- Location
- Yucaipa, CA
We had three weeks to prepare the wounded Banks Power 1706 Jeepspeed Wrangler from the Vegas to Reno race. That meant we had to hustle and spend long hours at LJ Engineering to get the car ready to race. We didn't have the time to pre-run or test the car before the race, but we committed to run the race the only way we know how, full bore.
We arrived in Lucerne late Thursday night, got some sleep then jumped in Brent and Clem's rock crawlers to get a slow lap around the race course. We found a class 11 car broken on course and couldn't leave him there in the desert, so we ended our pre-run early and towed him back to main pit. You can never have too many friends in the desert.
After the prerun we pulled the racecar out of the trailer and took it to contingency and technical inspection. On the way to tech, we watched the left front lug nuts pass us and pulled over just in time for the wheel to fall off. This was not starting off well! We made it through tech then the team took the car back to do a little testing while Scott Hartman drove back to Redlands to watch his son Brian play in his season opener varsity football game. The call came at 10:15 pm. "It sounded like a grenade went off under the car and we broke the exact same things that we did at Vegas to Reno," said Dan Turner. We lost a driveshaft, transfer case and bellhousing. To work so hard to prepare a car just to have it break again is a crushing blow to your psyche. A plan was quickly put into place and we were breaking into our friends garage, with him on the phone, to borrow another transfer case. We finally arrived in Lucerne with the parts at 2:15am. We got the car back together by about 6:30am, just in time to get ready to race.
Dan Turner and Brent Bailey started the race for the first time in the driver and navigator seats. We were off the line in 8th position and didn't know what to expect of the car with one of the engine bosses broken off and the bellhousing missing one third of it's structure. To make matters worse, our car is rear heavy and squirrelly in two wheel drive.
Dan and Brent left the line in a one car drag race against the clock. As soon as the whoops started, they knew it was going to be a wild ride and a grueling day. They just had to find their rhythm, and keep it steady. That was the strategy for the rookie pair, to race their own race that would get the jeep to the driver change in good enough condition, that the veterans could turn up the heat and place well. Around race mile 15, while in a small canyon filled with soft sand and large rocks, the race car got sucked into someone else's ruts. That led them into some rocks that ultimately cut the Interco TSL's sidewall. The Staun internal beadlocks, acting as a runflat, got them to the Bessemer pit where Bob and Machelle Green put some good rubber back on the race car. The race course was littered with broken race cars, and there were quite a few fellow Jeepspeeders among them. By the end of the first lap, Dan and Brent had worked their way up from eighth position at the start to around fifth. It took them most of the first lap to get comfortable, so they really turned it on for the second. The Orange Army crew seemed like they were on every corner and were cheering them on to the next. When Dan and Brent approached the same rocky canyon, they approached it much more cautiously. Once they were past the rocks that claimed their tire, they ran nearly 75 miles per hour for the next five miles. This is where the course turns into the hard, cross-grained desert, where sometimes second gear is too fast for the rough conditions. Once back into the sand whoops, they got their pace back and brought the car in for the drivers change, making an official lap time of 1:01:25; just a couple minutes off of the class leader and in third place.
Scott Parker and Scott Hartman got in the car at lap 3 and ran a good steady pace to hold 3rd position. The 'Orange Army' let us know exactly where we were on course and where we needed to be. We were about 9 minutes out of 2nd place Bryan Dodge and 6 minutes behind him on course. We drove a very conservative race, knowing that five more points wasn't worth pushing it to beat him. Then luck struck us on the good side. We passed Dodge on the flat section right when he was finishing up a tire change. We went from running conservative to flat out. If we could create enough dust and stay ahead of Dodge, there was a chance that we could bring home 2nd place. It was amazing to be in the race at all with all the early problems we faced. "Brian passed our pit on a mission! He is 1:30 behind you," said LJ on the radio just past main pit. He was ahead on time, but behind us on course, exactly where we wanted to be.
During this fast lap we hit a 'G'-out so hard the sweat from Hartman's face covered his shield. The King shocks and Rubicon Express suspension took it in stride. We pushed the Banks Power Wrangler hard in the sections where we cruised the lap before, and there was no sign of Dodge. We passed Brian Hartman's pit at about half way and wanted him to get a time split. We continued to push hard past his radio range and then got a call from Bob Green that Dodge was 11:20 back. I can't begin to explain how good that feels when you work so hard and see results! We slowed down again to a conservative pace and took it home for a 2nd place finish.
Post technical inspection went well, our suspension was within spec due in part to the PRP limit straps that did not break or stretch, and our motor, the smallest on the podium, passed with flying colors. It was interesting to note that all three podium finishers were sporting Harland Sharp roller rockers. The Banks Power Wrangler's little motor with Perfect High Torque engine management system has the power to run on top of the class with the smallest displacement of the podium finishers, on pump gas!
We moved up to 3rd in points, just one point out of second and 36 points out of 1st for the season. With Henderson NV, set for the final race of the season, where we won our first race in 2007, the excitement of this team and our success couldn't be greater. Our marketing partners have allowed us to compete at this level and without them we would be lost. Thank you to our families for the support, our sponsors for the trust, and to Jeepspeed for giving us a platform to promote our sponsors and race.
We arrived in Lucerne late Thursday night, got some sleep then jumped in Brent and Clem's rock crawlers to get a slow lap around the race course. We found a class 11 car broken on course and couldn't leave him there in the desert, so we ended our pre-run early and towed him back to main pit. You can never have too many friends in the desert.
After the prerun we pulled the racecar out of the trailer and took it to contingency and technical inspection. On the way to tech, we watched the left front lug nuts pass us and pulled over just in time for the wheel to fall off. This was not starting off well! We made it through tech then the team took the car back to do a little testing while Scott Hartman drove back to Redlands to watch his son Brian play in his season opener varsity football game. The call came at 10:15 pm. "It sounded like a grenade went off under the car and we broke the exact same things that we did at Vegas to Reno," said Dan Turner. We lost a driveshaft, transfer case and bellhousing. To work so hard to prepare a car just to have it break again is a crushing blow to your psyche. A plan was quickly put into place and we were breaking into our friends garage, with him on the phone, to borrow another transfer case. We finally arrived in Lucerne with the parts at 2:15am. We got the car back together by about 6:30am, just in time to get ready to race.
Dan Turner and Brent Bailey started the race for the first time in the driver and navigator seats. We were off the line in 8th position and didn't know what to expect of the car with one of the engine bosses broken off and the bellhousing missing one third of it's structure. To make matters worse, our car is rear heavy and squirrelly in two wheel drive.
Dan and Brent left the line in a one car drag race against the clock. As soon as the whoops started, they knew it was going to be a wild ride and a grueling day. They just had to find their rhythm, and keep it steady. That was the strategy for the rookie pair, to race their own race that would get the jeep to the driver change in good enough condition, that the veterans could turn up the heat and place well. Around race mile 15, while in a small canyon filled with soft sand and large rocks, the race car got sucked into someone else's ruts. That led them into some rocks that ultimately cut the Interco TSL's sidewall. The Staun internal beadlocks, acting as a runflat, got them to the Bessemer pit where Bob and Machelle Green put some good rubber back on the race car. The race course was littered with broken race cars, and there were quite a few fellow Jeepspeeders among them. By the end of the first lap, Dan and Brent had worked their way up from eighth position at the start to around fifth. It took them most of the first lap to get comfortable, so they really turned it on for the second. The Orange Army crew seemed like they were on every corner and were cheering them on to the next. When Dan and Brent approached the same rocky canyon, they approached it much more cautiously. Once they were past the rocks that claimed their tire, they ran nearly 75 miles per hour for the next five miles. This is where the course turns into the hard, cross-grained desert, where sometimes second gear is too fast for the rough conditions. Once back into the sand whoops, they got their pace back and brought the car in for the drivers change, making an official lap time of 1:01:25; just a couple minutes off of the class leader and in third place.
Scott Parker and Scott Hartman got in the car at lap 3 and ran a good steady pace to hold 3rd position. The 'Orange Army' let us know exactly where we were on course and where we needed to be. We were about 9 minutes out of 2nd place Bryan Dodge and 6 minutes behind him on course. We drove a very conservative race, knowing that five more points wasn't worth pushing it to beat him. Then luck struck us on the good side. We passed Dodge on the flat section right when he was finishing up a tire change. We went from running conservative to flat out. If we could create enough dust and stay ahead of Dodge, there was a chance that we could bring home 2nd place. It was amazing to be in the race at all with all the early problems we faced. "Brian passed our pit on a mission! He is 1:30 behind you," said LJ on the radio just past main pit. He was ahead on time, but behind us on course, exactly where we wanted to be.
During this fast lap we hit a 'G'-out so hard the sweat from Hartman's face covered his shield. The King shocks and Rubicon Express suspension took it in stride. We pushed the Banks Power Wrangler hard in the sections where we cruised the lap before, and there was no sign of Dodge. We passed Brian Hartman's pit at about half way and wanted him to get a time split. We continued to push hard past his radio range and then got a call from Bob Green that Dodge was 11:20 back. I can't begin to explain how good that feels when you work so hard and see results! We slowed down again to a conservative pace and took it home for a 2nd place finish.
Post technical inspection went well, our suspension was within spec due in part to the PRP limit straps that did not break or stretch, and our motor, the smallest on the podium, passed with flying colors. It was interesting to note that all three podium finishers were sporting Harland Sharp roller rockers. The Banks Power Wrangler's little motor with Perfect High Torque engine management system has the power to run on top of the class with the smallest displacement of the podium finishers, on pump gas!
We moved up to 3rd in points, just one point out of second and 36 points out of 1st for the season. With Henderson NV, set for the final race of the season, where we won our first race in 2007, the excitement of this team and our success couldn't be greater. Our marketing partners have allowed us to compete at this level and without them we would be lost. Thank you to our families for the support, our sponsors for the trust, and to Jeepspeed for giving us a platform to promote our sponsors and race.
