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MORE Race Report
What a fun race format! You MORE guys really know how to have a good time. The drag race start, everything is close to the main pit, people are friendly and laid back, I can't say enough good things about MORE and this race in particular.
Our race was eventful if not successful. Doug Hood, a long time member of our team, got to start the race in the driver seat for the first time. Unfortunately for us... - Broke 4 teeth off the pinion gear at RM9. George Kane pulled the truck back to the big trailer behind his ultimate Jeep, we didn't have a spare 3rd member, but we did have an old ring and pinion, so we swapped them out (cooled the spool in the ice chest, heated the ring gear in the sun) and started over 4 hours behind everyone else. This was a real team effort, we had RJ and Pasor Steve under the truck, Tom Rose and Zach setting up the new gears, I R&R'd the axles, and Marco, Mike Schmitt and Leonard went over the underhood stuff and generally went over the truck to make sure everything else was OK. FYI - Ford 9" full floater, gears and axles were new less than a year ago, everything had been crack checked and the backlash re-set by a competent shop before San Felipe, had less than 400 miles on it including prerunning and racing. We were using Swepco 240 gear oil, and have never had a failure in 5 years of racing : ( - Truck ran great for 51 Miles of our first lap (60 including the 9 we had to do twice). - At RM 51 the ignition problem that we thought we'd fixed after San Felipe came back; Managed to nurse the truck across the line and back to the trailer. Replaced the Igniter and the truck fired up, so we sent Zach out on a lap with a new co-dog, Mark Sasaki, but the intermittent ignition came back after 20 miles, and we had to tow the truck back to the pit (again). - This time we took the ECU apart and looked at it (Tom Rose said it was like a bunch of pigs looking at a wristwatch) and couldn't identify which component was getting hot, but the act of cooling the circuit boards down to ambient temp (around 48F or so) seemed to help. - We put Chris Livingston in the driver seat with Brian Connelly (Chris is a long time Co-Dog, fisrt time driver, RJ is a first timer with a lot of desert experience) and they completed a second lap, although the intermittent condition came back around RM 36, and got progressively worse until it finally dies for good right at the trailer after completing lap # 2. By then it was 1:30 AM, so we shut it down and went to sleep. - Altogether we only finished 2 laps, but did the first 9 miles 4 times and the first 20 miles 3 times, for about 140 miles overall. This was a valuable learning experience for us, as we think we have the ignition problem narrowed down to a faulty ECU or a Crank Position Sensor that gets intermittent once it reaches a certain temperature. The rest of the truck worked flawlessly, other than a minor power steering cooler leak (do any of you NOT use a pwer steering cooler? Seems like we're always getting a leak in ours). Leonard Madrid, our resident welder, managed to melt two male fittings together to make a union so we bypassed the cooler for the last lap. Overall, everyone had a great time, we came together as a team to solve a lot of difficult problems, and got 2 new drivers and 2 new co-dogs some seat time. |
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Race Truck Update
The San Felipe 250 was a heartbreaker for the Long Beach Racers team. We spent a lot of time and money preparing for this race; Solo Motorsports practically rebuilt the entire truck, we pre-ran the whole course in the race truck the weekend before (faster than John Holmes winning speed) and had virtually no problems, other than a broken passenger side leaf spring, which we fixed before the race. During the race, the truck performed flawlessly off the start, we skied the big jump the locals put in on the dump road, and passed Heidi Steele and Norm Turley in the silt beds around RM 50. Turley eventually blew his motor and DNF'd, but Heidi finished 4th. We also passed Jesse James' trophy truck at race mile 12, where an unknown malady had him sidelined. Seems like it was a bad day for everyone from Long Beach.
At RM58 we had to pass Heidi again, because their prerunning had identified a graded dirt road a few hundred yards from the course that let them pass us, but we caught them in the whoops and were just going by when the ignition started cutting out. We pulled over and tried to troubleshoot the problem, aided by Brian Connelly (RJ) and his Dad, who pulled up just in time. We found that the engine would die when we turned on the radiator fan, so we thought we had it isolated to a bad ignition switch, which took power from the same place. When we "hotwired" the ignition switch, it seemed to run OK, so we took off and tried to play catch up. We were the last truck in our class to get through Checkpoint 1. Then the engine dies again. This time the EMS relay seemed hot, so we swapped it for another relay and looked for bad grounds in the system. The engine started again, so we took off, but only went about 10 miles before it cut out again, right at RM93 (Morelia Junction). This time Zach, Doug, Andrew, Leonard, Riley, Brian, his Dad, and Andrew's friend were all there at Zoo Road. We checked every connection we could, tightened all the components, did a driver swap, and Doug & Zach took off to try to get a finish. They finally coasted to a stop at RM106, did the match and figured out that even if we could make Checkpoint 2, which was doubtful, there was no way the truck would make it through Matomi in that condition, and called for a tow back to Pete's Camp. Other than breaking the driver side leaf spring this time, the truck is in great shape. The guys from Solo did a thorough prep job, and we give them the credit for the truck holding together. Intermittent electrical issues are always tough to solve, so we are going to run the MORE Day & Night 500 as a test to make sure that the truck will be ready for the Best In The Desert Vegas to Reno race this August. |
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Race Truck Update
We preran last weekend and the truck worked great. The course is brutal for the first 40 or 50 miles as usual, but it speeds up after that, thanks to some new routing and firmer packing due to all the recent rains. It's beautiful out there as well, with purple sage all over the ground.
We will be staying at Pete's Camp (El Paraiso), 7 miles North of San Felipe. We have 12 campsites reserved, sp just look for me when you get there so we can give you a chase assignment. We'll have our final pit and chase meeting this Tuesday night at the race shop. Viva Baja! |
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Race Truck Update
The truck has been prepped by the great guys at Solo Motorsports, the transmission has been dialed in by Tony at Rancho Drivetrain Engineering, Chet, our resident electrical Genius, will come over this weekend to update the wiring and make a few repairs, and Doug is taking the truck to Tim at Glassworks Unlimited on Tuesday to have the new fenders and hood made. After that the truck will go back to Solo to get the fender mounts made, then to the LBR Shop where Pat Wynne will put the new livery on. Uncle Pat is no doubt lighting up a smoke and cleaning out his primer gun as we speak, Coors Light in hand... We'll be working Tuesday night to finish the trailer so that it will be ready for our next test session. Stay tuned, hope you can make it Tuesday night. |
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Truck Update
Long Beach Racers Update - Our Engine is back from Bruce Nogrady and the transmission is back from Rancho Drivetrain Engineering. Solo Motorsports is prepping the truck for San Felipe, and it will be ready to go to Glassworks on February 18. From Glassworks it will go back to the LBR shop to be covered in our new, top-secret livery. We plan to get a test day in before the race, and for the first time ever, will pre-run in the race truck to confirm performance as well as logistics and radio coverage, etc. We're out to win this one. That's right - the Long Beach Racers Tacoma will have a new look for San Felipe. Stay tuned for advanced pics on the website shortly before the race. GodSpeed. |
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New Website Features / Powder Puff Race Photos Our website has recently recieved a few notable upgrades. We have a new sponsors page, contact page, photo gallery, and a GPS tracking page. We also have an all new crew page and videos section coming soon. Finally, the first photos of the Powder Puff race are now available for viewing. |
