scottm
Hardcore RCTalk User
I had a blast over the weekend at the Best In The Desert "Parker 425", one of the most famous desert races in the southwest. I was with the Gun-It racing team, two brothers who own a gun store. They just got a new car built by a friend of mine, Steve Arlia of Arlia Precision Fab.
I was pit support on the first lap, then I rode in the car as co-driver on the second lap. The codriver has the job of watching the gauges, watching the moving map on the GPS monitor, and most important, watching the mirrors for a fast guy behind. That is harder than it sounds, considering you are hitting 3' deep whoops at 50+ mph, often getting a spine-compression on big hits. Your head bounces around so much you can't even focus on the mirror!
But it is a blast! It is scary at first, as you are going 10 times faster over rough terrain than you ever went before. But you don't have time to be scared for long, you are too buisy.
The car was awesome. It is a top of the line class 1500 unlimited buggy, the same type as the overall winner, Chuck Hovey. It is a mid engine design, with a race prepped Cadillac Northstar aluminum V8 with a 4 speed transaxle. It has over 24" of wheel travel front and rear, with huge King coilover and bypass shocks. Here is a picture of it on the first lap posted on race-dezert.com, showing Steve Arlia in the passenger seat:
We raced it in class 18 for its first outing, rather than 15, as 18 is a 2 lap class and doesn't compete with the top dogs. We managed to win class 18, placing 5th overall of the 2 lap classes. Here are the results from the Best in the desert website, complete with my name spelled wrong:
http://www.bitd.com/results/2005/2005Pkr425/2005Pkr425-2LapClasses.pdf
If you back up from there to other race results, you can see that only half the entrys finished in the 3 lap classes. Desert racing is tough! This event will be on tv on Outdoor LIfe network in about a month, check it out...
RC Solutions and Cutting Edge Mfg also have a full race trophy truck, but we didn't race it at Parker due to other commitments for the driver, Rob. I am going to get more involved with this stuff, and maybe even keep my eye out for a cheap buggy or small truck.
Oops, link didn't work. Hold on. I'll go get another pic.
I was pit support on the first lap, then I rode in the car as co-driver on the second lap. The codriver has the job of watching the gauges, watching the moving map on the GPS monitor, and most important, watching the mirrors for a fast guy behind. That is harder than it sounds, considering you are hitting 3' deep whoops at 50+ mph, often getting a spine-compression on big hits. Your head bounces around so much you can't even focus on the mirror!
But it is a blast! It is scary at first, as you are going 10 times faster over rough terrain than you ever went before. But you don't have time to be scared for long, you are too buisy.
The car was awesome. It is a top of the line class 1500 unlimited buggy, the same type as the overall winner, Chuck Hovey. It is a mid engine design, with a race prepped Cadillac Northstar aluminum V8 with a 4 speed transaxle. It has over 24" of wheel travel front and rear, with huge King coilover and bypass shocks. Here is a picture of it on the first lap posted on race-dezert.com, showing Steve Arlia in the passenger seat:
We raced it in class 18 for its first outing, rather than 15, as 18 is a 2 lap class and doesn't compete with the top dogs. We managed to win class 18, placing 5th overall of the 2 lap classes. Here are the results from the Best in the desert website, complete with my name spelled wrong:
http://www.bitd.com/results/2005/2005Pkr425/2005Pkr425-2LapClasses.pdf
If you back up from there to other race results, you can see that only half the entrys finished in the 3 lap classes. Desert racing is tough! This event will be on tv on Outdoor LIfe network in about a month, check it out...
RC Solutions and Cutting Edge Mfg also have a full race trophy truck, but we didn't race it at Parker due to other commitments for the driver, Rob. I am going to get more involved with this stuff, and maybe even keep my eye out for a cheap buggy or small truck.
Oops, link didn't work. Hold on. I'll go get another pic.
