Photo courtesy Courtnay Robbins Bragagnolo. You can check out her entire set from the Mint 400 at The World in a Box.
Rosh Edwards co-drove the second lap of the Mint 400 with driver Toby Fray. He posted his recap for the team and gave me the green light to take it public.
Rosh and Toby in happier times. (Photo by Courtnay)
The car was running great for Toby and me when we took over and it was smooth sailing. The only thing we had noticed was reverse was not holding and it would spit out the shifter when engaged. We pulled in to Pit 1 and were fueling up when Gil noticed front left wheel was loose. He and Crusty tightened up pinch nut and we were back on our way.
Photo by George Krieger, who accompanied us to the Mint 400. You can check out his entire collection from the race here.
About a 1/2 mile later we pulled over to allow another vehicle to pass. Toby realized something wasn’t right and was worried the tranny was out since reverse was already weird. I got out and told him the wheel was spinning. We radio’d back to Chase 3 and Crusty let us know that front left wheel was probably seizing from over tightening of nut. We loosened it up and decided to allow that play Gil had noticed and just hope for the best regarding the bearing. We were back on our way.
As we were coming through the Joshua Tree Highway area we were in what I would describe as a “sand chute” when we heard a car signaling for a pass. I’d just checked mirrors so the driver hadn’t been following for more than a few seconds. With near vertical 3′ berms on either side of the car Toby had nowhere to go. The driver could have waited 100 yards for a clean pass, but decided to drive over us instead. He (maybe a class 61 or 72) came right over our rear left bumper and fender jolting the car pretty hard. This was around 12:30 I think, so no idea why he was so aggressive. We were left in a dust cloud with zero visibility.
A couple hundred yards later we were just starting to regain visibility when Toby had to lock up the brakes as the truck that had just passed was stopped on the track. At this point the berms were not as steep, but even taller and the track was very silty. When we could see we realized there was a buggy in front of truck that was in a horrible spot on a completely blind curve. They had been there a half hour and put out no triangles and had one driver waving his arms a mere 40′ in front of buggy. I didn’t even see him through the dust.
Photo courtesy of Shilynn Milligan. You can check out her Mint 400 coverage here.and on the Mint 400 website.
When the trucks started coming we all waved our hands, but it really wasn’t clear where to go and the drivers didn’t have much time to prepare because they were coming off a curve. The first three trucks in a row almost all plowed into 1858. At that point I grabbed a maxtrax and moved up a bit farther and waved the maxtrax as they came around the curve. Toby pointed furiously where to go and this seemed to work significantly better. We kept this up for an hour in hopes of warning most everyone for their first lap. Most people did figure it out, but a few tried to stay on course and the original broken down buggy did get pegged once. Luckily, our car took no more hits.
At that point Toby and I argued for awhile on whether to walk out or stay put. I wanted to walk out, Toby wanted to stay put. I broke my foot in a motorcycle accident about 5 weeks ago, so in the end decided Toby was right. We reconciled the fact that we were there until at least 10:30 p.m. and started talking about pizza and beer. We were in the absolute worst possible spot for a rescue, but we knew Chase 3 would be doing everything in their power and we appreciated that immensely! It was mentioned over and over, but we also knew there was no way in because I’d walked up the mountain and viewed the entire area.
We didn’t make it out until after 1 a.m., but the Best in the Desert recovery team was awesome. We met up with Chase 3, wolfed down a couple sandwiches and slammed a couple cheap beers. Chase 3 rocks!!
Thank you Jim for pulling this off. Thank you Brian, Crusty and Romy for such incredible car prepping. Thank you Wallentine Motorsports for taking Desert Dingo to the next level!!
Best regards, Rosh
(Photo courtesy Ryan del Ponte of The Red Line Projects). 
