It was our race to lose… all it took was one simple mistake.
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Our biggest thanks go to our mechanics who prepped the truck. We have just finished two complete overhauls on our NORRA 1000 vehicles. The AMC Hornet and the 1983 Hi-Jumper. To finish the month we replaced the engine in the race truck and prepped it for the Silverstate 300 as well. The shop is a mess but everything is up and running with new engines and transmissions. Butch Burtness and Stewart Dixon made it all happen.
Race Day: Everyone is up early at 5:30am to drive to Alamo, 90 miles away. Derek Dixon, Jeff McCullough, and Stewart Dixon are in Chase #1 and Jeff Marciano and Gary Dixon are in Chase #2. We pre-stage at 8:30am. There are at least 200 trucks here and 18 in our class today. First truck off the line at 9:30a, and I have no idea what time we started. It takes 10 minutes to catch up with 3rd place and 4 more minutes to pass 2nd and 1st. I think we were in 1st place for almost an hour before #7203 passed us coming into pit 2. We did not stop here, our first fuel stop is pit 3. We are now rolling through the 25 mph zone, the speed on our GPS is messed up and not reading right, it says “-17” I hope we’re not going the wrong way! We catch with #7203 and hit the “resume race speed” sign 100′ apart. It’s a drag race to the first turn. We were both sideways going through the turn going 70 mph with wheel spin a lot higher. As the turn ends, the BFG’s hook up and it’s all over, we are in the lead again.
One minute later we blow a slow left-hand turn, hit an 8′ high sand embankment and roll down in slow motion. One mistake in our kind of racing and you go from first to last. The trucks weighs 5600 lbs and there is nothing to do but wait and wait… and wait. An hour and 45 minutes later, one of the Jeeps stop to roll us over. They need to spin it first to get the wheels out of the sand. We still can’t get a good angle on it then BitD shows up to finish the job. Thanks to both vehicles we are back in the race 2 hours later.
Everything is working fine but we need to slow down, we need to finish the race now.
We make it to pit 3, a Diet Coke and 44 gallons of race fuel and we’re on our way. The course is very tight and our GPS cannot give all the turns. Switchbacks every 5 minutes, trees at every turn, then 100 mph straight-aways rolling down the mountains. The course is fun but no mistakes are allowed. It will take away your confidence very quickly. “Does a falling tree make a sound after being hit at 70 mph an hour?” YES! We finished the race 1 hour and 50 minutes after 1st place. I still like this race, it’s fun, fast, and a rally driver’s dream.
White boys can jump.
Lost Boys Racing 