Category: Fallon 250 Night Race

Off the line at the Bill Lott Memorial Night Vision 250.

Dennis and Deb made it back to Ensenada and shipped me their photos from the VORRA Night Vision 250, which we won. Great stuff here.

Crusty reports 1107 is good to go for the last race of the season – the Prairie City short course double-header Halloween Weekend.

Made the decision this week after confabbing with the team that we’ll skip the Baja 1000 this year, use the off season to work on a couple of race project and hit the 1000 again in 2013, which I’m hoping it will be a loop course (a lot more affordable to race).

I think, in advance of Prairie City, I’m going to make everyone watch this NASCAR commercial:

Ok, here are Dennis’ photos from the race.

Dennis and Dave, arms akimbo after delivering a good car at the end of Lap 5, sometime around 1:30 a.m.

Ok, granted there were only two Class 11s racing, but it was a textbook win. No rollovers (not even twice). No burned clutches. No drama. Just consistent, smart racing.

Meeks Racing No. 1142 at race start.

The VORRA Bill Lott Memorial Night Vision 250 started at 6 p.m. Saturday at the pits just south of Fallon Naval Air Station and went through 3 a.m. Sunday. Everyone rolled in Friday night or godawful early Saturday morning. No time for pre-running, so we spent the day setting up camp, keeping people fed (thanks to everyone who pitched in) and prepping 1107 , which, thanks to Crusty, was pretty much good to go.

Dingo tested. Crusty approved.

We employed our patented and proven clown car strategy – two drivers, five co-drivers. Romy took the first two 41-mile laps, going out first with Toby (who we found on Craigslist) and then with fellow Ph.D. candidate (and wife) Jen.

Romy is nervous around girls.

Dave took over for Lap 3, with co-driver Paul Nauleau of CBCFS Racing. We’d been averaging roughly one hour laps and four minute pit stops (that included co-driver swap out, fueling and changing out flat tires. By the end of Lap Two we’d built up a 48 minute lead over No. 1142 Meeks Racing, who was plagued with power issues.

It takes a village to fix a Class 11.

Naturally, something had to go wrong and it did. 20 miles into the lap, the swank LED light bar we’d borrowed from CBCFS failed, landing on the hood of the car, where a quick thinking Paul grabbed it. Paul spent the next 20 miles leaning over the dashboard, holding the light bar with his hands as Dave charged across the desert.

When they pulled into the pits, the team set to work re-welding and reinforcing the light bar. 42 minutes later we were back on the road, Dave driving with Antoine co-driving. At some point I went to sleep, so I don’t remember much of what happened for the next couple of hours, but Antoine survived and Dennis Hollenbeck got his hour of terror in the co-driver seat. (At some point the co-drivers got together to compare notes on Dave’s driving (“Dave doesn’t like chit chat.” “Remind Dave that he said ‘Whoa, I just scared myself right there’ at RM20.”)

Co-drivers are larger than they appear.

Romy and Toby came in to bat clean up on Lap Six and to the best of my knowledge ran an uneventful lap. Back in the pits, I butted heads with Jen, who is an order of magnitude smarter than me, over whether we had a 12 minute lead (me) or a 30 minute lead (Jen). It’s unimportant who was right.

When Toby radioed in they were three miles out, we all headed down to the start finish line where the VORRA flagger and I agreed that it would be funny to mess with their heads and throw the white flag (one more lap) instead of the checkered.

Just messing with you.

Ok, Jen was right on the time. We got a win. Dave, Romy and Crusty accepted our first place plaque. Thanks go out to Meeks Racing for providing us with electricity for welding.

We had at least three flats, so we’ll be collecting rims and ordering some new tires for the Halloween weekend season finale at Prairie City.

A good time was had by all. Thanks to Dennis for allowing me to lift his photos. More to come.