The Dreaded Parker 400. Well for the first time I can remember, I had a good race at Parker. In fact I think the forces there were even helping us at times instead of sending us evil bizzare problems to deal with. On several occasions, passing or blasting in blinding dust, we blew a corner or two, into what appeared to be a quick end to our day, but low and behold, we survived (and even made the pass !!) so it looks like our luck might be changing at the Parker 400. Before you get too excited, we finished 2nd, only 2 minutes and 11 seconds behind Carlos Iribe. DAMM. It was quite the battle all day. The dust was some of the worst I've ever seen. From the start throughout the day it was like running in the fog. At times you couldn't see the hood of the car, then maybe it might clear up so you could see maybe 50 ft. OK, it wasn't that thick ALL day, but since there was really no wind blowing, the dust just hung in the air and never really cleared up. It got real scary more that once.
St.Pat started the race with me, we got off the line around 11:00 AM, I don't think we even saw the track for the first 10 miles or so, we were catching so many cars right off the bat. We passed Class 3's, Class 7s's and several other 5-1600's. We got to 2nd right away. Then we chased down Bob Wright who was the first car off the line. It took us until about mile 30 to reel him in. Then I blew a right hand turn out of Swansea, well I didn't blow the turn, I turned the wheel, but the car just went straight. Hummmm, that was strange, we went a bit further, then another right turn, Whoa, I think we got a flat. Damm, so we plodded along figuring it would be faster to limp to Midway, than to change it ourselves. We pounded along hearing the rim smacking all those rocks, and watching the Wright car pull away from us, next thing you know here comes Iribe, we let him go by, and keep on dragging our way to Midway, what seems like an eternity later, we pull into the pits and the crew changed the tire pronto. Off we went, Ahh, thats better, now we are back on the gas, trying to make up some time. The car is running great, we fly through the next couple of pit areas, and about 5 miles out of Midway the second time, (the course hits the Midway pits twice per lap, mile 52 and mile 113) we flew into a big hole. It hit kinda hard but the car took it fine, and I was still on the gas when St.Pat starts saying STOP THE CAR, STOP THE CAR !! I was looking around like the car was on fire or something the way he was yelling. When we nailed the hole it hit just right to tweak his back pretty good. He kept saying "I have to get out, I have to get out." I said "We have to keep going, I can't leave you here. I'll take it easy to the next pit and have another rider get in. Here, take some Advil." He said he couldn't see anything, and could I put the Advil in his mouth for him. As we sat there, I saw the win disappearing before my eyes, but I figured it wasn't worth killing or paralizing my co-rider for (although I though about it). After a few more minutes he said he was feeling better, so we started up again. I was taking it easy and he said he was feeling O.K. so I started to push a little harder. I asked him if he wanted out at the main pits and he said NO. He was a little sore, but was alright. OK, were back in the race !!
Lap 2. I started to notice that the volt guage was reading a little bit low, so I turned off the fan on the oil cooler and turned off our fresh air pumper into the helmets to try and conserve on the battery. Oh boy this is gonna suck when we need our lights. Hey look there's Wright broke down !! Cool, that puts us back in 2nd with only Iribe about 10 minutes in front of us. We get to Midway and do our scheduled pit stop, dump 20 gals of fuel, change co-riders, add oil, and bang were outta there. We told the crew to radio to my Dad at the Main Pits and have him bring the spare alternator out to Midway and we would change it when we come back around. Hopefully the battery will hang that long. We were motoring, I told Dennis that the crew better get moving or we were going to beat them back to Midway, as it turns out they got the alternator about 10 minutes before we got there. We changed it and fired up the car, Crap, it's still not charging, they check the connections and they are OK, so we leave anyway. Dennis and I keep a keen eye on the guage, it shows that it is not charging, but the light isn't coming on anymore ? so we cross our fingers that the guage is screwed up.
A few miles into Lap 3 the car is really starting to crap out, and the guage is showing almost no battery left. I decide to stop at the Shea Road crossing around mile 13 to try and find the problem. I check all the connections at the alternator, they seem OK, I check the connection on the starter, where the alternator wire meets the battery cable, BINGO, the connector on the end of the wire broke. As soon as I touch it Dennis yells "That's it !!" So I quickly strip back some wire and twist it around the starter post. YEAH, we're charging, we're back in the race, and we can even use the pumper and our lights !!! This is great, even the radio is working now. We radio to everyone that the problem is fixed and we are back on the road (or off the road). We pass through Pit A and Marty tells us to get it on, that Iribe just left the pits, Wow after all that trouble, we were gonna have a battle into the night. With Iribe hot on our tail we cruized past Midway. Somewhere between Midway and Graham Well in some outrageous dust we caught up to us. We could hardly see the ground in front of us, and they were driving like madmen. I figured that after all the bad luck I've had at Parker, there was no need to make any mistakes now. I wanted a good clean finish here, not another story of how only 50 miles from the finish Blah blah blah happened. So we chased their dust for the next 70 miles and pulled into the finish line 1 minute 41 seconds behind them. (Which on corrected time was 2:11)
So to wrap this up, this was by far the best Parker 400 in V-Mar history. A win would have been nice, but with our little mishaps throughout the day, I'm perfectly happy with a Very Close 2nd. I'm looking forward to the Best in the Desert, Vegas to Reno race in March. I working real hard to get everything dialed in for that one. The pre-run is mid-February.
See ya there !!!
Vince
![[HOME]](../homeb.gif)