Thanks to all class 3 racers

[Dylan_dr]

The Baja 250 was my first race in class 3 and I want to say thank you to all the people I met over the weekend.

I talked to a few people at contingency and at the start line….everyone was way cool and I’m glad to be part of the class.

Thanks everyone!!!!!

Dylan Evans
Team Donahoe
Toyota FJ Cruiser

[chupakabras]

congrats again, hope to see you again at the baja 500,, and also around here,:)

[AngerIssues]

Hi guys,

Well needless to say, this was a major bummer for me. Mechanically speaking, we were having a nearly flawless race, just running a really fun pace and enjoying our back-and-forth with the other racers.

We didn't see Raffo pulled over, so I'm not sure where he got behind... I was sure he was in front somewhere, but my guys at Ojos said he hadn't been through when we arrived.

We eventually caught Dylan and Alejandro, and had good, clean passes. We stopped at a bit to check a small clunking noise, and saw Dylan go by. We chased him up through the silt and rocks, and eventually got by again. When we stopped for 10 gallons of gas at the next road crossing (past El Alamo), Dylan went by again. We double-checked the radius arm nuts and off we went in pursuit. Unfortunately, a sportsman truck - 1501 I think, got between us.

When we started hitting the silt beds around 86 so, I was eating a lot of dust from the sportsman truck, and being a 2x4, he was having a much harder time than we were. I was determined to get by him and continue our race with Dylan.

As most racers know, there are two things you can do in this scenario. Lay way back and wait until the terrain changes... and eat more dust... or work your way up to the rear-end of the guy in front.. so his dust is going under you while you honk like hell and bump him if need be. I finally got close enough to see his rear-end and yellow light, and made my charge to close the gap to the dustless zone. Bad timing... I was accelerating, and he nailed the brakes for a washout or dip. I pounced on the brakes, but it was too late, we hit hard. I feel really bad about hitting him so hard, and tried to get next to him to indicate so. He had stalled the truck. I immediately got nailed in the rear (hard) by a buggy, and he nearly ruptured my fuel cell. The impacts threw my main fan belt, causing the truck to get hot quickly. We pulled over, and I did my best "sign-language" to apologize to the truck who apparently got going again.

When we did pull over, I was very saddened to see that the brunt of the damage was sustained by the guy who deserved it.. .me. My radiator was ruptured, water leaked out almost as fast as you poured it in. We made many many stops to fill back up and attempt to keep running. It was useless. I was happy to see Raffo go by, and later Cervantes, but very upset at myself.

Both bumpers are completely ruined, there is massive damage, and I don't have much to say other than I really screwed up.

Congrats to all 3 guys for running great races. I might be pit support at the 500, the way things are going!

ken

[Blanco]

Hey Ken can you post some Pictures of your Damage for us to see? :confused:

& Congrats Dylan! http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/cheers.gif

It was Great meeting you.
& I hope you become a regular around here.

[fj40]

I was in my post in San Vicente, ready to ride the last 70 miles in the chupakabras.... well, that didin´t happen. Saw dylan in the fj (that rig is a beut...) pit just beside us and continued on with 30 plus minutes on raffo, both trucks were going strong, by that time we got the bad news from the chase truck in el alamo.
Congratulations to dylan for the win in his first outing and to raffo for it´s runerup spot.
welcome to the site

[Cervantes Racing]

Congrats Dylan from Hermanos Cervantes Racing.

[retroblazer]

Congrats to all. Things started out well, but quickly changed. We caught Dylan in the first three or four miles. We pulled 93 mph on the gravel road coming out of town. Shortly after I heard a noise, a clunk. Meanwhile I'm on Dylan's tail, honking getting ready to pass on a side hill in the silt. As I'm following on the sidehill, I noticed that I had to use more throttle to stay up on the side hill, so I decided to pull over immediately and check it out. Sure enough the front driveshaft was gone. We spent a good half hour changing the shaft. We got going again, but man, starting that late, then breaking at the start, put us in a huge amount of local traffic. Another problem soon presented itself and it was a repeat of the 1000. The gps wasn't refreshing fast enough to be useful. Since we didn't prerun, there were more than a few times that we went the wrong way. We knew we were down at least a half hour to the group, so we tried to be patient. One by one we passed everybody with the obvious exception of the Toyota. We didn't really have a good measure of how far ahead the Toyota was ahead of us, so I didn't really want to throw caution to the wind. I ran a good measured pace. The last issue we dealt with is another item that caused a problem for us in the 1000 as well, it was the fuel pressure. The last thirty miles the fuel pressure jumped up and down from 0 to 6 psi. We had replaced the fuel pressure regulator for Laughlin and didn't have any problems, so we thought we were good. As a result of the fluctuating pressure, the truck died repeatedly. It was a major pain.
All in all, it was a good race weekend. No offence to the Donohoe guys, but I wanted to deny them the first race, first win banner as bad as I wanted my first class win. The reality of it is the Donohoe guys should be able to generate a good deal of publicity from their win. I'm sure it will help generate even more interest in the class.

[Kreg Donahoe]

Congrats to all. Things started out well, but quickly changed. We caught Dylan in the first three or four miles. We pulled 93 mph on the gravel road coming out of town. Shortly after I heard a noise, a clunk. Meanwhile I'm on Dylan's tail, honking getting ready to pass on a side hill in the silt. As I'm following on the sidehill, I noticed that I had to use more throttle to stay up on the side hill, so I decided to pull over immediately and check it out. Sure enough the front driveshaft was gone. We spent a good half hour changing the shaft. We got going again, but man, starting that late, then breaking at the start, put us in a huge amount of local traffic. Another problem soon presented itself and it was a repeat of the 1000. The gps wasn't refreshing fast enough to be useful. Since we didn't prerun, there were more than a few times that we went the wrong way. We knew we were down at least a half hour to the group, so we tried to be patient. One by one we passed everybody with the obvious exception of the Toyota. We didn't really have a good measure of how far ahead the Toyota was ahead of us, so I didn't really want to throw caution to the wind. I ran a good measured pace. The last issue we dealt with is another item that caused a problem for us in the 1000 as well, it was the fuel pressure. The last thirty miles the fuel pressure jumped up and down from 0 to 6 psi. We had replaced the fuel pressure regulator for Laughlin and didn't have any problems, so we thought we were good. As a result of the fluctuating pressure, the truck died repeatedly. It was a major pain.
All in all, it was a good race weekend. No offence to the Donohoe guys, but I wanted to deny them the first race, first win banner as bad as I wanted my first class win. The reality of it is the Donohoe guys should be able to generate a good deal of publicity from their win. I'm sure it will help generate even more interest in the class.

Wow Great Story. We are sure going to Media Whore the heck out of this Race win and Class 3. So hopfully this class will get back to the way it was in the early 90's. We had a Blast Racing with you guys and we will be ready to go for the 500. This was amazing race for us. No problems at all and just cruised in 75% mode. All we did was add Gas...Pemex ...and change an air filter. We had help from above to win out of the box. But we will take it.

[chupakabras]

great story,, that's a shame, hate when that happens, the big diference with us, you were able to finish, we didn't, same old story, big mistakes for us, i think now we learn the lesson, so keep on working on those small details that at the end make the big diference.. so, don't lose the hope, everybody deserve to win, keep on trying.. see yah guys, :)

[Blanco]

We are sure going to Media Whore the heck out of this Race win and Class 3. So hopfully this class will get back to the way it was in the early 90's.

Well, theres no doubt that you guys do have an advantage over most of the rest of Class 3 when it comes to advertising Muscle.

I hope You guys do help the class with you access to the media, I'm sure all the Magazines & Toyota etc....... will be checking you guys out.

Hopefully this Site came out just in time as well. http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/shrug.gif

[Kreg Donahoe]

Ok well we promised to try and get a little media for Class 3... here is what we have cookin. I'm not really good at posting pictures so I hope this all works.

This is a New Billboard off the 405 Fwy in Torrance.

[Kreg Donahoe]

Here is some things that will be hitting in this months Dirt sports.

Masterpeice in Metals on our FJ
Full Page KC hilites ad on our FJ
Full Page Nitto Tire ad on our FJ
Coverage on Class 3 Baja 250 Mostly on our FJ (sorry guys)
Full Size Pull Out Nitto Poster with our FJ

Thats all this month in Dirtsports.

[Kreg Donahoe]

Then in Off-Road, FOURWHEELER, 4Wheel and off-road and JP magazines you will see full page ads from Nitto, KChilites, Currie, Donahoe Racing, And Toyota all showing the FJ with big Class 3 numbers on her.

We have not even Started. So Keep us up to date with all your press stuff so we can add it to our race stories. Then you guys will get coverage too. The Class will grow. I know of 3 new Class 3 trucks being built now. Another FJ is on its way along with 2 new Jeep JK's. hopefully it will get back to the way it was when I ran Class 3.

[jonnyslick]

Great stories guys! We broke a tie-rod end and two flat tires (all on the same side) 1 or 2 miles into the race just after you cross that downhill dry river bed just outside of town. We have NO idea what happened. We had no hard hits and no clunks, snaps, or pops. Everything seemed fine then we just lost steering and crashed into the sand berms/ruts on the other side of the river bed. Anyway ... we finally got it replaced, got our tires on (we were carrying one and our chase truck was able to sneak in and get us the other). Hour and 1/2 behind the field we were on our way and chasing checkpoints. Stormed the sidehill with no issues and we were going as flat out as our 11 would let us. We topped her out coming through the farms at 75 and we were happy about that. So far that is one of my favorite parts of baja...love how the car just launches down through there. Made check point one with like 45 mins to spare and then we were charging for point two. Driving hard, probably too hard trying to make up time, we had several close calls ... too close. Ass end of the bug launched off one hit and was sitting about 5 feet in the air when our nose hit. I figred for sure we were rolling over but amazingly we didn't. Came through the first silts fairly easy but then struggled getting out of the canyon and had to have some help from a 7 team. Canyon road by the time we got there was like a war zone. Two broke hummers, broke 7, broke 1600 ... it was interesting to say the least. Hit a tree around Tres and took that mofo out (along with another tire), changed that and by this time it was getting dark. Came around that corner near check point two that blind and almost dumped the car off the cliff (looked like a big hole at night ... not sure what it looked like in the day) but we both said a prayer to thank God from not dying on that one! Then we finally made CP2 ... like 20 mins late! Ahhhh ... well that's our luck, always missing checkpoints. But we had a GREAT time. Hopefully once our 11 sells we'll get our 3 up and going.

[Blanco]

Congrat to the FJ team.

You might realisticly be the best thing in while to happen to the class with respects of getting people to notice. :)

Will you be able to do it again in June?
Remember, The Moss bro's will be there this time.

[Kreg Donahoe]

Well i think the FJ is up to it. But I'm not driving it so you will have to ask Dylan if he is up to it. Moss Bros are DA STUDS when it comes to Class 3. So Dylan and Steve will need to eat there Wheaties.

[Grimm]

well, although we may not be contenders when we start ( hopefully by Laughlin 08 now) we will have a good time and contribute to #3's size. Lots of guys like me sound like they are shooting for the 08 season. Could be a big turnout???

[Blanco]

Well i think the FJ is up to it. But I'm not driving it so you will have to ask Dylan if he is up to it. Moss Bros are DA STUDS when it comes to Class 3. So Dylan and Steve will need to eat there Wheaties.

http://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/13.gifhttp://www.thewebwheeler.com/forums/images/smilies/cheers.gif