The 2010 BITD Parker 425 Race Stats

• 303 of 425 race miles finished
• 9th place finish

Funny as it was, while we were changing drivers it started to sprinkle. Then by the time they took off, it was pouring!  For the next three hours Nathan and Ron got soaked.  Each lap was about three and a half hours so just as they were coming in for us to complete the final lap it started to clear-up!  Rob and Joe jumped back in and took off under cloudy, very muddy - but rain free conditions.  This was just before dark so we had to install the lights and then take off.  By this point we were in third place and doing well in our class of 22 drivers.

Then about 17 miles after we took off, the driver side trailing arm broke, there we were stranded in the dark desert and could not drive.  During the pouring rain, the trucks radio went out and while we had driver to co-driver communications we no longer had the ability to reach our pit and chase crews.  So we reached into the tool bag and retrieved the hand-held radio to try and reach the support guys.  Unfortunately we were in a bit of a valley and they could not hear us.  So we hiked for a little and were able to reach them for support.

The race was still underway so the race officials would not let our chase truck onto the course to retrieve until the race was over!  Makes sense because you do not want a bunch of chase guys on the course while the race is taking place.  So there we sat for nearly six hours.  Once the race was over, our chase guys came and got us.  We ended up leaving the truck in the desert that evening because more rain was on the way and it would require a trailer to come get the truck.  We did not want to get stuck in there, plus I had to get back to San Diego for an early Sunday morning flight to Philadelphia.

What a weekend, and of course it was a blast.  We did not finish the race, and in looking at the results over 90% of our class did not either.  Even more, of the ~225 entries only 63 finished the race.  Truly a tough course and we too fell victim to the Parker DNF Gods.  We ended up with 9th place in our class and 109th place overall – se we did better than most others.

We are getting the truck over to the great folks at Blitzkrieg Motor Sports for a new set of trailing arms and a few suspension adjustments.  Nate and his crew will have us back up and running in no time.

A huge thanks to Oakley and NoFear for the last minute gear.  We were able to get that to Ahmize Custom Embroidery where Sherri stitched them up perfectly.

Great job to the team over at ORW.  Wally had all the right parts and spares that we needed to fill our new race truck trailer in stock and available for pick-up.

Looking forward we are prepping for the SCORE Baja 250 in March and after that the BITD Bilek Racing Silver State 300 in April.