Checkin in from the Vegas airport, drove up here from JV today to visit the Hoover dam, return my rental car, and meet up with the rest of the TR Motorsports team to head back down there.
It's insanity on the lake bed. I do not ever want to race KOH, maybe EMC, but this is a shitton of work, money, and just overall resources. Every day is something else you gotta buy (had a trans temp gauge overnighted to the lady who lives by the lakebed entrance today, she uses her front porch as the JV shipping depot), something else you gotta take care of (why do the helmet intercoms work but won't transmit to the VHF base station), while keeping to a schedule (oh wait, the qualifier driver's meeting was last night at 6 PM? Shit, too bad we were fixing a driveshaft on Big Johnson).
It's fun to be a part of though. I preran 70 miles yesterday, basically all of the first lap and half of the rock trails. We spent 9 hours so far doing shock tuning with Wayne and we're at 60-70 MPH over 2 foot whoops, and can muscle though 3 footers nearly as fast but not nearly as comfortably. I spent the other night reinforcing the front bump pads (they're already concave again after plating with 1/4") and building a new front bumper at the RuffStuff pit in order to pass tech. Miles 21-27 are nasty on the course, 28-38 are fun as shit 60+ MPH constant crusing. Backdoor is going to be a disaster.
Jay Hopko blew up my old stroker at mile 3.5 prerunning, not his fault (they rebuilt it and a number 6 cyl ring was defective, to the point that the oil pressure blew the CCV valve outta the valve cover and it looked like an oil grenade went off inside the cab). The SoCal

guys rustled up a spare stock 4:0 with a rebuilt head that should be arriving at the lake bed today and probably getting reinstalled tonight. Cool.
We qualify starting 60th tomorrow, keep an eye out for team 4108. I have no illusions that we're gonna win this thing but finishing is certainly a good possibility, maybe even well if Tim keeps it together. Mechically everything is still perfect. Gettin down to crunch time.