TMW - 11-26-2005 at 11:42 AM
CLASS 5
(5 Starters, 2 Finishers)
Perennial class champion George Seeley had to relinquish his crown when a leaking fuel cell sidelined them at the top of Laguna Diablo (RM392). They
?thought? for rigging a ?jerry can? on the cage but cooler heads prevailed and they stepped down. His retirement ?gave? the win to Chris Bowman along
with the ?500? number for the 2006 season. Luivan Voelker and ?DR Offroad TV ?s? Victor Gasca trailed to the bittersweet end in their Lalo
Mayoral-chassis #517 VW.
Victor Gasca: ?Wednesday we blew up our race engine, so we used our old 2.0 engine and we finished the change in the early hours on Thursday; we did
not have a chance to test the car. Thursday morning we went to Ensenada via VT to check last-minute details and test the car a couple of miles in the
valley. Our car trailer blew a tire and the guy driving was not experienced with this and the trailer pushed us off of the highway and sent us in to
a 5-foot-deep 6-foot-long ravine. The hitch broke and suddenly the F-150 was out of control until we stopped coming out of the ravine thanks to a
big tree. No injuries; only my left hand hurt a little bit, and i lost my two camcorders. Thanks to the Pflueger Crew who stopped to help us and the
guys of 256x and our savior, the blue Mercedes Unimog.
Well after some hours and we were in Ensenada and we did our final prep -- it was 3:00 am when we got to bed.
Luivan Voelker started on ?safe mode? as we decided to save the car and only try to finish the race; at Km77 we were in second behind Seeley; the
Bowman #501 guys are waiting for his car. At the bottom of The Summit Luivan had a flat tire. A bunch of friends were a quarter- mile ahead of him
where he stopped to change that tire. After that he drove very carefully to our second pit at RM220.
Our second driver, Carlos Alba?ez, drove, without any problems, the SF loop from RM220 thru San Matias. He was stopped at Matomi in a traffic jam and
I pitted the car in Morelia Junction. At San Matias we did our third pit stop for a lose axle lug nut, a broken light; we changed the radio because
was not working all day, and did some front-end adjustment.
Luivan drove from San Matias to VT RM520 his only problem was a flat tire. I was waiting for the car at 0630 as we heard him coming down from the
Simpson?s ranch, meanwhile the leader, the Bowman car, was a full hour ahead of us. At 0640 I got in the car for the final 198 miles to the finish.
At RM535 we saw the Mango Racing Protruck down a cliff. We stopped, everybody was OK, and the driver asked we could tell his crew in Llano Colorado
the bad news.
We did it clean through Llano Colorado; our chase crew was in there just in case. I saw the Mango Team chase truck so I stopped and told the crew
about the truck. After that we raced very clean, no mistakes, no driver errors, we did a great time until we passed Santo Tomas for a splash of gas,
after Uruapan i was passed by the #802 and the AZ Land Class 8 trucks. We hit Ojos again and our team informed me that the #501 car was only eighteen
minutes in front of us, but with only 38 miles away from the finish we kept calm to secure the finish. We navigated our last ten miles very carefully
because I didn?t see any markers and I don?t want to be lost. We crossed the finish line after twenty-four hours of racing with a second place in the
race and in the championship.
bajalou - 11-26-2005 at 08:46 PM
Thanks TW - great reports
