TMW
Select Nomad
Posts: 10659
Registered: 9-1-2003
Location: Bakersfield, CA
Member Is Offline
|
|
Class 3 1000 Report
FWD: Report.
MOSS BROS. RACING 2005 BAJA 1000 RESULTS
Well, the smoke has cleared a little, and I was home for almost 2 days before leaving for another 10 hour road trip, and decided it was time for an
update on the Baja 1000.
We won again! We also clinched the 2005 Class 3 championship. In fact, the SCORE write up mentioned that no one else has won a Class 3 race since
September of 2003, when we didn?t show up for the Primm race that year.
This year we did something a little different, and went down a couple of days early, and had the beach house rented for a week. The course was a loop
this year and ran through an area called the Summit that I was unfamiliar with. We brought motorcycles and arrived on Tuesday of race week, with the
intent of pre-running the course from mile 100 to 200. The Summit turned out to be every bit as rocky and rough as advertised. We struggled with the
terrain, but did make it out to mile 160 of the course before we had to high tail it back to Ensenada for the BFG meeting that afternoon.
We started the race second off the line. Two early Broncos were supposed to start in front of us, but the first one had an engine failure driving
into town before the race even started. The entry in front of us was also having carburetor problems, and we caught him and passed him before we got
off the pavement in Ensenada. They later broke a custom track bar mount and were out of the race before they had gone 75 miles. There was the Beal
Nissan, the Pike Blazer, the Raffo Blazer, and the Griffin early Bronco starting behind us. For some reason, they held up our class from starting for
15 or 20 minutes after the previous class. The good thing was there was no dust from the slower cars in the earlier classes because they had time to
get out in front of us a ways. The down side was the local traffic thought all the entries were gone, and started plugging up the course in their own
cars coming head on with us!
As we left Ensenada, we had heard mention of a brush fire near the course. When we got to RM (Race Mile) 4 or so, we could see flames on the hillside
in the distance. When we got a little closer, we could see the course ran right through the middle of them. That wasn?t so bad, but what was crazy
was the local spectators and their cars were still in the burned out places! I am not sure how they pulled that off, I didn?t see a single burned out
car.
We saw our crew at the Ojos Negros road crossing, at about RM 40, and they mentioned that the Raffo Blazer was about 1.5 minutes behind us. We
continued on strong, the Bronco running very well, and the new front axle working out extremely well. At about RM 50, we came across the Honda
Ridgeline that had started in the Stock Full Size class ahead of us. For some reason, it could not negotiate a booby trap the locals had constructed
in the middle of the course and was backing up. In the process of going around him through the rocks on the left, we caught the corner of the Honda
and caved in the right door on the Bronco. The locals were very excited and cheered wildly!
We went on and at about mile 65, there was a loud bang, and I felt something hit pretty hard through the floor of the truck, and the right front
corner sagged all the way down to the bump stop. I had pictures of the front axle sheered off in my mind as I climbed out. When I got around the
truck, I found the right front coil spring laying in the sand out in front of the truck. The spring had broken about two coils from the top and had
spit itself out between the tire and the shock. Gary fished out the satellite phone (rentals, new for this race) and contacted Ken, Dan and Cliff,
who were already at the BFG pit at RM 82. I got out the tools and we went to work to patch things up. We were able to take the remaining chunk of
broken spring out, and with a long bolt, were able to capture the spring enough to limp out to the highway. Meanwhile all of the vehicles still
running in our class went by, Raffo giving us a little honk. We had the chase crew come back to meet us at the road crossing at RM 75 and we bolted
in one of the spare springs. We had used these back in the 2000 race and found them to be too soft, so that corner of the truck was now bottoming out
on the bigger bumps. We also tightened a loose fan belt while working on the spring.
We made it over the Summit with no problems, passing a lot of parked vehicles that did. We caught the Beal?s Nissan on the way down the back side and
later caught the Pike?s Blazer and the Griffin Bronco at about RM 140. They were all running very steady. We had hoped to run quickly in this
section that we had pre-run, but it was already dark and the dust was horrible. We met our crew at RM 148, at the edge of the dry lake bed, added
some gas, and adjusted the lights.
There were some huge silt beds in the dry wash between RM 160 and 170, but we were able to negotiate these by bypassing them through alternate routes
in the wash. We could see the lights of many cars stuck out there. We passed the Raffo Blazer with a very shredded left rear tire at about RM 180,
returning their honk. We continued on, but there was a horrible noise coming from the front of the truck somewhere. The course got rougher and
rougher as we reached the Borrego BFG pit at RM 200.
At the BFG pit the truck was checked over. The source of the noise could not be found. Ken got in initially reported that truck was fine, but by
mile 210 they called in and said they had another broken spring and no front brakes! I had to quit listening to the radio at this point, since there
was nothing I could do. Gary and Cliff eventually made their way to the Bronco and they replaced the other front spring and the brake line that was
destroyed as the spring broke. All of the rest of the trucks in the class went by again as repairs were made.
By this time, the front end was very soft, and would bottom on just about all the bumps. Somewhere in the San Felipe area they adjusted the bypass
tubes on the front shocks, and this made a huge difference and we were able to run along pretty well, as fast we would have with the other springs.
Gas was added again in the San Felipe area and Ken and Dan eventually passed all the others in the class again before RM 400. They reported seeing
the Raffo Blazer parked somewhere before the Matomi wash area due to unknown reasons. They apparently were out at this point.
Our next intermediate pit was about RM 407 where the truck was completely checked over. We also added a little gas here just to be sure. Everything
looked fine and we sent Ken and Dennis on their way. Ken was using a new heated vest to stay warm and reported that it worked very well. Dennis had
put on just about every piece of clothing he could find, and was still feeling the cold, so the vest was certainly doing its job.
The next stop was the BFG pit at RM 475, and Dave got in here, and he and Ken headed back over the to the Valle de Trinidad area. We moved both of
the chase trucks and the motor home to the RM 530 area where we waited for another 4 hours or so. By this time it was light again and starting to
warm up when they arrived at the pit. The truck was continuing to run consistently with no further problems. Dave had inhaled some fumes or
something, and requested a relief co driver. Dan still had his fire suit on, so he became the candidate to jump in. He and I headed on our way to
the Pacific side of the course.
We headed west over the same section of course that we had run in June for the Baja 500, only in reverse. We met the chase truck for the last pit at
RM 575 near Highway 1. We caught a sportsman class Jeep Cherokee that was running slightly slower than us, but because of the dust, could not catch
him and pass. We followed for quite a few miles. We reached the beach and thought we had it made when he turned off on another line. We actually
followed markers out on to a dead end section of the beach before realizing someone had moved the markers. A few miles later we were right behind the
Jeep again. The course then climbed up and away from the beach heading toward Santo Tomas. In one particular section we were surprised by a cattle
guard in the middle of the road. For some reason the cattle guards in Mexico are raised up a couple of feet above the road, maybe because it easier
to mound up ramps than it is to dig a pit to go under the grate. In any case it turns it into a pretty good jump at 50 or 60 mph. The real surprise
came when we were on the way back down from the launch and we realized the road made a hard left turn right after the cattle guard! It quickly became
obvious the truck was not going to be able to stay on the road and make the turn, so my only choice was to try and straighten it out as it went off
the side and through the barb wired fence into some type of row crop field. There was a whole load of locals on the road in a pickup truck, and they
saw the whole thing. You always wonder what their reactions are going to be, and when a couple jumped out we had our doubts. It turned out they had
already spotted a gate and were running over to get it open for us. After doing a couple of doughnuts in the field we motored out and on our way. My
apologies to that poor farmer.
We finally caught the darned Jeep in Santo Tomas when he pitted for fuel and a driver change. We just added a little gas and cancelled any possible
co-driver change because there was no way I was going to let the Jeep get out ahead of us. The only word from any of our competitors was that the
Griffin Bronco had been seen on a trailer on Highway 1. It was too bad because they had been running a very steady race up to that point.
We continued on with a stop in Ojos Negros. The steering stabilizer had broken some time prior to RM 530 and on long runs the steering would shake
violently on straight roads. There was not much that could be done at that point, but the crew noticed that the right rear tire was almost flat.
They quickly changed that, finding a puncture from something sharp, but not sure what.
We continued on to the finish in Ensenada. It is always a challenge to find your way back through the last 20 miles because there are always a lot of
local spectators and I think they pick up most of the course markers as souvenirs prior to our arrival. On top of that, the brush fire had moved
through this section, and what hadn?t burned had been removed by heavy equipment in preparation for some big construction project. How the timing
worked out to where they did this work between when I drove through on two consecutive days, I will never know, but I didn?t recognize a thing! We
did find our way, and negotiated a mud bog just before the finish line, again created by some zealous locals.
We later found out the Pike Blazer finished about 2 hours behind us, with the Beal Nissan about another hour behind that. There were no other
finishers in the class. To give you an idea of how tough it was, it took us just under 25 hours to finish 709 miles this year, and right at 24 hours
last year to cover 1017. That is nearly an hour longer to cover 300 less miles! On the other hand, it was much easier to provide pits and get the
chase crews to their locations. My thanks to the crew that is always able to think on their feet and work around the problems that crop up in a race
like this. Also, huge thanks to River City Differentials, BFG, Baja Bros. Flamelab shirts, Delta Rubber, and VP fuel.
And finally special thanks to Dave Grundman, our crew chief. He by far puts the greatest efforts into each of these races, most of the work occurring
before we even leave Sacramento. For this race he fabricated the new axle truss that worked perfectly. We had set out to build something that didn?t
turn into a road grader every time the ruts got a little deep. We accomplished that and in fact found there wasn?t a single visible rock ding in the
new truss at the end of the race. He also completely rebuilt and painted the trailer that we use to haul the Bronco. Dave also supplies numerous
specially machined tools and items, including some very trick lug wrenches. Many thanks again Dave.
That?s it for the 2005 season, with the exception of the awards banquet in December.
Don Moss
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64540
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
Excellent story!!!
Too bad the four wheel drive class has shrunk so much, as these were the vehicles we took to Baja for fun... Cool to see how they are modified for
racing!
TW, why no more Class 4 (long w/b 4WD)? Or are they lumped in with Class 3 to keep the numbers up? I miss Class 6 too!
|
|
|
TMW
Select Nomad
Posts: 10659
Registered: 9-1-2003
Location: Bakersfield, CA
Member Is Offline
|
|
There still is a class 4 (over 109 inch WB) but the class numbers are 1151+. There was a 1199 in the race, he DNF'd. I don't know why Score has
changed this. You would think they would make class 8 a 2 or 4 wheel drive class. Of course the 4x4 would be at a disadvantage suspension wise unless
you limit it, which they did when Trophy Trucks came about. But Score change the rule to give class 8 more wheel travel but I don't know if it's
unlimited.
|
|
|
bajaandy
Senior Nomad
Posts: 769
Registered: 2-7-2004
Location: North County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Adventurous
|
|
Nice report. Sounds like you guys had a race on your hands. Way to keep the 'ol Ford ticking along.
subvert the dominant paradigm
"If you travel with a man, you must either fall out with him or make him your good friend."
JBL Noel
|
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
