by
Tony Tellier
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take a
ride in Morgan Molacco’s fresh “Five” car at the Vegas 300.
I was already tagged to ride right seat in the twice-SCORE “Five”
champion, the James Gang ‘Outlaw’ rag top, so this was to be a one-to-one
comparison.
After two laps and some time spent cinching up
loose CV bolts and backing off a burbling fuel regulator, Richard Boyle stopped
to discharge a paining Jeff Smith
and buckle me in. “Let’s do
it!”
We left Checker Main (unknowingly) three
minutes ahead of Robby Gordon and his Valvoline Ford Trophy-Truck.
“Ignorance is bliss.” So
they say. They also say, “to be forewarned is to be forearmed.”
Or something like that. When
I saw the low-flying chase chopper out of the VW’s window, I knew we were in
for it big time. The “Five” car
did not have a rear view mirror mounted as yet nor an operating radio or
intercom system so I could only point at the harbinger of doom.
Rich caught on at once -- he is a quick study indeed -- and stayed hard
left. Gordon, on his fourth of five
58-mile laps, knew of an alternate line to the right and smoked us. He dusted us. He
silted us. He rocked us.
But he did not roll us. We
were blinded and had to slow to less than a crawl.
Once back at speed the new, short-time car
worked like a champ. The 2700cc
Type IV never burbled, pooped, or popped throughout its this-wide power band.
The Kusters on the Penhall chassis soaked up the over-used over-abused
desert whoops as hard-charging Boyle drove confidently with his left hand on the
steering wheel and his right on the Hewland’s gear selector.
With none of that gear grinding common to clutchless shifting.
Over the dry lake, however, the engine began
to fall flat on its face. “Running
out of gas.” Rich motioned.
We were close to Rev. Roy’s Checker Pit and roared in for a visual on
the regulator -- to see if the diaphragm set screw had backed out.
“Looks OK!” The
righteous Wrightwood one intoned.
We were gone in sixty seconds.
Apparently fuel delivery rates had been compromised when Morgan dropped
pressure on lap one to reduce the in-the-whoops stumbling.
Up toward the alluvial fan leading to the
power line road, Boyle suddenly slowed and grabbed for his left leg, flexing the
knee. Did he hit the soft spot in
his knee on the upright, or the wheel? It
turned out he got a cramp in his calf from jamming his leg hard against the
‘dead pedal.’
Then the right door dropped down and began
banging. The hinges had separated
from the front clip. I held onto
the jam with my right hand. We
stopped and ‘opened’ the latch ... which was the only thing holding the door
on. With the door stacked against a
yucca we suddenly realized that the window net was on the door and a checkpoint
could pull our ticket on safety considerations.
With the door and its net tie wrapped back on we left only to stall right
in the bottom of an uphill turn: The fuel pump switch in the ‘Off’ position.
“#%^$%$!!!”
With the door loose and banging, the
structural integrity of the body was severely compromised.
The gas filler was helping hold on the rear quarter panel and the plastic
tubing soon pulled out, putting F & L fumes in the Pumper system.
Luckily around the next sweeper were two
chaser dudes from the WWR team. “Hey!
How about ratchet strapping or duct taping this thing on?”
Smarter than a tree full of owls, they simply cut off the net, taped that
onto the car’s now-exposed cage and tossed the door into their pickup.
“See you at the main pits! You’re
looking good!” They pumped our
a** full of sunshine.
“On the road again.”
We thumbed our way pasted the power line pits at full boil.
Only to miss the hard left-hander as, this time Boyle’s right calf
cramped. “Ow!”
He howled. We backed out of
the cactus and were back on the gas when the car dropped off to the side and
took a hard left into the creosotes. “This
is not a good thing.”
I quickly summarized (I can be a quick study, too.)
The Summers Brothers stub axle was sheared off
flush with the hub. The car’s
radio did not work and it appeared that we were not near a viable access road.
But I had my hand-held and found that not only was SNORE Relay on the
Weather man freak but that the low-power Yaesu could actually make contact.
The good guys got Morgan moving our way and within a short time he and
Mike Pike worked their way in with a spare stub axle.
Rich walked the course until
he found the outer spacer right where Robby had run over it on his way to the
finish. But it was soon discovered
that the left-hand Weber was loose on its head.
A bolt ear had split off the head’s flange allowing an air leak.
Hmm ... no wonder it ran funny once in a while.
“The heads been ported and that must be a thin wall,” Molacco
explained.
The plan to continue the race was changed to
RTVing that joint then putt-putting onto the access road and back onto the
trailer. At least Morgan would get some
stick time.
Richard, Tom, and I piled into the Dodge only
to have Mike catch a rock and slice a sidewall. “A flat!
We don’t have a spare in the truck!
But we have two at the main pit.”
No beer either. No real radio either. Now
we were in a “hole” between mountains and my five-watter wouldn’t raise a
peep.
But as the sun dropped into the west I could
reach Big John Files at Checker “B” who could talk to Checker Main.
Morgan, now back slurping a Bud, elected to send some novices with the
tire. They got lost.
They could not find us. They
drank all the beer. They had no
radio. The promised “twenty minutes” stretched an hour.
The sun went down. The moon came up. Chase
and race lights disappeared. It
grew chilly... then cold. Except
for Tom Pike who was from Billings, Montana and almost suffered a heat stroke.
Files promised to get to us before our friends
using the age-old “Click twice for ‘Yes’; once for ‘No’.”
while they opened Buds over the radio for us.
What pals, huh? He told the
main pits how the hog ate cabbage and how to find us.
We all got to bad-mouth Morgan. Finally
Morgan and a wild-eyed cast of characters appeared with a cooler and a tire...
in that order of importance.
Racer: Don’t leave home without your Big John.