“In some circles, the Mint 400 is a far, far better thing than the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the Lower Oakland Roller Derby Finals all rolled into one.”
~ H.S.T.
(Thanks to Indigo for reminding me about this quote).
What to say about the race? Scott and Carrie started out at a few minutes after 8 a.m. and set a fierce pace. By the end of the first 101 mile circuit, we had two blown shocks, the radio was kaput and the light bar had fallen off. None of it mattered since they’d moved us up from eighth to fourth place.
Scott gets to work after finishing the first leg.
Refueled, light bar re-welded, Richard and Creech tore off around 2:20 p.m. The silt was getting worse, particularly a 100-yard uphill that was stopping all manner of cars. The highlight of their leg, according to Richard, was a half hour,pitched battle with the Pump Gas team, racing side by side. Richard eased off to maintain the car.
Crusty welding the rear skid plate. Notice the tire mark to the left of rear light cluster. Thank you trophy truck No. 91. Expect a bill for a new fender.
Coming into the pits, the rear skid plate, which had been dragging, fell off. We knew we couldn’t go back out without it (guaranteed to destroy the underside of the engine). Imagine searching a half mile of track, in the dark, with race cars charging past us. Naturally, Carrie found it, hauled it back to the pits and Crusty bolted and welded it back in place. At 8:20 p.m. Bob took the driver’s seat and I belted in as co-driver.
We crossed the start/finish line, the flagger waived us and we were out on the course. Two miles out, we high-centered in silt the consistency of talcum powder and three feet deep. An hour of jacking, shoveling, sticking volcanic rocks under the rear tires, pulling with a come-along, more shoveling and we were on solid ground.
I called the team to let them know we were good to go when we got the word that we’d crossed the start line 20 minutes after the deadline for starting the final lap. Mind you, no one had mentioned a deadline at the driver’s meeting and it wasn’t included in any of the documentation, but we were officially done.
A chase truck for a Class 15 car stopped and gave us a couple of beers while we waited for extraction. An hour later we decided to save ourselves and drive back over the course we’d already covered.
Had we known about the deadline, we could have worked around it. Two Class 11s had gone out of the race just a couple miles up the road from us and we could have gone farther than them. But that’s racing.
We’ll do a post-race debrief, map out what needs to be done to the car, and get to work in preparation for the Caliente 250 in May.
Thanks to Jason and Annie Mace for finding us the perfect pit spot and for handling refuel duties out at Pit C. Thanks to our sponsors for their unwaivering support. And thanks to the other teams. We’re having a blast doing this.
