 cars, and made it to the first rock trail Aftershock. The 4500 class started before us at 8:00, and the UTV classes started at 9:00. We caught a few 4500 cars and a 4600 car broken down at the last big section of Aftershock, which is pretty hard, and the first couple of UTV's caught us while we were working through. Cal had to get out again and we winched through the hardest section, then there was another car broken and parked in the normal line, so Cal spotted me through a harder line and we had to winch one more time.
We cleared the top of Aftershock, and stopped to air our tires down which had been our plan. The next trail was Hwy 19/20 and we moved along well until we came to a particularly difficult section where we had to wait for a UTV and a 4500 car. Cal got out to help them set a winch point, and he helped them both winch through, then we winched through. A little further up we got the front axle hung between two rocks and we couldn't go forward or back. The first three rocks that Cal hooked the winch to came down and didn't hold, so there wasn't a place to winch that gave us a good angle. Cal had me keep turning the wheel and winching while he kept stacking rocks and we finally got clear, but a white 4600 Cherokee, a couple 4500 cars, and a UTV passed us while we were stuck. We finished Hwy 19/20 with no more issues and made it to pit 2 around 2:00.
At pit 2 the car got checked over, we ate a sandwich and had a bottle of water, and we took on fuel. At this point we were in 3rd place again. We went across Fissure Mtn Trail, enjoyed the views from the top of the ridge, and made it down Jackhammer with no issues, then came to Chocolate Thunder and all the crowds. More soft sand for Cal as he got out and we winched over the first ledge, then I was able to crawl the rest of the entrance obstacle and the rest of the trail. We let a UTV take another line at the beginning, and while I was working around a couple of diff grabbers the UTV took a different line and barely made it around us while the crowd yelled. We heard fans yelling our names which was kind of cool, and even though the UTV passed us we made it through clean, though we did have to wait for the UTV on the next obstacle. Cal grabbed the UTV's winch line and helped the other co-x get the UTV through and then we cleared it and finished the trail.
Next up was Wrecking Ball. We had to winch right at the beginning, then had no problems until we came to the waterfall, where a 4500 car was having a real hard time winching up with a broken front axle. We waited a bit, but they finally made it, and we winched right up. We had passed the white 4600 Cherokee somewhere, but they caught us at the bottom of the waterfall. We drove down Clawhammer, up lower and upper Big Johnson, and down Boulderdash with no issues, and then stopped at pit 2a. Cal and I knew we were in 2nd place, we were running out of time to finish at 5:00, and we knew the other 4600 car was on our ass.
Cal had seen that one of the arms on the front anti-rock sway bar was bent and rubbing on the spring, and it was making noise, so we told the pit crew to cut it off. Out came the cut off wheels, since it was quicker than what it would take to unbolt it, and since sparks were flying the other guys held up adding more fuel. The car got checked, looked good, the sway bar arm was removed, the tires got aired back up, and they started to add another can of gas. Cal and I wanted to get going and yelled that we didn't need gas (dumb) and main pit had not communicated to pit 2 that we had skipped taking fuel there (dumb), so the decision was made to not add more fuel (dumb). BTW, did I mention that drivers and co-drivers can get kind of stupid during a race?
We peeled out from pit 2a at roughly 4:30 heading for Elvis with around 25 miles of course yet to run. A few miles out of pit 2a the engine started sputtering slightly now and then. WTF? We easily cleared Elvis and had some fast desert on the way back to the tight twisty sandy rocky ridge that we had to do again, but the engine was sputtering a little more now. I was cussing because I thought we could be running out of gas and how stupid it was for us to not take gas and what if we freakin' ran out of gas and didn't make it? I had slowed down and was cruising and up shifting to save fuel just in case. We made it to the sandy rocky ridge and came to the steep loose sandy chute where we'd had to winch earlier in the day, and the engine was sputtering more consistently by now.
I diffed in the sand in the chute, Cal got out so we could winch, while he was doing that I worked it some more and got it to clear and was able to drive on up the chute, and then the engine died.....and wouldn't restart. Moth...Fu....!! Our only choice was to winch up and see if the fuel would get back on the pick ups and maybe it would start. So, Cal got to walk up and down some more steep sand, and we winched. There were course recovery guys still there, and they gave us a hand, and some winch points, and really helped us out, but all of this dead engine winching and multiple winch points and soft sand took a lot of time. But, the engine did finally start again!!!
Cal got in and we took off hoping like hell that we could at least get over the ridge and be able to reach the crew on the radio. The engine was running like crap, but it kept running and we kept moving. We had a big hill to climb and wondered if we should chance it or leave the course just so we could maybe get back, but I thought f*ck it let's go for it and Cal said then you better get on it and we made it up the hill, then down the really steep drop on the other side. Now we could really see the lights of Hammertown and the finish line with maybe 2 miles to go of steep up and down cross grain close to the bottom of the ridge. Running like crap, but the motor kept going and we kept moving. The last obstacle was a long steep climb up over the top of King Mtn and then down to the finish line. We thought there's no way the car is going to climb that hill but I wasn't going to go around now and so we blasted up the hill with the engine barely running and made it to the top, then down to the finish line and the checkered flag with all of our crew waiting. Son of a bitch!! We had made it!! It was close to 6:30, we were past the time cut off, but we had finished the race!
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Richard Gauthier
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