RCRocs 2011 1st race results

1st RCRocs Race, WOW. What can I say. We showed up Friday for the prerun and passed tech without issues. We ran a lap at very good speed and no issues from the course or from the rig. F&S racing did a fantastic job with the motor! The Juggy has incredible power, climbs to about 4k rpm and then has a huge jump in power that makes the Juggy lift and seem to skim across the rocks! Everything was working well and we were very excited about the upcoming race. Lap 2 we took it easy and picked better lines and rode aside our race partners. No issues again except we found that doing heavy acceleration around every turn resulted in excessive fuel use, duh, 5 gallons per 10-12 mile lap. 3rd lap we took it easy and held a good pace to conserve gas but make good time. About 3/4 through our rear coilover let go. The shaft unscrewed and stripped out from the eyelet. Limped back to staging with the addition of a bad steering pump holding us back. Remembered that my spare coilover was left in the garage, that bites! Called F&S Racing where Dan Guyer was finishing his rig and Todds father went out of his way to go to my house to retrieve the coilover so that Dan could run the parts train to Rausch. Also discovered that Dan had a spare pump that he would lend us, fantastic! Timing was against us since we wouldn't be able to do the repairs until the next morning, race day. I woke up race day, cold and uncomfortable in the new bed, thanks Nick for your hospitality, and discovered that the alarm didn't go off and we were running late. Scrambled to get there to do the repairs and found the parts that Dan left for us in the rig, thanks again Dan it is greatly appreciated! Inspected the old pump only to discover the belt and pulley was missing. Guess someone needed it more than we did. That meant we had to find a pulley but we had a spare belt. Otter(Bryan Whaley) gave us a pulley he just so happened to have in the trunk of his car, Thank you Otter! Chris Riley of R&S auto and Custom Fab. brought down a puller/installer so we could use the new pump and pulley. After we installed it we found the pulley was offset and did not line up. We were able to shim it out and the alignment was doable. Installed the belt and found it didn't fit! Pulley was the wrong size so we scrambled to find another one. After 2 failed attempts I started to pack the truck up and call it a day when Nick came back at the last possible second with a shorter belt from Erik Miller. We stuck it in and found it was a perfect fit. While all this was happening Nick and Matt changed the coilover in short order and charged it up. We scrambled to get our firesuits and gear on and got in line. We decided to run a decent pace and keep everything together to just complete the race. It started raining and raining hard and got much colder. I was shivering in just a few minutes even with all the gear on. Raced around the first lap with no issues, let Lucas Murphy pass when he came up on us fast. Turned a few more corners and lost a front coilover. Same problem of the shaft unscrewing from the eyelet. We were able to repair it but took a good bit of time. continued on in the cold rain and mud with no issues to complete the lap. Second lap we came to a muddy hill climb that had a buggy repeatedly trying to climb. We let him attempt 3 times and then put it in 1st high and floored it. Send mud flying everywhere! At the top it was particularly steep and slick. Slid back and forth slinging mud everywhere while the spectators were scrambling to avoid being covered in mud. Finally we completed the hill and continued on. Passed Eugene (yes Eugene you got passed by the Pillsbury racer!) We ran a few more turns and suddenly felt heavy vibration and before we could respond we lost the front driveshaft which put a hole in our transmission pan. Our day was done, walked about 2 miles to get out for a ride. What a day! A lot of racers and fabricators came together to make this happen and we greatly appreciate it! Had a fantastic time despite the blinding rain and mud. We look forward to the next race and everyones kindness will not be forgotten!

sounds like a rough day Bill but stick with it. You have alot of good help behind you.

Sounds like a wild time. Glad you guys were able to race!

is that coil-over stuff something thats a manufactures defect that you can get them to fix?

88blazeron40s wrote:

is that coil-over stuff something thats a manufactures defect that you can get them to fix?

Randy is working on it. In the mean time I'm going to order 2 more and take them apart and give a good soaking with RED locktite.

What an experience. Still can't thank you enough for the opportunity to be strapped into that monster. We had such a good grip on the race prep and tying up the loose ends on the rig. Bill brought the rig on Thursday and we were able to get it up on the lift and knock out the fabrication of the new oil pan skid, wire lights and wrap up all the other little odds and ends. Chris welded up our hi-lift mount on Friday when we dropped off the LT1 and we were off to Rausch for the prerun.

The power of that motor is best described as "shit yourself" power. I finally felt fear in a vehicle. Saturday morning was so hectic and stressful and I'm still amazed we made it in time to line up. Thanks for getting their early and helping us up to the very last minute Chris.

As for the rain and weather, it was to the point that it was so extreme and miserable that it was awesome just to be toughing through it. I know neither Bill or I would have gotten out of that vehicle until we killed it, which we did LOL. Then it was just insult to injury to hike like 3 miles in the rain. Would I do it again, absolutely, without a question. My eyes are still jacked up spitting mud out. It was seriously unreal. I also got my first batch of wheeling since November with the Titan. I got back to Bills rig and the guy that was towing him out looks at me and goes how the hell did you get that thing back here. Good times.

Highlights:

Downhill through single lane woods hitting a boulder at like 50mph sending the right rear like 4 feet in the air.

Full throttle on the level up to about 50 again and the road dropped out to a ditch. Bill scrambled for everything he could grab and last words were something along the lines of, we're done, oh shit, hold on, whatever but somehow it stopped and I just laughed my ass off for a good 3 minutes.

Getting that belt from Miller and it actually working!

Hiking up Molleystown road:
Nick: I knew I started working out for a reason
Bill: I knew I wanted to start working out for a reason

Good times. Thanks again to all that made it possible. There were a lot of contributors!

Drill & tap the pos with a grub screw so it wont back off plus loctite

I thought about that but Randy wants to see if there is a warranty exchange in order first.

A few more bugs and it sounds like your going to give everyone a run for their money. congrats

Agreed. Already ordered the Atlas, doubler is sold. No more 2 piece front shaft, took me out of 2 races. Now we scramble to be ready for RCQ in 4 weeks. If the rig can match our ambition while driving then we will do well.