VORRA USA 500 race recap

Paul Hartl and Emme Hall in happier times, eating granola and yogurt.

Paul Hartl, a 6’6″ rally driver, flew in from Ontario, Canada to drive with us at the USA 500. He penned an epic recap. Here it is:

On January 29, 2010 Chuck and I finished 3rd in the Snow Rally, and one day later 4th in the Drift Rally. Since then, I have DNS or DNF’d every gravel rally or off-road I entered. You may say a hundred times: ”It does not matter”, but it does; it gets into your head.

This past weekend I flew to Las Vegas and drove to Reno (way cheaper that direct to Reno) to race the inaugural off-road Master Pull USA 500 miles with Desert Dingos in Class 11 – a slightly modified 1969 VW Beetle.

I met Jim Thursday and the day proceeded as expected – that the 4 feet of my legs, a substantial part of my 6’6’’ body, stood no chance fitting under the steering wheel. There was zero chance I could touch the brakes. We had a problem. The next day Jim, thanks to Clayton Scudder, secured a small steering wheel and we bought a quick release that fit the steering column.

This provided two benefits:

1. We had two steering wheels in the car. A useful approach driven by the idea more spares are better than less.

2. A small steering wheel in a car without the power steering leads to a beautiful workout for your shoulder muscles and biceps. Those of you who know my feeble body type generally-avoidance-driven approach to exercising certainly consider this a huge benefit. Not to mention it looked cool, and “look” is 50% of “success”.

Friday developed as expected. We worked on the car til 2 a.m., found out (among other things) the GPS was fried and the replacement was incompatible. But real men and woman don’t eat quiche or drive according to GPS, or, for that matter, pre-run.

With three hours sleep, we met 6 a.m. Saturday for a team meeting in the Nugget lobby and then caravanned to the start. The course looked like a balloon on a stick – the “stick” led from Start/Finish to Pit 1, followed by the “balloon” (with Pits 1, 2 and 3), three times and then back to the Start/Finish.

Bob and Emme drove Start to Pit 2. There were some great blind crests with two-story drop offs to keep their adrenalin flowing. The only problem was their overwhelming urge to pee obscuring enjoyment of some of the drop-offs in the hills. Since that car was on brand new shocks, I’ve no idea what were they complaining about.

At Pit 2 Richard took over and I co-drove through Pit 3 to Pit 1. The course was yet to be ripped to shreds, the shocks were new, the sun was shining, Richard drove like a mad man and life was great.

Before Pit 3 we saw first place Bob Messer’s dust. Messer’s Pit 3 crew told him we were gaining. His response: “Catch me if you can.” Richard obliged. When Richard saw Messer’s car, his desire was only for the closing distance. Messer saw us coming. We drove quite a few miles with the distance sometimes shortening, sometimes lengthening, Richard and Bob very aware of each another. Messer lost a front wheel and we gave him a nice wave through the window as we passed.

Richard turned to me and said: “We are FIRST”. Since I am an accountant, I retorted “It is a long race”. Ten miles later Gary with Green Bugger waved at us as he passed. We came to the Pit 1 in good shape, except for a bent rear rim. The BFH (Big Fucking Hammer) shaped it back and it was up to me to destroy the car.

Sunrise over 1107.

Crusty was my co-driver from Pit 1 to Pit 3. All my experience in off-road has been based on co-driving for David Hendrickson in SNORE 250 and pre-running Yerington last year for Messer’s team. As a rally driver, the speed on the straight did not faze me and neither did the turns. I had no idea how to drive whoops, did not know the proper speed over potholes, had a vague idea about driving silt beds (deep powdery sand), etc., etc. Lucky for me, Crusty did and it helped.

Class 11 doesn’t have excess power, so when I came to a hill I gunned it. We launched, flew over flat and dove into the next incline. The car threw two buckets of gravel into our faces and stopped. That was one of my lowest points in the last two years. Not only I had another DNF, I was causing DNF for all others on the team. For a few second I felt only one thing – huge desperation. But desperation does not help. Chuck taught me that when I hit the overplow at Perce Neige Rally and ended in a huge bank. He was out shoveling the snow madly in a few seconds. Emily taught me that when I destroyed the second gear at Tall Pines Rally and she turned to me and said: “Do you still have the first and third? Go.” Alexei taught me that when he was finishing the stage with a ziploc bag in his hand, but always finished the last note before filling the bag up.

We jumped out to assess the damage. The front was visibly hurt, but the axle, steering and all the other “useful” stuff seemed OK. Crusty, with a bit of my help, removed the bumper, fender and front skid plate. That took a while as some of these items changed their shape in an unexpected way. We jumped back in and the car drove as well as before! Every emotional low has its own opposite high and this was my high. We drove on, blew a tire between Pit 2 and 3 but brought the car to Pit 3.

There was just one small problem: The cage cross tube underneath the steering wheel was not designed for 6’6” people. Also the tube was made from significantly harder material than my knees. The constant banging of my knees into the cage was slowly reshaping them into something as bumpy as the road in front of us. The last 10 miles I gritted my teeth and had to slow down. But we did bring it to Pit 3.

At Pit 3 Emme took over as a driver and Richard as co-driver. In her own words:

“With a class 11, stock VW and 500 race miles, just finishing is an accomplishment. This was my first time in the car and it wasn’t mine, so after 10 miles of going a bit hot and doing a couple dumb things, I settled down. We lost a fan belt but were able to change it quickly. My mantra was, “Just get it back to pit 2 to hand the car off. Pit 2, pit 2, pit 2”. After about 30 miles I changed it to, “Pit 1, pit 1…just get it to pit 1.” Baby steps and all.

About 20 miles into it, I got nerfed by a truck (ed. Note: Truck 775). Nerfing is when someone comes up behind you and gives you a little tap to say, “GTFO of my way!!!” The problem with nerfing a class 11 is that we run stock deck lids. So you nerf us, you run the risk of killing our alternator and we are out of the race. VORRA explicitly said at the driver’s meeting that there was no nerfing class 11, but this guy did it anyway. I knew he was there, but I couldn’t get over quickly enough I guess. When I did, I overestimated our clearance and high centered on a rock. Richard showed me how to use just the starter to get out of trouble, and we were off again!

The last 10 miles of so of my leg were the absolute most challenging. I had run it earlier in the day co-driving with Bob, and it was rough but no too bad. By the time I got around to it, all the big guys had been through and we had 4 or 5 miles of silt. Powder fine silt. Deep silt. Crazy silt. Silt in the dark. Silt coming into the car. Silt coming into my helmet since our Parker pumper was broken and I had to keep my face shield cracked so it wouldn’t fog. Silt going into my eyes and up my nose.“

So much for her quote and back to my experiences.

I was supposed to be moved to Pit 1 for driving the last leg to Finish. After a little over 200 miles in the car, first as a co-driver and then as a driver, I was bushed. Yet, Richard, who has diabetes was not in the best shape and Bob asked me whether I could co-drive instead of Richard for the 60 miles from Pit 2 to Pit 3 after Emme comes back. One more leg? Sure, but no more.

Emme, a very intelligent driver, brought the car back in one piece, and we jumped in. Messer broke down and was fixing his car somewhere in the desert. Green Bugger’s rear part of the cage disintegrated and one of the shocks broke off – they were limping into the Pit for a welding job. And we thought we were leading. Bob drove accordingly – fast, but with enough safety margin to bring the car to Pit 1. The shocks were getting bad, the car disintegrated a bit and the road was shredded by the trucks; the potholes getting more brutal, the silt beds getting deeper and more treacherous. In one of these silt beds, while avoiding the stuck buggy, we got stuck as well. As the shovel was nowhere to be found (probably jumped out of the car at one point or another), we just turned into a couple of voles to burrow out our car and then get it going with the help of our jack.

A couple of miles later the yellow light went on. That usually means that the alternator belt (which also runs the cooling fan), is broken. Bob checked the engine, but the belt was still on the pulley. However, a few seconds later he realized that the pulley broke off from the shaft – a consequence of the nerfing by the truck mentioned by Emme. We were cooked; or better, if we drove on we would have been cooked. While I was standing there, trying to hypnotize the pulley to grow back into one piece again, Bob pulled out the J.B. Weld and glued the pulley together. We waited until the weld hardened and then started the engine. The yellow light came on again. Bummer.

We checked it again and found nothing wrong. Started again and the yellow light stayed off. So Bob drove on, driving in low revs and relatively slowly to keep the car going. All the time we were calling Pit 1107 and Chase 1107 to let them know where we were and what was happening. Our Rugged Radio was awesome.

Our radio base of operations at Pit 1. We fly a Bilstein flag off our 32′ radio mast to make it easier for 1107 to spot us.

However we were unable to get anybody and only later we found that our little beetle shed the antenna somewhere along the way, together with one camera that now also dreams its happy dreams in the high desert.

Did I mention that along the way we passed Pit 3 and I was told we go on? Or, maybe, I was told before and only misunderstood. The Pit 3 to Pit 1 was brutal – look at Emme’s description and multiply it for all the trucks that already came through three times and the shocks that were more or less gone. Bob was complaining about his back, I was complaining about my knees, so I say we fit well together.

Yes, there was a huge beautiful yellowish Harvest Moon with thousand of stars in the clear sky. And I felt cold, and banged up and tired and old and started to see the damn Ontario trees along the road. I do not know if, or how much better Bob felt. This was high desert at about 5,000 – 6,000 feet and the nights are freezing. As a matter of fact, I recalled Connor’s recollection of the cold nights at Dakar and started to understand him maybe a bit more.

Fueling at 4:30 a.m. at Pit 1 before racing to the finish line.

Finally we came to Pit 1 thinking that we might not have enough time to finish before the cut off time at 5:30 am. There was nobody to expect us. We went to Pro Pits to get the gas. They called our guys. I asked at the check point what time it was. “A bit after four”. We had 35 miles and perhaps an hour? I turned to Bob and asked him: “Can you drive to the finish?” He said “Yeah”. I said: “I you can do it, so can I. We won’t switch, we have no time to let the other guys in and then come 5 minutes or so late.” Bob just put in the first and drove.

The last leg was the University of Driving for me as a co-driver. Bob knew that we had no time. If we blew the tire we would not finish on time. If we ripped the pulley we would not finish on time. But if we drove slowly we would certainly not finish on time. He drove the hell out of the car.

And then I could see the finish and was very happy about it. We crossed the finish line 20 minutes before the cut off time. No more DNFs.

Drivers confab as the sun comes up at the end of the race.