Sunday, pre-running day. We went out to the desert loop to try out the new Sway-A-Way bypasses (yes some people do run bypasses on leaf springs). Between the bypasses and changing the leafs out to 5″ Trail-Gear springs, our suspension was 20-30% better than last year in the “fast stuff”.

Monday, Pre-running day. We headed out to pre-run the rock loop and enjoy the day. It was fairly uneventful until we got halfway down Jack Hammer and blew a p/s hose. We chose to cut the belt (it was spraying on the header) and after some help from a couple of wheelers pulling us backward, we were able to get down the trail and manhandle the rig back to the pits.

Tuesday, Qualifying day! And we are up to 4th! We got the p/s hose replaced the night before (thanks LowRange) but no one had a belt. I left and headed to town hoping that the local Napa auto parts would have what we needed and sure enough they did!! Now time to haul butt back and hope we make qualifying, got the belt on and pulled up to the line as 3rd left, now that’s cutting it close! We ended up qualifying 11th in the 4500 class which we were happy with considering we didn’t get a chance to pre-run and only had 4 cylinders pushing us along.

Wednesday, prep day. After adding all our spare parts to the back of the rig and pre-running 80% of the course it became apparent that the rear leafs (which I had removed leafs from) were starting to sag. We made the decision to replace them with a new pack. It was upon removal of the old springs that we saw both center pins were broken, this was not good!! After talking it over with a few other racers, (thanks Ryan Miller) I headed back to town to get some grade 8 bolts to replace the new center pins on the new set. Once that was done we headed out to do some tuning with Sway-A-Way and get dialed in for the race, which they did!

Thursday, Race day. We are 11th off the line heading into the desert, which is not the best place to be heading with a 100 HP leaf sprung rig. We held our own, trying to make sure we didn’t beat all the life out of our rig trying to hang with linked 8v rigs. Our plan worked and we came into the main pits in the top 15 (better than we had hoped for after the desert loop). After changing 2 propane tanks and getting a fresh set of goggles, we headed back out to hit the rock loop. We passed a few rigs and got passed a few times but just tried to not overdrive the rig and realized there are spots that we just can’t go as fast as others, which is hard for someone like me, but I did my best! We ran Aftershock, Hwy 19/20, Hellsgate, JackHammer, and Chocolate Thunder. We rolled onto our side in the dumbest place and I still don’t know how I pulled off. My Co-Driver Kenny jumped out and was able to run our winch over the driver's tire and LUCKILY we righted ourselves and only lost about 10 minutes. After that, it was smooth sailing to pit 2a, grabbed another propane tank, and then off to the finish 25 miles away. Little did I know Dave Cole and the KOH crew had saved the roughest desert I had seen in a long time for this section of the race. We averaged about 15-20 mph trying really hard to just keep the rig together! Well it all paid off in the end and our “slow is fast” approach worked, we placed 6th in the 4500 class and 9th overall best! The rig is beat, Kenny and my necks hurts, and I don’t want to see the seat of that rig for a while, but it was worth it! We took a stock rig on leaf springs to a top 10 finish against some really fast competition.

A big thanks goes out to my pit crew and the Trail-Gear guys for all the prepping and pitting help (Jimmy, Forrest, Gary, John, Dave) we didn’t have to work on the rig one time during the race but they were there and ready! And a special thanks to Doug Rose for cooking every single meal and keeping us fed!! Big thanks to Trail-Gear for the opportunity to drive their rig for the second year, I hope I did well showing the abuse TG parts can take. Superchips for all that you do for us, I could not ask for a better partner in all this! Fabworx Offroad for the countless hours of working on the rig getting it to pass tech and making a spot big enough to fit the bypasses Sway-A-Way (Keith) for giving me the best suspension that it could be. Maxxis for the awesome tires, we didn’t have a single flat and they went everywhere we pointed them!