MDR

CALIFORNIA 200

Barstow, CA USA

15 August, 1998

 

CHECKERS RULE AT NIGHT

by

Anthony Tellier

 

The Mojave Desert Racing's night race -- a 1900 start -- was blessed by lower temperatures and by an hours-long thunderstorm on Friday night that dumped a lot of water on the Outlet Center course.  At least the weather-forecasted number of one-oh-nine was not approached.

I had a right seat ride in the Nissan Stock Mini of Matt Vaughan running against four other cars.  The wimps of the group voted to run only three laps rather than the normal four.  Seems to me that a unanimous vote would be required to shorten the race for these guys.  I didn' t know that racing was democratic.  The final results would reflect this shortened event.

We started way late, 1930+, behind the "7s" and ahead of the Herbies.  The Honcho-based Mini with the beam axle was seen sideway in the Mile Of Danger after less than a mile.  "One down ... three to go", we radio-ed.  We never saw the Tim Casey FourFinder of the La Paz Party Mix group (They owned the ex-Roger Mears Honcho that dominated Class 4 for years.)

We caught the next truck about three miles out then lost the tie rod end on the left hand side.  Using a post maul and a pickle fork we quickly removed (and saved) the old stuff out but then (unpleasantly) surprised to find that the new tie rod package did not have the castellated nuts enclosed.  And the broken end had come out of the link, so that nuit was available for further use.  I took a quick stroll in the gathering gloom looking for the flipped out end of the tie rod end but had no luck.  Matt found a replacement in his tool bag while Bill Varnes appeared like a mirage, out of the desert and rooted through his extensive junk boxes for another replacement.  US Standard, Metric, Whitworth ... he had it all.  We took the nut, anyway, for insurance.  Thanks, Bill!

The Nissan was all fabbed by Matt with excellent attention to detail.  "Before SCORE allowed mods to the idler arm ... that was our weak link," Matt explained.  Now he can be more aggressive.  But he still carries a beefed spare.

While we were down replacing the stock tie rod -- "Uh, a half, three-eights of an inch of thread on both ends outa be OK for toe-in" --  we got re-passed and also lost two slots to a brace of "11s".  Gloom.

We stopped at Checker Pit A where Morgan and Richard Boyle gave the front end a once-over.  Sandy offered me a burrito.  "Urp, no thanks." 

Nicole handed me a new tie rod ... with nuts and cotter pins ... to have and to hold.  Nothing like keying the mic, clutching a tie-rod in a vise-like death grip, handing over a dust-and-water rag and doing the lights and the horn and the cooling fan switch.  Like that guy at Venice juggling the running chain saws.  Coulda been worse.  I guess she coulda handed me an Optimum battery (this was actually discussed at one point!).

98_mdr_1203.jpg (19403 bytes)

That Road Crossing

 

With that old In-n-Out Urge, we did not tarry and re-smoked the Beetles, the next two cars in class and a "14" truck.. 

The rugged staircase over the mountain range between "A" and "B" brought the engine temperature way up to 250F ... even with the aux fan powered "On".  But that was transitory and on the down hill side the engine cooled off. 

About this time we started to see a gradual but steady decline in the battery voltage.  A normal system should be running at about 14 vdc and my gauge was down to twelve volts and heading toward rock bottom.

Matt runs minimal instrmentation and has nothing in front of him other than the desert vista.  "A tach?  Who cares?  This is the original motor and you can't over-rev one of these things anyway.  I don't want any distractions or extra pieces and electrical stuff to go wrong."  The only items that you had some control over were the lights which directly influenced the battery condition and the cooling fan which, of course, controls engine cooling.  All else would be fluff.

I would, however, put the horn button in the end of the right side hand-hold: one's thumb would fall easily onto the noise maker.  For those rare night races ... or the "1000" ... a shielded low-intensity directional night light, like an aircraft cockpit light would be cool.  And maybe a short fuel line extension on the cooling fan toggle switch to aid in flicking it when jouncing and jostling about.  Actually any controls are best placed where the arm is continuously supported by an elbow rest so that the hand is steadied.  Ergonomics, huh?

With a total of six PIAAs ... four 100-watters along the roof and two hi-lo 150s on the grill guard ... we had to be judidicous in our selection of lighting.  Too little and vision was seriously curtailed.  Too many and we ran the very real possibility of dropping the engine computer off-line.  "Eight voltage is the shut-down point," I was told.  Told later.  While we were never in danger of reaching that point, the electrical power was going slowly and continuously away.  The normally-racous horn began to sound like a ruptured duct: "Qua-a-a-ck."  The Optimum batteries would hold up for at least one lap.

TOO MUCH

We could engineer the crap out of this: 2 x 150 watts  = 12 volts x Amps => 25 amps

An 80 amp-hour (Ah) battery would last for 3.2 hours ... but would not be happy at all.  Running all six lights at once (300 W) would kill the battery in less than 1-1/2 hours.  This does not account for the additional loading of the cooling fan (25 W), gauge lights (5 W)and engine-control power (40 W).  The rating of a battery is specified at a lower limit of 10.5 vdc for a 12 volt battery.  Matt was running at the lower limit!  We dodged an electrical bullet, so to speak.  Starting would have been problematical.

LOST IN A LOST WORLD

The Barstow OHV area is riddled and criss-crossed with well-used two-trackers.  Any line looks like the race line and in the dark ... well, who knows what was what since we had successfully passed cars on parallel paths.

Getting lost is bad enough.  What is worse is meeting head-on un-lost Class 10s at race spped.  With lots of lights.  In our eyes.  We wandered with #1023 several times out and about.  Through water holes too large to be on the course.  The mistakes were made along ridge lines where the right route usually peeled off down hill.

We took a wrong turn coming into Pit "A" but our on-the-spot chase crew radioed that "HEY!  You're goin' the wrong way."  Not a problem.  Class 1600 winner Mike Duenas cut off down the hill before the proper trail and the Checkpoint Crew made him ... and others ... go back up the way he came and do it properly, if you please.

Our chase and radio crews were top notch.  All radio transmissions from the race vehicle were tersely repeated for continuity and clarity.  The chase people, including the elusive Baja Jones, were situated such that they could dash into a Checker pit as required and they could all forward the race car radio messages to everyone.  Good job, gang.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE CHECKERS

The Checker pits were packed with famous and infamous personages; the great, the near-great and the not-so-great:

and ...

LARKIN!!

There is such a fine feeling of security to see that blinking Checker "Blue Light Special" out in the darkness.

We had the misfortune to see our "Total Chaos Motorsports" pit partners outstanding by their Class 10.  The ex-Scalzo two-seat Aceco sizzled the engine in the sandwash past the Slash X pit.  "We were too lean on the air jet and it seems as if we trenched the head between cylinder."  The Fodors ... Mark and dad Rich ... actually use the car for fun runs down the peninsula to their place in Punta Chivato, north of Mulege.  Earlier, they had said that Richie Minga told them that "When you put numbers on that thing, it'll break!"  The Amazing Minga Predicts.

The "Total Chaos Motorsports" organization has beeen plagerized by a group of South Bay head-bangers who run the same "TC Motorsports" windshield decals on their trucks.  I asked them (the Hermosa dudes) "What's this 'TC'?"  "Totally cool; total chaos, totally crazy, total crash ... T(H)C ... "

We got passed by a few Tens, the somehow-slowed Seven of Scott Sells and "Big Air" Bob Wright, who won 5/1600 in spite of busting out his rear torsion adjusters.  But the 3/8-inch depleted-uranium skid plate supported the dog ears and the car only sagging a tad.  Gotta love that Checker luck. 

Mike Duenas and Billy McCool blistered the 1600 class with a fine win and a third overall.  Of the cars that passed us, McCool was easily the fastest.  No fooling, no foolin around.  Hard chargin'.  The tight technical course favored narrow short cars.  Mike was ecstatic while Billy was typically a "poor winner".  Joe Giffin might readily agree.

Fred Nelson had a broken rear spring and spent much of the night out in the mountains ... an inaccessible spot, at best.  He did get Second Place in Stock Full.

Matt and I clipped one of the many appliance store-sized rocks and tore out the left front "All-Terrain" sidewall.  The truck's jack and wrench set-up was well thought out and we spent but a few minutes making the swap.  The Ranch Jack matched the center-of-gravity receiver on the frame: both front and rear wheels would come up at once.  The hold-down wing nut was also the lug wrench.

The terrain was too rocky in this region to make it to the blue lights in the distance without shredding the carcass and damaging brake lines and shock shafts.  Plus Barstow is never a line-of-sight course anyway, so the Checker pit was not as close as it appeared nor as close as we wished.

COURSE COMMENTS

The 20 mile road crossing had a photo jump built for lots of air and an easy landing.  The Mexicans ought to come up and take back some design tips for San Felipe.  Getting lost is such a bummer.  With so many other trails you have to be more alert than usual.  We went off course 2.5 times.  One section was a common error spot ... so Paul Duffy sent out a man in a pickup with with a flashlight to direct the cars down to the right ... rather than off to the left that many took.  Another "Y" was marked by flares.  Thanks for the real-time damage control, MDR.

At Pit Main we had the tie-rod tie-wrapped to a frame member -- I was getting used to holding it.  NOT! 

While stopped, I was able to "re-calibrate" the voltage meter and determined that the "normal" needle positions was ten volts.  Not good.  (Top Tip: position the gauges in the dashboard so that "acceptable" or "normal" condition has the needles straight up.

Earlier I had suggested, over the radio, to the chasers that a battery replacement would be in everybody's best interest.  Nicole sailed in with a fully-charged Optimum and slung herself under the truck to remove the hold-down nuts.  "Hey!", Matt yelled.  "You're undoing my lap belt bolts!"  Oops.  She then got a purchase on the correct fasteners but ran out of take-off power on the re-assembly process.  "Can you help?", she asked Bates.  Bates later laughed, "She was tough but she ran out of steam cranking on those bolts.  Sure I helped her."  He had to!  She was the spark plug of the team: a hot one.  Bates tightened the nuts with his bare hands ... no wrench at!

While this was going on Larkin appeared to cheer me up and on to victory and greater glory.  He gave me swallow of (somebody) else's beer.

Nicole later said that "That guy with the limp (Morgan) told me to relax!"  Let me see if I understand this: MORGAN told someone else to relax?

On the other hand, Matt didn't get upset about anything, just remained focus.  He wouldn't get excited if he was on fire.

With a new box of volts we could sparingly use the high beams at the highest speed sections but I had to say "No!" to requests for lotzsa lights.  I also used the fan only when the temperature got about 200.  The night air was much cooler than expected and we could run much of the second lap without the cooling fan ... except on the Stairway To Heaven.

After the tire change I got the mud rag caught under the harness latch and when I handed the rag to Matt my belts came open.  I didn't realize it until I gave a healthy tug on the shoulder harness and got a lot of slack.  As I re-did the lap belt and one shoulder strap I was profoundly glad that I was not handling that tie rod or the (threatened) battery.

At the co-pilot change another battery was installed along with a ratchet strapped second unit as a spare.  However, the crew simultaneously discovered a blown 30-ampere fuse in the charging circuit and the battery exercise was only for security purposes. 

The Weatherman called in to "1203 Race" to say that MDR finish line officials saw that the yellow target light was out and "don't leave home (pit) without it."  The crew re-did the connectors and the car was set to go.  A quick snug on the field-replaced wheel, a new spare and it "Don't ever come back" as they left for the final lap.

Their last turn in the dez was flawless and if the race had gone the expected four laps there is no doubt in my mind that Matt could have reeled in the winner.  Matt was a very savvy driver ... very smooth and got the right lines and optional tracks all down in a New York Minute. 

The winner, by the way, neglected to show at the Drivers' Meeting and did not know about the three-lap decision.  They did four ... one for fun.

CATHETER COUNT-DOWN

Three successful uses and no personal soilage.  The latest revision uses a thick, rigid (!) rubber (!!) fuel line.  No more silly storage bags or surgical tubing that can twist and cause strangulation and unseemly back-up.  Top Tip: a small drain hole in the floorboard would be a nice hygenic touch.

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