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Author Topic: Late ORAF 500 Dust Junkies Racing Jeepspeed report.  (Read 4989 times)

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Scott hartman

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Late ORAF 500 Dust Junkies Racing Jeepspeed report.
« on: Jul 02, 2010, 11:44:38 AM »
I know it's late, but it has been quite a month or so of intense work, racing and just living.

DJR went into the ORAF 500 with great anticipation and a lot of preparation. We finally installed the Diamond Axle rear housing and had to move all kinds of brackets and components to do it. This included upgrading the link ends of the Rubicon Express upper tri-link system which allowed us to lower the rear of the car almost two inches. Marty Scott, LJ and Scott Hartman had the rear end in and out of the car at least 8 times in a long 10 hour day at LJ Engineering in Yucaipa. LJ spent all day crawling around on the concrete floor tacking and grinding, locating and tweaking this or that.

The rear sway bar, a stock cj-7 sway bar, had met it's limits and it was time to replace it. Scott Parker of Rockbuggysupply.com found a 1" bar that had the perfect length, and bought it for the car. Dan Turner and LJ spent countless hours designing mounts and cycling the suspension to get it working right.

We finally got the transmission from Marlin Crawler and installed it in the car. When we first talked to Marlin, he asked for a couple transmissions, so we gathered up two and a half transmissions and Brian Hartman ran up to Fresno to deliver them. Marlin picked the best one of the lot and made a masterpiece transmission out of it. Marlin takes great pride in his work and it shows. The transmission he built was a cherokee AX-15 and the transfercase bolt pattern is not the same as a Wrangler. We didn't realize that it was wrong until it was all installed and the skid plate wouldn't fit. A drill and a template and we were back in business.

Race weekend was finally here and we were all very worn out from the prep. This was going to be Tandi's first race starting and she was a little nervous going in, to make matters a little more stressful, she was starting 2nd in a line of 18 cars. Tandi can drive the car, she has yet to have a flat in over 1500 race miles behind the wheel. Part of that credit has to go to Interco TSL tires. She left the line intent on driving smooth and consistent and not getting into a race with anyone early. She did precisely that. She brought the car around about 8 minutes in front of the next car and about 4 minutes ahead of the 2nd place car on corrected time. Bob Green called Tandi on the radio to see if she wanted to stay in the car for another lap, but she declined, so we did a driver change, fuel and checked the car over and went out for lap 2.



Lap two was smooth and we had extended our lead a few more minutes. The new transmission was amazing, we could use gears that we previously could not. Scott Parker and Scott Hartman were reeling other class cars in driving smooth on the course. At about mile 35 the cars temperature shot up to 235, they pulled off and had some spectators check for water, it was fine, so they ran 50% for the next 25 miles. The temperature was jumping around and it wasn't running right. They pulled off at mile 60 with LJ, Marcy and Clem and had them add water. It was hot and the car was angry. The Scott's took off and went about a mile when the temperature shot back up. We were done, so we pulled back around to our pit and watched the 2nd and 3rd cars of Helgeson and Wacker go by. The head gasket had blown and was pushing compression into the water which blew the tanks off the radiator.



It was a dissapointing run, but we make improvements to the car every time out and most importantly of all, we have fun as a group of family and friends. After the race we found out that Tandi recorded the fastest lap in our class by two minutes, this with a two minute pit stop and driver change.

Huge thank you to our families, friends, crew and sponsors.  You are one of a kind!

P-DiseToy24

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Shoot man thats sucks I believe I seen you right off Powerline road when it happend.  Looked like oil blowing out of the radiator.

KDXSR5

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I have never seen a Wrangler used as a desert race vehicle. That is cool!

sweetmeat

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I have never seen a Wrangler used as a desert race vehicle. That is cool!

Super cool indeed. I have seen this car LOTS of times it's bad a$$. It will be in the painless wiring booth at the off road expo in pomona next month if your in so cal check it out
A&G Motorsports Class 1 #1553 Crew Member
Wrecked4x4.com

 
 
 
 
 

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