Team NAXJA 2013 King of the Hammers stock class 2nd place.....story and pics

[Goatman]

I can't do this in one sitting, or by myself, so I hope everyone adds their comments and pics.

Damn, we are so stoked!! What a bitch of a race course! I drove and Cal co-drove, and he worked his ass off all day spotting and winching. This was a very difficult course to do in a full bodied vehicle on 35" tires. We raced the 4643 Team /Petty Cash Racing Cherokee in the King of the Hammers Every Man Challenge stock class and finished in 2nd place against 25 entries in our class. The course was so tough that only two cars finished in our class. We finished after the closing time of 5:00 pm, but since we finished and were in 2nd place they awarded us the trophy. We started in 10th position and were in 3rd place on course by mid morning, and went back and forth a few times between 2nd and 3rd during the day, but by the last pit stop we were solidly in 2nd place.

We also raced in 2012, but the build of the new car went far beyond what we had originally intended and we barely finished the car before the race and had mechanical problems and didn't finish. So, we really wanted to finish the race this year. We ran a fairly conservative pace, probably too conservative since we didn't finish by the cut off, but it was still fast enough to keep us in 2nd and 3rd place on course most of the day. We really wanted the car to hold together. The course was a brutal 115 miles including 10 established rock trails and plenty of other rocky and sandy sections.

Here's a shot of me getting sprayed in beer at the finish line:

The car got to the desert in pretty good shape. We preran the first 52 mile desert loop and it worked pretty good but we thought it could use more compression in the rear shocks, so Bilstein adjusted the valving for us. We also found the ball joints loose on the passenger side. We're running Synergy ball joints, so I went over to the Poly Performance booth and they were happy to give us another set of upper and lower ball joints for both sides. Kris went to work changing them out. We got a tent this year, which made it much nicer to work on the car and hang out in the evenings.

We then preran the last desert loop of about 30 miles and when we got back we had lost 1 to 1.5 inches of ride height in the rear. We also noticed that there were some cracks in the pass side upper control arm mount on the front axle. James and Dallas (from StinkyFab) fixed and beefed up the front end with help from Ruffstuff Specialties, and more of the team swapped in another set of Deaver springs in the rear. The springs gave us back our ride height and up travel, and were a little stiffer, and with the shock adjustment it made a big difference in the go fast stuff.

Here's a shot of James and Kenyon doing something to the car:

There is a lot more story to tell, about how we got there, about the race, and our week in the desert, but this will get us started.

 

[Goatman]

Here are a few pics from the race, copied from ruggedjeep's postings. This is the start.

This is on Chocolate Thunder.

 

[87manche]

fawesome that you guys finished.

 

[in4aride]

Bad ass guys. watched the feed all day. Wind looked nasty. Props on the finish.

 

[RedHeep]

Glad to see Dave Cole hooked the team up like he did the U4 rigs.

I really wanted to help more, but you guys had a lot of hands helping you out and trying to help prep 2 race teams at the same time is impossible

We told you to kick some ass on Wed night and you went out and did.

 

[cal]

I came home from hammertown with the flu, but have a lot to add to this when I'm doing a little better.

 

[ruggedjeep]

Didnt know this thread existed so I posted my pics in the socal chapter.
Link:
http://naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1096345

 

[David Taylor]

I have some here. It's unlocked so download a will.

http://davidgtaylor.smugmug.com/KOH2013/4643/27960112_NqnBw3#!i=2360239357&k=rMf2rF2

 

[shortxjdoug]

great work guys....it looks like the course for the everyman got WAY harder this year.


i think it also speaks to the viability of the xj as an offroad platform when set up properly...... not a bunch of other rigs out there that bring home a trophy and milk bread and eggs!

 

[Mike1331]

great job guys jeep looks amazing.

 

[dukie564]

i snapped some screen captures from the ustream while I was watching it

Looking tired on lap 3

 

[dukie564]

and some heli video of you guys at 16:25 (and 17:25?)
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/29107288

 

[Glenn B]

That is awesome Richard, and everybody that was a part of this.

 

[Vanimal]

great that they gave you guys the trophy, well deserved.

 

[JeepFreak21]

Sooo AWESOME! Congrats to the whole team!

Where's the thread with the build/race prep?

Billy

 

[Ghost]

Sweet!

 

[Goatman]

Sooo AWESOME! Congrats to the whole team!

Where's the thread with the build/race prep?

Billy

Here you go:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1075100


Kind of a long thread, the build has been going on for quite a while. Scan through to see the pics.


Richard G

 

[JeepFreak21]

Here you go:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1075100


Kind of a long thread, the build has been going on for quite a while. Scan through to see the pics.


Richard G

Mod tech? No wonder I couldn't find it!

 

[SC Rednek]

Mod tech? No wonder I couldn't find it!

Well it is a stock jeep. Probably should have gone in the OEM forum.

 

[Goatman]

We wanted to win this race, but we all agreed that finishing was the first goal since we did not finish last year. We did not want two DNF's two years in a row. The race started with a bunch of us getting off course and lost, blowing the start of the race. Someone took a wrong turn and we all followed them. This kind of bunched us together more going up the steep hill towards Backdoor. The next 40+ miles was desert of all types, some of it pretty rough. We kept a quick but conservative pace well within the cars capabilities and passed a few cars, diced it up with a few of the 4500 cars (modified class), had a good amount of time with the helo flying low and filming us, and made it to pit 1 at 38 miles with no incidents.

No flats, no noises, no issues, so we passed pit 1. The course went through some fast whoop sections and then to some tight twisty sections across the low ridge with lots of loose sand and rocks. Around mile 48 we came to a back up on a steep narrow chute of loose sand and rocks, and we had to wait for a few cars as they worked through it, then we had to winch to get through. This was the start of a long day for Cal walking and winching in steep loose sandy sections of trail.

We got through this section and finished the first loop and stopped at main pit a little after 10:00. Cal and I got a quick snack and a bottle of water while the guys did a quick look over of the car, and in our excitement we told the pit crew to not fuel us, we'd fuel in pit 2. Dumb. At this point it looked like we were in 3rd place on course. OK, not pushing hard and we're in good position. We went through more fast desert, mixing it up with a couple of 4500 cars, and made it to the first rock trail Aftershock. The 4500 class started before us at 8:00, and the UTV classes started at 9:00. We caught a few 4500 cars and a 4600 car broken down at the last big section of Aftershock, which is pretty hard, and the first couple of UTV's caught us while we were working through. Cal had to get out again and we winched through the hardest section, then there was another car broken and parked in the normal line, so Cal spotted me through a harder line and we had to winch one more time.

We cleared the top of Aftershock, and stopped to air our tires down which had been our plan. The next trail was Hwy 19/20 and we moved along well until we came to a particularly difficult section where we had to wait for a UTV and a 4500 car. Cal got out to help them set a winch point, and he helped them both winch through, then we winched through. A little further up we got the front axle hung between two rocks and we couldn't go forward or back. The first three rocks that Cal hooked the winch to came down and didn't hold, so there wasn't a place to winch that gave us a good angle. Cal had me keep turning the wheel and winching while he kept stacking rocks and we finally got clear, but a white 4600 Cherokee, a couple 4500 cars, and a UTV passed us while we were stuck. We finished Hwy 19/20 with no more issues and made it to pit 2 around 2:00.

At pit 2 the car got checked over, we ate a sandwich and had a bottle of water, and we took on fuel. At this point we were in 3rd place again. We went across Fissure Mtn Trail, enjoyed the views from the top of the ridge, and made it down Jackhammer with no issues, then came to Chocolate Thunder and all the crowds. More soft sand for Cal as he got out and we winched over the first ledge, then I was able to crawl the rest of the entrance obstacle and the rest of the trail. We let a UTV take another line at the beginning, and while I was working around a couple of diff grabbers the UTV took a different line and barely made it around us while the crowd yelled. We heard fans yelling our names which was kind of cool, and even though the UTV passed us we made it through clean, though we did have to wait for the UTV on the next obstacle. Cal grabbed the UTV's winch line and helped the other co-x get the UTV through and then we cleared it and finished the trail.

Next up was Wrecking Ball. We had to winch right at the beginning, then had no problems until we came to the waterfall, where a 4500 car was having a real hard time winching up with a broken front axle. We waited a bit, but they finally made it, and we winched right up. We had passed the white 4600 Cherokee somewhere, but they caught us at the bottom of the waterfall. We drove down Clawhammer, up lower and upper Big Johnson, and down Boulderdash with no issues, and then stopped at pit 2a. Cal and I knew we were in 2nd place, we were running out of time to finish at 5:00, and we knew the other 4600 car was on our ass.

Cal had seen that one of the arms on the front anti-rock sway bar was bent and rubbing on the spring, and it was making noise, so we told the pit crew to cut it off. Out came the cut off wheels, since it was quicker than what it would take to unbolt it, and since sparks were flying the other guys held up adding more fuel. The car got checked, looked good, the sway bar arm was removed, the tires got aired back up, and they started to add another can of gas. Cal and I wanted to get going and yelled that we didn't need gas (dumb) and main pit had not communicated to pit 2 that we had skipped taking fuel there (dumb), so the decision was made to not add more fuel (dumb). BTW, did I mention that drivers and co-drivers can get kind of stupid during a race?

We peeled out from pit 2a at roughly 4:30 heading for Elvis with around 25 miles of course yet to run. A few miles out of pit 2a the engine started sputtering slightly now and then. WTF? We easily cleared Elvis and had some fast desert on the way back to the tight twisty sandy rocky ridge that we had to do again, but the engine was sputtering a little more now. I was cussing because I thought we could be running out of gas and how stupid it was for us to not take gas and what if we freakin' ran out of gas and didn't make it? I had slowed down and was cruising and up shifting to save fuel just in case. We made it to the sandy rocky ridge and came to the steep loose sandy chute where we'd had to winch earlier in the day, and the engine was sputtering more consistently by now.

I diffed in the sand in the chute, Cal got out so we could winch, while he was doing that I worked it some more and got it to clear and was able to drive on up the chute, and then the engine died.....and wouldn't restart. Moth...Fu....!! Our only choice was to winch up and see if the fuel would get back on the pick ups and maybe it would start. So, Cal got to walk up and down some more steep sand, and we winched. There were course recovery guys still there, and they gave us a hand, and some winch points, and really helped us out, but all of this dead engine winching and multiple winch points and soft sand took a lot of time. But, the engine did finally start again!!!

Cal got in and we took off hoping like hell that we could at least get over the ridge and be able to reach the crew on the radio. The engine was running like crap, but it kept running and we kept moving. We had a big hill to climb and wondered if we should chance it or leave the course just so we could maybe get back, but I thought f*ck it let's go for it and Cal said then you better get on it and we made it up the hill, then down the really steep drop on the other side. Now we could really see the lights of Hammertown and the finish line with maybe 2 miles to go of steep up and down cross grain close to the bottom of the ridge. Running like crap, but the motor kept going and we kept moving. The last obstacle was a long steep climb up over the top of King Mtn and then down to the finish line. We thought there's no way the car is going to climb that hill but I wasn't going to go around now and so we blasted up the hill with the engine barely running and made it to the top, then down to the finish line and the checkered flag with all of our crew waiting. Son of a bitch!! We had made it!! It was close to 6:30, we were past the time cut off, but we had finished the race!



Richard G