Beat Down in BFE MOAB

Time, think about it…as you read this recap.

What a day…

This race started out by leaving late Tuesday afternoon for the 879 mile trek to Moab. We left a day early so that Chase (our grandson) would sleep through most of the drive. He is a great traveler at two years old. As we make our way into Moab the views were breathtaking. The landscaping is truly an off roaders dream. As we make our way through town I realize this truly is a community built around the off road scenery. Rather on the motorsports side or the physical side of this extreme lifestyle.

We get to the Air BnB Wednesday afternoon, settle in and let Chase unwind for a bit.

Thursday morning we leave for the track. Got our spot next to our buddies, Addarak team.

We get the car teched, put a few final touches on it and Beef sends me off to go prerun. Boy’o boy… what a course. Brian Trotter and the crew did not disappoint on this one. We thought OK was rough! This course was definitely going to take out some rubber. I ended breaking a cv cage by over extending the travel on the front. This ended my prerun early. I only covered roughly 3 miles out of the 4.7 miles.

I make it back to camp, Beef and the crew get going on finding the issue. They quickly got it together.

Course is closed, I’ll finish prerunning Friday morning before qualifying…Time to walk out the qualifying course. Boy’o boy what a technical course with a top speed of maybe 40?? Forgot to record sorry. After the “high speed” section you made a sharp 90 degree left over a roller and about 15 feet away was a six foot drop. You could belly out over it or full send! Well… Naturally I had to try out the newly rebuilt Bilstein shocks that Greg and Zach rebuilt. After this full send you came sliding, full brakes down a sandy face to another six foot ledge. Can’t quite full send on this one as there was a sharp left turn at the bottom.

Time to meet up with the family and get some grub as we’ve worked up quite an appetite. Friday morning rolls around, we’re now able to practice the qualifier with a lil more speed. Feeling great! A few final touches and we’re ready. The time comes and I put down a solid run. However I did have to do one back up around a 180 degree turn. This cost me a few seconds. Pulled off a 9th position out of 18 cars. Not bad…

Race day is here. We get to watch all of our other friends play out their day. That course really ate up some parts and especially tires. This had us a little nervous. After talking to our buddy Brendon we decided to make the jump over to Maxxis tires. We make quick work of the tire change with help of Chris @maxxis. He made tire day look easy. Lol

Time to chill out a bit and get in the zone.

Green flag drops. I’m off to the races! “Go, go, go!” As Chase would say. Knowing how many tire changes I had helped my fellow buddies with in the previous 4800 race, I knew I needed to take it somewhat easy. This course was not easy on any tires no matter the brand. I pushed these new ones harder than any other I’ve ever ran. Boy, what a difference! They did not slip one time. No matter how much throttle I gave them. Lap after lap there were cars dropping out. Each lap grateful that ours was holding together. Coming into pit, the crew caught that my air filter had fallen off. Good’ole Chucky jumps up on the car with the filter off his car and makes it happen! What a catch that was. It could have been a very bad day if that was not caught. Going out for lap seven I felt the all so familiar crunch that all wheelers know…after getting hung up a few times I realized it was a broken something in the drive train on the front right of the car. It was a broken shaft. Making sure that side had a smooth “ramp” on each climb for the remaining two laps of the race. This was challenging in itself on such a course. Just two more laps, push, push! Finally the checkered flag!! Hot, exhausted, with a mouth, nose full of dirt I find my way back to camp. I couldn’t find the energy to get out of the car. I had to sit there dumping water over my head.

What a day! In the matter of 2 hours and 45 minutes we went from having all the energy and a perfect race ready machine to being absolutely exhausted staring at the team and the car all feeling the same way I felt.

“Time” the things we do to pass time is amazing. Now it’s time to clean up and take Chase around Moab to sight see and capture some memories. We are even going to get some wheeling in on some iconic trails with our good friend Miles before we had back to reality.

Thank you to all that came together to help make this adventure a successful one.

Btw, we took a solid 5th place!!