V to R official results-BITD back up

[Broncodawg]

http://www.bitd.com/results/2008/2008VtoR/2008VtoRCTRes.pdf

Moss Bros 69th overall out of 103 finishers and second of 21 in class!
Congrats

[straightaxle]

2008 Moss Brothers Racing Vegas to Reno Race Wrap Up

The race is over and we have had a few hours to catch up on our rest. Last year was a bit of a disappointment when I smacked a rock somewhere beyond 300 miles and we pulled the plug and put it on the trailer. This year our goal was to finish the 2008 Best in the Desert Vegas to Reno race, and that we did!

I have to say right up front our success race after race hinges on the crew and people that we have, and we pulled a bunch of favors to make this one happen. We have people scattered all over, and were able to stay in crew members homes in Bakersfield on the way down, in Henderson the night before the race, and Reno when we got done. The “people” truly set our team apart from the rest. For the 2008 race, we had a new name on the side of the truck. Inquipco is an equipment and crane rental company in Las Vegas that ships equipment all over the country. They had helped us out at the Mint 400 race earlier this year by sending a service truck out to our pit, and for this race my buddy Rich had them committed to sending the service truck all the way to Reno! The truck is a rolling heavy equipment shop, with a welder, compressor, crane, lights, tools, spare parts. Best of all, it came with Mike and Diesel. Mike is full on heavy equipment mechanic, as well as a heck of a nice guy, and Diesel is an equally good natured boxer mix dog who seemed to enjoy the race as much as the rest of us did.

We arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday, which is as you can imagine a blast furnace in August, and spent all day getting through registration, tech, contingency and the drivers meeting. We dealt with an electrical problem that turned out to be a corroded connection at one of the batteries. Race day we had a 100 plus mile commute to the starting line just north of Beatty, which meant an early start, even though we had calculated that our start would not occur until about 12:45. With the entire state of Nevada to start the race, the race organizers had the teams unload and prepare on one side of highway 95, with the starting line on the other side. Teams were not allowed to park their support vehicles on the starting line side of the highway, and if you wanted to see the starting line, you had to hike in at least a half a mile, maybe ¾ of a mile from parking. When we arrived, the unlimited classes and their support crews were coming out of the parking area, as we were trying to get in to the parking area a half mile in off the highway. You can picture the scene. In fact, only the truck and trailer hauling the Bronco were allowed into the pit area, our other two support trucks were forced to wait out at the highway. In any case, we finished up preparations and pulled out to line up about an hour before our start. Since BITD does not have a class 3 for short wheel base 4 wheel drives, we chose to enter the Sportsman Safari class, which starts at the end of the line of, just in front of the Rhino UTV’s. The entry is much less in cost, but there is no pay back and the only rules are that you have are the basic safety equipment. There were a few trucks in the class, including a nearly stock Toyota FJ, a class 11 VW bug, but the rest were buggies of every shape and size.

We started the race and passed a few entries early on, and let some others pass. The dust was heavy, and the course was narrow. The Bronco was not running very well, something we had seen last year that we assumed to be related to the extreme heat, the higher usual altitude, and the fact that we had been idling at the start for nearly an hour. In any case, the engine seemed to be way down on power. We had not had a chance to pre-run, but some of the course we saw last year. In any case we were just going to keep a steady pace. We did catch and pass the Rod Hall Hummer about 40 miles into the race, then at about mile 45, in a narrow V canyon we came up on a traffic jam with at least 20 cars piled up in front of us. Rod Hall decided that he could drive around everyone, even though one of his own team trucks was about 10 vehicles up in the same traffic jam. He did succeed in abusing our right rear fender some more as he slid down into us from the up hill side of the course. The jam had occurred when a mini truck entry had stalled in the middle of the trail. There was a trail around the stall, but the limited classes behind him could not start in the middle of a hill and negotiate the steep detour. Cliff had started the race with me, and had walked up to see what was going on. A few got through, and then the stalled truck got started and out of the way. We passed a stock class Explorer and followed the Honda Ridgeline for a while. A few miles later we came up on another jam. This time another mini truck entry had turned over in the middle of another extremely narrow portion of the trail. Cliff and I climbed out and went down to help. Of all the entries parked there, the people actually out helping were a very small minority. I can’t tell you how many names we called the jerks who sat in there cars and watched. We had to pull the front of the truck around first and then tip it over, up hill of course. Fortunately someone had the sense to ask the driver if the truck was in park before we tipped it over, otherwise it would have launched right over the edge of the trail when the tires hit the road! We hiked back up to the Bronco and climbed in. As I type this, now it occurs to me why we were so darned tired at the finish!

Shortly after the last traffic jam, in the heavy dust of the Honda, we came up on a tight, tight right hand switch-back turn. As we backed up, we hit something, which I believe was a Rhino entry that had worked its way up in the traffic jams. I don’t think had any damage, but were probably just as surprised as we were. Not long after we began to smell a nasty gas odor. One of the alternators had decided to go to full output, and the voltmeter on that side was reading nearly 17 volts. We were still a good distance from our pit and eventually we had to stop and disconnect the voltage regulator. At mile 94 they had an underpass that was only 7 feet tall. The Bronco is taller than 7 feet with the light bar and antennae mounted, so we had planned to use the bypass for this obstacle. BITD had told us they would have a checkpoint to direct entries to the bypass, however when we got there, there was no indication of the checkpoint, just a couple of guys waving us toward the underpass a mile down the road. These are the type of moments when the driver directs a lot of abuse on a co-driver, and my apologies to Cliff. We turned around backtracked up the course to the bypass, throwing a few choice words at the checkpoint workers that they never heard and continued on. This one would have to be ultimately chalked up to our own fault for not attending the pre-run, however I think this was the only instance in the entire course that affected us by not pre-running.

At pit 3 (BFG pit 1) Cliff and I climbed out, and Ken and Chris climbed in. BFG filled the tank with Sunoco fuel, and we changed the voltage regulator on the bad charging system. We went on to the Tonopah pit 4. We arrived there about the time the emergency vehicles were rolling in for a buggy crash that had occurred just before the pit. One of the entries in our class had rolled over, and I read that the co-rider had broken his neck. Apparently he did not have his shoulder straps on, and things had gone wrong when they crashed. They drove the buggy in while we were there, after they had cut the entire top of the car off to get the guy out. We saw Broncodawg there at pit 4 who was manning a BITD radio station. As Chris and Ken came into the pit, they reported that the charging system was once again acting up and they smelled the overheated battery again. We went ahead and disconnected the voltage regulator when they got there and it remained that way for the rest of the race. We just left the GPS, the IRC tracking device and the radio on that side of the system.

At pit 5, we began to pay attention to the other entries in our class. We had a number of people watching us on the internet tracking, and after Tonopah they reported that we were running in 4th place in a class of what was reported to be 21 entries. Just before pit 5, Ken and Chris reported that one of the 3 entries in front of us was parked, so now we were in third! Immediately after this they went through some extremely thick silt and they were a mess when they got into pit 6 at Mina. Pit 6 was the second BFG pit where we fueled again. My dad and my daughter were also there after having driven over from Bishop. Ken and Chris got out, and Dave and Gary got in for the next section.

Darkness arrived shortly after the Bronco left Mina, and it was completely dark by the time we got to pit 8 at Hawthorne. Our crew watching reported that we were now in the lead in our class. Dave and Gary had reported that the truck was barely running and would not rev up to more than 3200 rpm. After all the silt, we assumed that the air cleaner was probably plugged up and had the compressor and lights were set up and ready to go on the Inquipco service truck. Dave and Gary were less than a mile and a half from the pit when they radioed in that they had heard one of the tires blow out and they were going to climb out and check it. A couple of minutes later, they reported that the wheel had failed and the tire was gone. They tried to drive it into the pit, but apparently that only forced the smashed wheel assembly further into the silt. They were forced to change the tire and wheel on site, and that’s when 1829 got by us to take the lead. We have never had a wheel failure, but this one blew the entire outer rim section off with an explosion that was audible over the noise of the truck. When the truck finally got to the pit, we pulled the air cleaner out and removed the equivalent of probably two shovels full of dirt from the housing. The compressed air was extremely useful in cleaning the filter.

I climbed back into the Bronco with Rich and we set out north. The truck was still down on power, and we were only able to pull maybe 82 mph on the road sections but we kept moving. We had seen broken down vehicles all day long, and we continued to see them for the rest of the race. Since the teams are not allowed to access the course, the teams don’t have a way to retrieve their vehicles. At Rawhide pit 9, we refueled at BFG pit 3. The BFG pit had somehow had a radio failure, so we surprised them when we pulled in. They jumped right to work though, and had us fueled and a drink of water in the normal amount of time.

Rich and I continued on, thankful for the light provided by the KC HID lights. Our next stop was pit 10 at Top Gun near Fallon. Dave and Gary got back for the final run to the finish. I talked to Dan briefly who was at home in Carlsbad watching us on the internet and he reported that we were still in second, with 1829 running steadily in front of us. I got into the chase truck, and don’t remember a thing until we got to the finish.

Dave and Gary reported that the truck had run much better for them than in the previous section they had run, so the air cleaner must have indeed been plugged. They finished the race I believe a little before 2 a.m. 1829 was about 45 minutes ahead of us in 63rd overall position. We were in 69th position with a time of 13 hours and 30 minutes. Other notable points: Rod Hall finished in front of us in 66th position, but we did finish ahead of the Honda Ridgeline. Entry 1829 was one of 3 identical buggies entered in our class that were designed to be an economical spec type car. They use a 4 cylinder Chevy Ecotech engine that I believe makes about 200 horsepower, and the car is about the size of an old class 9 car. The results show that at least two other entries in our class finished behind us.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, it takes a dedicated crew to pull these things off. Thanks to Dave, Gary, Ken, Cliff and Robert for getting the truck ready to go and loaded; Gary and his family for putting us up in Bakersfield; Rich and his family for putting us up in Henderson; and Chris and his family for putting us up in Reno. Krista had breakfast ready to go for us Saturday morning and the kids in the car for a day at the football jamboree before 8 a.m. Thanks to Rick for chasing the entire race and hauling our gear and much of the crew. Brian came all the way over from Santa Rosa by himself, met us in Mina, and chased us all the way to the finish. Thanks to Dan in Carlsbad, and Leslie in Marysville who followed us on the internet all day and fed us with updates on our competitor’s progress as well our own. Finally, thanks to Mike for running the service truck from Vegas all the way to Reno. He was able to take a little nap while we waited for the truck to finish, but otherwise was on in the middle of everything all day long. We used the truck quite a bit, and it turns out he helped several other teams. His welder was instrumental in getting one of the Hall’s Hummers to the finish when the rear track bar broke early in the race.

As always we would like to thank our sponsors that make assist in our efforts. West Coast Broncos, River City Differentials, Sunoco race fuel, KC Hilites, King shocks, Deaver springs, BF Goodrich tires and pits, and Inquipco. BFG had a limited number of entries to pit for this race, but rolled out the same pit support that makes it all possible for our small team. We really appreciate their help.

The next race is the Primm 300 on September 6. Yep, that is next week!

[AngerIssues]

2008 Moss Brothers Racing Vegas to Reno Race Wrap Up

Thanks for the awesome story. It was fun to follow along on the web, but I'd rather have been there in person.

I stayed up with ya, until 2:00!

[Blanco]

Thanks for the awesome story. It was fun to follow along on the web, but I'd rather have been there in person.

I stayed up with ya, until 2:00!

Yeah mee too, I watched from work & then after I got home. http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/16.gif

Funny I was driving a van all day with my laptop open.


Congrats Don on another great performance.

I know if it was'nt for that Wheel Mishap, you again would of won another race. http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/7.gif

So what turned out to be the wheel issue? http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/shrug.gif
Was it a factory flaw or weak point?

or maybe a hard impact?

[Grimm]

Great story and Impressive finish in that kind of class!! Listening to all your stories, and everyone elses for that matter, makes me wonder how we will ever finish a race. I'm not sure that i even know where my voltage regulator is on our truck or how to disconnect it and troubleshoot like that in the middle of a race. I have No idea what we would do in a situation like that. Probably DNF. How do you guys and anyone else figure this stuff out???
Once again, Awesome race!!!

[Blanco]

Listening to all your stories, and everyone elses for that matter, makes me wonder how we will ever finish a race. I'm not sure that i even know where my voltage regulator is on our truck or how to disconnect it and troubleshoot like that in the middle of a race. I have No idea what we would do in a situation like that. Probably DNF.

:o Yeah me too.

Thats why if I ever start racing my own Bronco, I will make sure to have good mechanics as my co-drivers. http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/7.gif

[flyinbronco]

Yeah mee too, I watched from work & then after I got home. http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/16.gif

Funny I was driving a van all day with my laptop open.


Congrats Don on another great performance.

I know if it was'nt for that Wheel Mishap, you again would of won another race. http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/7.gif

So what turned out to be the wheel issue? http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/shrug.gif
Was it a factory flaw or weak point?

or maybe a hard impact?

It was an old bomb left over from a Navy training exercise. :eek:That's the story and we're sticking to it.

[toddz69]

Thanks for the great report, Don. I saw the service truck cruising through the pits several times during the day at different locations and wondered which team it was with. That thing was loaded for bear!

Our driver b*tched about Rod trying to drive around everyone at the first jam too - apparently our truck got scraped up from him as well.

Thanks for helping with the rolled mini-truck at RM44 - that was us! Mike (driver) admitted he made a mistake trying to pass another car (I believe it was stuck or stalled) at that point and flopped it over. He was extremely appreciative of the folks that helped right the thing.

Thanks to Broncodawg who helped me load a new spare at Pit 4.

We finished about 4:00 a.m. ourselves.

Todd Z.

[Broncodawg]

Hey Todd, So it was you guys that flopped, heard they had to flop you back uphill, making it extra fun. :o Shame about racers sitting in their rigs instead of helping out, but karma will catch up with em.:mad:
Congrats on finishing a beast of a course!

[chupakabras]

wow, sounds like you ran the 1000, 500 and the 250 at the same time,. cool, that was a hell of a race,. awsome job,. cool,.

[fj40]

Great job guys, awesome story.

[toddz69]

Hey Todd, So it was you guys that flopped, heard they had to flop you back uphill, making it extra fun. :o Shame about racers sitting in their rigs instead of helping out, but karma will catch up with em.:mad:
Congrats on finishing a beast of a course!

I heard about Mike being cattywampus to the course and having to get straightened out, but I didn't know about the uphill part. In terms of finishes, we've had the best luck at V2R compared to the rest of the BITD races, and it's the longest and arguably the toughest!

Speaking of karma, I carried a spare stub axle in my lap for the first 5 miles or so when I got in at Pit 8. I handed it to the guy who needed it along the course and you would've thought I had just given him a million bucks. Always gratifying to help someone out like that.

Todd Z.

[Dave G]

It was an old bomb left over from a Navy training exercise. :eek:That's the story and we're sticking to it.

I swear it was an I.U.D............um................ I mean I.E.D!

[Salttoy]

I swear it was an I.U.D............um................ I mean I.E.D!

I'll second that!!

[straightaxle]

Hmmmmmmmmmm.........

Actually, I would post a picture of the wheel, but I would have to borrow a camera and go over to Dave G's house to take it. We'll get one on here. This wheel was less than a year old (not that many miles), however I think it was a freak failure and may not have just failed "randomly". There are things that would probably scare us to death if we saw them, that are hidden down under the silt, and there might have been some impact that helped it do what it did.

Todd:

Didn't realize that was you guys rolled over, in fact I don't even know which of the crowd actually came out of the truck. Cliff did say that the driver was feeling pretty bad about it, it can sure happen easily. I was suprised at how few people it took to slide the thing over, and that we were actually able to flip it back over. It was half way up, and I thought that was it, then everyone got a better grip, and up and over it went. I am still so thankful that someone had the fore sight to suggest they put it in park! I am sure you have all seen that video on the side of that mountain in Pakistan or somewhere with that exact same scenario. There was no rescue of the truck after it went over the second time........

[Moss2]

Here is the part of the wheel that stayed with the truck.
In the pic at contingency notice Rick a.k.a. 'Flyinbronco' has some brochures out on alternative wheel brands. What did he know?

[flyinbronco]

I swear it was an I.U.D............um................ I mean I.E.D!

Hey it was a long day, it was late and I was tired. Besides you knew what I was talking about so AEIOU and sometimes Y to you buster.

[BajaBronco13]

Here is the part of the wheel that stayed with the truck.


Moss this is clearly a manufacturer's defect. You should send it back with your warrenty card, lol. Man that wheel is toast.