We love our Bilstein shocks.
We’ve been with Bilstein since we started building the car and Joel and his team with the Off Road Motorsports group have been tremendously supportive of our efforts. They just upgraded us to their “Ensenada Package” for the KC Hilites race and the results were great.
So when Joel asked us if he could use an image for a flyer for the shocks, we naturally said yes. You can check out the results here.
Everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off on Sunday.
We’ve got less than a week to go before the KC Hilites Midnight Special in Ridgecrest, California. The team met on Sunday and reinstalled the front skid plate, attached the fenders and moved the race radio so it’s now above the GPS unit on the co-driver’s side, nearly touching the roof.
This gives the tall people quite a bit more leg room. Also, we don’t spend a lot of time futzing with the radio during the race, so moving it out of the way is fine. And this frees up room for an iPod dock.
The folks at Bilstein finished the upgrades to the shocks this morning and we expect them here tomorrow.
Ok, technically none of us are Canadian and, technically, we’re only two-wheel drive, but Trevor and his team were kind enough to name us August Rig of the Month on Gear Centre Group’s 4×4 Club website.
We will, however, be heading up to Montreal in October to put the car on display for the World Diabetes Congress where I’ve set a personal goal of eating my weight in poutine.
We’ll be working on Creech’s toy hauler this weekend. Bilstein is wrapping up work on our prototype “Ensenada” race package shocks, which will arrive Tuesday. And somewhere out on the East Coast, an R&D lab is putting the finishing touches on our secret weapon for the Baja 1000.
The KC Hilites Midnight Special race is coming up August 8.
We run Bilstein shocks and they’ve been working great for us.
We’re going through the car from stem to stern. Looking at the front shocks, we noted the hoses between the shocks and reservoirs were a bit frayed from rubbing against the inside of the fenders. I got in touch with Joel, the Off Road MotorSports Technical Supervisor for Bilstein. I asked whether his team could fab a couple of shorter hoses. He came back with an offer to upgrade us to their newest reservoir design.
“Let me think about this yes.”
The team got new bushings in the front beam and got the whole front end buttoned up. Our first logistics meeting is tomorrow. Seth is bbqing tri-tip.
I just faxed off our down payment for the registration fees for this year’s Baja 1000: $200 to SCORE and mailed a check for $500 for pit support to Baja Pits. (I can’t say enough great things about how well Carlos and his folks took care of us last year).
We get asked a lot how much it costs to do this race. Here’s a breakdown of the major expenses:
SCORE International registration fee: $2,075.00
Baja Pits registration: $500.00
110 Octane race fuel – 150 gallons @ $8.95 a gallon): $1,342.50
Then you have individual expenses –
SCORE membership: $75
Mexico Tourist visa: $40 (If you want to pay a guy to go to the bank and handle the paperwork for you – which you do.)
International Driving Permit: $15 (You can get this at AAA).
Then add to that fuel for the RVs, chase and passenger vehicles that go down. That’s several thousand simoleans.
But other than that, that’s pretty much it. Granted, that’s not counting construction of the car, spare parts and tires. Our sponsors, like Bilstein and Skips Tire’s, have been great and their support has been invaluable.
We’re getting together next weekend to start final prep on the car. We’ll be looking at the shift linkage bushings, it needs to be painted, we need to get going on skid plates and Richard will be putting together a checklist that we’ll use to prep the car once we’re down in Mexico.
Last year we went for a “rear start” – meaning you start at the back of the pack of the cars in your class. Since there were only eight of us in 2007, that mean we got an extra 3 minutes of prep time from when the first Class 11 went off the starting line. This year I’ve decided we’re going out first. We’ll just have to be ready to go three minutes earlier.