We have always wondered how the other trucks could drive by us so fast. We have tried to win races for 5 years in our old black truck but 3rd was the best we could ever do. However, we did win at least 12 races in 3rd place. It is now up to us, this truck can place 1st. Our new truck was built from the ground up to race in the desert. Our name for this project was Solid Ground and we are hoping to build a future for Lost Boys Racing with this truck.
Stewart was to drive the first lap, I would drive the next, and Derek the third. Stewart had the most time during testing and had worked on the truck for 4 months. I had less than 5 minutes and Derek now living in Colorado was just seeing it completed for the first time. Soon after we started I realized that it would be better to leave Stewart in as driver for at least two laps. The truck is a handful, not because it hard to drive but because everything now happens twice as fast as we’re used to. There is a little body roll that got worse on the 2nd lap (we may have broke the torsion bar.) The way the 4.5 liter engine was set made it drive like a 2-stroke. The torque was only there after the engine cleared and you are on the pipe. The power hits like a turbo with a little lag.
The course was short and hard. Lots of turns, 20 miles of rocks, and with no GPS we missed one or two turns… OK maybe more like ten. We hit the core track full speed. Just like two kids in a candy store we were bounces off the walls. We hit each jump as full speed but could not turn while breaking into the corners. Our lack of skill and the rear spool drove us high up into the turns only to stall the truck. It even gets worse… on the third jump we slid sideways into the berm almost rolling the truck sitting still! We think this was filmed by a helicopter by Sopwith Motor Sports and live on the net. Maybe we’ll make the TV series.
We completed one lap passing at least four 7200 trucks including Certified, even after changing a flat and correcting a power steering problem. We fueled at the main pit and took on only 11 gallons. We started the race with 60 gallons in our 80 gallon tank. Our goal at that point was to make it through the rocks and past where we got our first flat. We got down to the rocky canyon and hit the flat ground as fast as we could but just before the checkpoint our trannie locked up and filled out skid plate with fluid. After a couple of quick checks on the linkage we could not find anything wrong and were done for the day.
Great fun! The truck drove better than we expected. Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll ain’t got nothing on off-road racing.
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Lost Boys Racing 
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