Race report..
My dad wrote this for something else so i'll save myself some time and paste it here
Great weekend overall for the #71 (871) Ford. Carburetor was not happy with the altitude and caused lots of problems. Got nerfed pretty good by somebody in the first section, stalled engine while pulling over to let another car pass, then battery died trying to restart. This is about mile 5. No radio signal of course. Let engine cool hoping battery has one last start in it. No dice. Realize we are pointing down a really long hill and decide to coast down, staying mainly in the dirt off to the side of the course. coast as far as we can and start walking to CP1. Run into a fan with a 4x4 van who tows us up another access road where he releases us and we coast even farther. Got Ricks chase rig to meet us and give us a jump. lost about 2 hours overall. Ryan pushed the truck as hard as he could, we took some really hard hits in some of the whoops. Had to pull over to remove the right front shock that had torn it mounts loose. Stalled a few more times in slow uphill sections where Ryan couldn't keep the revs up and engine died. Managed to cross the start/finish to trigger the lap timer and pulled back around into the pits. Found that the tranny cooler had come loose and start beating a hole in the radiator. Decided we had too much unrepairable damage and dropped out.
Made liberal use of Ryan's air horn for all the spectators.
Ryan is one hell of a naturally talented driver.
Won $100 for slowest lap.
Overall, this one goes in the win column for us.
Damages noticed after one lap-
-Bent an i-beam
-ripped lower shock mount off front passenger side, broke off beam
-bent the shock shaft really good making the shock just a garage decorator
-tranny cooler broke off its mounts and made its way into the radiator
-tranny fluid all over, no power steering fluid left in pump
-front right tire (one of my 3 half decent but best 35's) has pretty good leak
Thats what i remember right now and thats what i have found from just walking around the truck.
The track was 1/3 smooth dirt road ("highway"), 1/3 semi-rough "highway" and 1/3 BRUTTAALLLL
In the highway section I'd push it to about 50mph... because at that speed i would start to lose steering due to lack of good tires. The brutal section consisted of LOTS of big rollers, and rocks. The rollers are what tore everything apart. They would sneak up on us and before i could slow down i'd hit the first one, bounce up and back down on the second roller, launching the front end twice as high, coming back down on the third roller, bottoming out the front end and launching it sky high, crashing back down. It was bad.
There was also a hill climb that consisted of purely fat jagged rocks.... as wide as the truck. Well it died in the middle of it and quickly we had a trophylite waiting on us. So i got itstarted and pinned it because anything less and the tires didn't even move in the altitude. The truck moved up the mountain very slowly, at a 45deg. angle. It was intense...
I planned on racing all 4 races but I think this might be the only race of the year.
I have a spare front end (I-beam, rotors, radius arms, etc.) that i had already stripped and painted even that i am going to put in. They are even 1 ton beams, much beefier and with 1" kinpins, and the radius arms would have new shock mounting. But I will have to rebend them which will be a pain.
I can get a new radiator and tranny cooler from the junkyard, and can swap out the flat tire.
Then i will have no shocks up front... need $400 just for that.
So I am now focusing all my attention on finishing my '69 f250 4x4.
