Our first race didn’t exactly start out as we would have liked. However it didn’t really matter. After 6 hours and 48 mins of pure exhilaration behind the wheel of Mathilda it was all easily forgotten.
We rolled into Wendover about 20mins before tech inspection was set to close. We registered and made it through tech pretty easily and back into town to check into the lovely Nugget hotel. Our room was about 102 degrees with missing light bulbs, lumpy mattresses, and questionable cleanliness. After a quick check of Yelp we were off to 99 Cents Ice Cream for dinner. In addition to the cheap ice cream they also are a legit taco stand. So much so that our post-race dinner was also held at 99 Cents Ice Cream. Tortas, carne asada, al pastor and all the beverages one could find in Baja. What better way to set the mood for our first race on our path to the Baja 1000. Dinner consumed we returned to the hotel to find out our A/C wasn’t working despite the efforts of Darren and Kurt to tear into it. Long story short the four of us got a combined 9 hours of awfully hot and miserable sleep.
Morning came we grabbed breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks at Smith’s and headed out to the pits where we were the newbies, with our shiny new helmets and race suits, no dump cans and unsure of where to go. Adrenaline was sufficient to overcome any lack of sleep and the friendliness of our fellow competitors made us feel welcome. We warmed up the motor and tranny and Darren and I tried to calm our nerves. Jason Goates arrived to help us in our pits and take pics. We can’t thank him enough for helping out. We knew that there were issues with our HAM so we quickly had to come up with a way to communicate with the pit. I broke out my SPOT device and we strapped it to the cage. Our work-around was pretty basic. The co-driver would send out an ‘ok’ message, that I set up to go to each of our phones, when the car was 10miles out. That gave the pit time to get ready and at least know we were close. The other option was if we broke down we could send a ‘help’ message. Fortunately we didn’t need it. Ad-hoc communications established Darren and climbed in the car and headed toward the staging area. Cars were being sent out every minute. We were running sportsman and going out 13th of 17. (I think). Regardless we were near the back. At this point our excitement was very high, a little nervous and a lot giddy. Then I realize I can’t hear Darren talking to me. The competitors in front of us are leaving the line and our time is coming up. Jason and Kurt are outside the car playing with wires and making sure our connections were tight. Nothing. Our time came for green flag and we had settled on hand signals. The flag waved, Darren dumped the clutch and Canguro Racing made our first dust. The GPS was also acting fickle so I pretty much relied on the course markings to navigate for the first 20 miles or so until it kicked back in.
Over those 20 miles Darren kept up an efficient but controlled pace. We needed to let the butterflies calm down and for the shocks to warm up before we really got on it. We passed 3 or 4 broken down cars in the first few miles. I made the comment to him that I hoped that wasn’t a bad sign for us. He gave me the thumbs up in agreement. Before too long we saw dust on the horizon and I told Darren it was time to get on it. It took a while to make our first on course pass as the trail was twisting through the junipers and with very little room to get by. As our progress was slowed the purple 9 car behind was able to catch up to us. So 3 cars bombing through one long dust plume south of Wendover meant the race was officially on. After we got around the class 8 we had a very narrow off camber section. The class 9 stayed pinned to our tail with horn blaring. We knew we were faster and intended to prove it. The GPS showed a long strait section ahead. I told Darren once we made that right hand 90 we were golden. 200 yards later, he dropped into first, banked hard right and left our tailgater behind in a flash. A few more passes, a long section of silt and a few washes and into the pits we rolled in 6th place overall.
The plan was simply for me and Darren to change seats. I however had to make a run for the honey bucket while Jason and Kurt messed with the helmets to figure out what was wrong. Darren’s mic wasn’t working. As I was climbing back into the car I saw our friends in the purple class 9 roll through. Helmets fixed, belts secure and adrenaline flowing again I pulled out of the pit. We hit the course a few hundred yards later and I got on it. The first 6 miles or each loop were shared. My goal was to catch the purple 9 before the split. Darren, now able to talk to me, told me to ease my way into the race. We spent some time catching up after having not been able to talk for the first 90mins and 52 miles. We talked about how awesome it was to be racing. Laughed about how I didn’t understand half of his hand signals. As my loop banked south we were in to new terrain. It took me about 20 miles to catch our friends in the purple 9 (you’ll eventually learn why I keep bringing them up) and get around them. I don’t think they were happy that we wouldn’t let them pass on Darren’s lap because I had to push them pretty hard to get by and even then they didn’t even stop, just pulled over a bit but stayed on it. Good solid racing. My section was longer and slower than darren’s with more washes and less flat out. However I also got some sweet whoops and silt holes. The temps had dropped and the clouds had finally decided to drizzle us with a light rain. We made another pass of a broken car and pulled into the pits 4th overall.
Out we climbed, Darren added 10 gallons of fuel while I helped Jason and Kurt strap in and swap batteries in our cameras. Wouldn’t you know it, as we do so the purple 9 car rolls through the pit faster than us again. Kurt and Jason will have to post up their on-course experiences but Kurt made great time on the north loop, once again passing our friends and before we knew it they were back and we were helping with another driver swap. As Jason left the pit the storm began in earnest and the rain began to fall. Jason passed the purple 9, was then passed by them, then got around them once again to get us back into 4th overall. Thanks to those guys for the good racing. Unfortunately we saw them roll into the pits on the trailer as we were leaving. The rain grew worse and the wind picked up. Darren and I loaded everything up and had the trailer ready to go for Mathilda so we could get out of the storm in a hurry. She appeared on the horizon and rapidly made her way to the finish line. 6:48. 4th overall, 2nd in Sportsman. The weather broke for a minute and allowed us to savor our performance and unwind a bit before we headed into town for some tacos. Our consensus as a group was that we all drove very well, Mathilda performed wonderfully and we were lucky to not have any incidents or breakdowns. It was a brutal course with plenty of hidden rocks to reach out and grab you but we found a way to avoid them.
Over tacos and ice cream we rehashed the laps and the days events. We made our way back to SLC in a downpour that managed to clean all the mud off the car and sometime around 12:30 we went our separate ways. A great first race and can’t wait for the next one. Thanks to Jason and all the BOR folks for putting on the event and welcoming out a bunch of newbies.
dmc
(pics and vids should be posted soon)