Driving through DUST

[Blanco]

The more I daydream about racing the more things like How do you guys race through dust?

In the heat of competition you gotta keep heading on, you cant wait for the dust to clear...

Besides keeping an eye out for amber lights, how do you see the course markers & such?

How long did it take you to get use to it?

[fj40]

Dust is easy, dust is heavy and clears fast, in the other hand, there are SILT BEDS, lookin a lot like brown talcum powder, it behaves a lot like water and sticks to everything, reflect light beams and swallows trophy trucks, it hangs in the air for a long time, if you race with a front window it will just rotate inside your cabin for a while longer.... you can never get use to that!!!
If your lucky to have a good co-driver, then you have another pair of eyes looking for trees or rocks or 5-1600´s hidden in the middle of the silt beds.

[jonnyslick]

yeah ... it's the trickest stuff and my least favorite thing to drive in ... silt/dust in the air that is. we always point in the direction of the thicker area of dust, most likely where the car in front of you is at ... and hope for the best. it's worked out fairly well in our limited race history except for a few incidence.

[Blanco]

I remember Moss talking about a Biker they almost hit, that fell in that Silt.

& to be honest my Plan at this point is to race Dylan FJ style! :D

With the windows up & the A/C on! :cool:

[roach]

there is no arguing this..........

drive fast in the blinding dust, it is only a matter of time before you crash. you cannot get used to driving blind - there is no such thing. all you can get used to is being on the same part of the race course year after year and knowing your car to kinda feel the terain. last years 500 i drove a single seat 1600 through the mikes sky ranch area. we were so far behind becouse of the bottle neck and a starter repair that i expected to do this section in the day / evening, not late at night. so i only packed my amber helmet lense - NOT GOOD FOR NIGHT AND SILT! try going up twisty roads half silty, hills on one end, drop off's on the other, and you have your visor up becouse you cant see and you keep hitting pockets of silt!!! lots of fun.
come to remember, coming up a blind corner i almost hit a jeepspeed that was high centerd on one of these turns. i swerved last minute and almost went over. my 1600 had two wheels on the road and the other 2 wheels hanging into the drop off! i cant remember who the jeepspeed team was. i dont know if they ran class 3 or if under jeepspeed. despite almost going over, i helped them out and then they helped me out.

cant wait till you get out there blanco. who cares about the cost. you will come home with stories to tell your grandchildren for years!!

[Moss2]

Some drawbacks of driving with windows and enclosed cab:
You only have wipers on the outside of the front window.
Wipers dont work on silt
Silt fog and wipers are really bad
You cant wipe the inside of the windshield strapped in.
You cant see out the back or sides
You cant hear what is going on outside(Horns, other engines etc.)
Rocks and full Tecate cans are tough on glass

My first few races I followed the other 'heavy dust' too and it landed me in some big silt beds using the jack. Maybe with a buggy you can charge the dust more with all that ground clearance. I have found it best to only drive what you can see. Look as far ahead as possible anytime you have a chance. Often the dust is only in short sections and you can see the clear road ahead from one turn back. If you can get close enough to the next dust maker in front of you you can sort of see through his car (If its not a damn Hummer) but this is sketchy on tight trails and ends up with a lot of collisions, right Leavitt. In the 05 Baja 500 I must have chased Leavitt 40miles in the dust. I could have gone a lot faster if I could get around him but the only rear lights he had was his Tachometer light! I would get a run on him in some clear air then about have a heart attack when you see that little tach light almost stopped for a creek crossing. Makes me wonder about people who choose rear starts by choice??

[Dust]

There ya are just chilling on yer bed out in the remote desert :cool: and then some racer comes and drives right through ya... :eek:

Dust

[fj40]

Gettin stuck in the middle of a silt bed is no fun, every car that "misses you" only picks up more dust, you only ear the engines comin closer not nowing if they can see you.... hug your straps and wait for the hit till is safe to bail out to a safe place and see to stuck rig.

[Blanco]

Some drawbacks of driving with windows and enclosed cab:
You only have wipers on the outside of the front window.
Wipers dont work on silt
Silt fog and wipers are really bad
You cant wipe the inside of the windshield strapped in.
You cant see out the back or sides
You cant hear what is going on outside(Horns, other engines etc.)
Rocks and full Tecate cans are tough on glass



Yeah, I can see that.
But until I can commit to it being a race only rig I'm keeping the Glass.. :cool:

[fj40]

to be honest my Plan at this point is to race Dylan FJ style! :D

With the windows up & the A/C on! :cool:

DON´T UNDERSTIMATE THE POWER OF THE SILT!!!
If theres a way in, it will find it.

[chupakabras]

the gps will help u just a little bit, just to not slow down to a full stop, but it helps a little, and yaph, can't understand why some guys chose to a rear starts, we always want to start front, some years ago, when we saw some dust in front, we always slow down until the dust has gone, you end up being behind the class 11, haha, so, the dust some times acts like adrenaline, you know that a racer is infront of you, you want to go by him, and so on, you have to be very careful with that, but, believe me, u don't want to be the last in the field, if something happens, you are all alone.