ORAF 500 May 2009

Well First and foremost thanks to Jay, Christine and Chris! Your a great Pit crew! Paul, and Brodie with TrailGlow, I can not thank you guys enough for the great product, support and friendship. I only wish we could have gone into the night to show Kitt off! Mark, Martee, Jenzl, Tony, and your entire crew, Thanks for including us and helping us pit and chase as well. Hedz thanks for the Fuel! Matt 990, man this was just not our race this time was it?? I guess that is racing though. Too bad the gremlins got us this time. We had a lot of fun at Tech with you guys and I am glad to have finally met your wife and son. Uncle Bob, Lloyd, the rest of Ubert racing...had a good time at tech with you guys.

As for the race report....

Well we were doing great off the line and for the first 48 miles. Tut was a flawless co-driver, he was calling stuff out to me before we even got to it. He made great calls for me to pull over for faster cars, and did great in helping me pass slower cars. Tut, Kitt and I were having a great time. Come mile 48 we were passed by 1322 and when we cleared the dust, we saw he had tried to make a hair pin turn and got stuck in some VERY soft silty dirt. To avoid getting stuck I made the decision to blow the turn and head into the desert around him. Kitt was flashing he oil light, and we were watching that, but figured as soon as we got out of that crappy dirt we would stop and check her out. I had troubles getting her into gears and when I finally did, I had lost my momentem and had to run her hard in 2nd gear, unfortunately with the heat, steep hill, SOFT dirt, and an oil leak we did not know was pretty bad...Poor Kitt was not happy! We had just passed mile 55 and saw John in 925 with a rear wheel broke clean off. We checked on him to make sure all was ok and with a thumbs up, we continued on. Just shortly after that we hear a very bad pinging and loud motor sounds. The oil light WILL NOT shut off so we pulled off at 59 to check on her.
After getting safely off the course, and getting out, it was not good Kitt looked bad, she had oil everywhere. We let her cool, and decided we would dump in what oil we had to get us to a road crossing. I let Tut take over the wheel to get her to mile 62 at the road crossing. We called Jay and had him run us 2 more quarts of oil hoping once we made it there to 62 we could dump a few more quarts in and make at least one lap. Kitt tried her damndst, I talked to her and told her to keep us safe and just get us to the road crossing, we would get her more oil and let her cool, and hopefully cross the Start finish. Kitt decided it was not going to happen and as soon as she saw the road crossing, that was it....We coasted off track and were joined by Jay, Paul, Brodie, and many more people that wanted to try to get us going again and back into the race. Thanks for everyones support!! I know its racing, and its disappointing but we will be back! Kitt will be good to go and will be shinning and showing off!

Tut, I can never thank you enough! You are a great co-driver and wonderful husband. Please dont feel bad, you know as well as I do that things happen for a reason, and maybe Kitt was just looking out for us....Its ok and I still had a blast hanging with our friends and race family. I love you and dont worry...I will call Eddie.. Love you!

congrats to Mike and John in #925 for going as far as you did, and you looked great everytime we saw you pass our pits!! There was no wipping the smile from your faces!

I hope we can find some photos of us while we were running...and Tut will be on soon as well... Thanks again to everyone

First off thank you to everyone!
Man from people we know to people we don't know we had everyone saying hi at tech, waving at the race and trying to help us get going after we broke down.

It is great people like all of you that makes us come back for more.

TrailGlow I am so sorry about not getting your lights into the night.



Pep, I am also very sorry I should have done better at my new job and had you pull over sooner and add oil, or found the bigger leak etc. instead of driving on.
I feel so bad. I totally let you and Kitt down.

The race was our first taste of heat with the temperature close to 90 and not much wind as we waited 48 minutes to start the race.
There were so many cars that we did not get off the line for 48 minutes!
Almost 200 cars actually made the starting of the race.

We were second to the last group to start so the class one cars who left first I figured would be coming by right after we got off the line but we did not have a single class one car pass us until about 3/4 of the way through our first lap!
Pepper and Kitt were holding off the class one cars for a while and making some great time and actually passing cars in the faster groups that started in front of us at about a pace of 2 cars a mile.
That's amazing.

I had made a couple small changes to Kitts suspension, very small so Pepper would not even notice but these small changes make Kitt less stiff and smoother plus a little looser and looser is faster.
Other than that Kitt was pretty much the same as last race except the light bar was now on with all the TrailGlow lights on her.


Well I know these things happen and we have never blown a motor so this is a first in nearly 9 years of racing that is amazing everyone tells us.
But I just wish we could have raced more. But I guess it was best to break in the first lap then on the last lap that's for sure. At least prepping Kitt should be pretty easy after we get our motor rebuilt and back from Eddie.

Well not much to report it was great to actually watch a race and listen to the radio about whats going on out on the track with the other racers.

I will post more when I get time.
I had fun and thanks for all the support even though we did not need much.
Thanks for the Tow back in Jay and I hope you come to our next race it was super great having you guys there.

Oh ya on a side note I just wanted to add this...


Look at the Bear!

OK babe fine your not crazy...but its definately not the "snuggle" bear

Please dont take fault in the motor...we had no idea and like everyone said, we have NEVER blown a motor yet, and had a pretty good streek going.

Its ok. You did such a fantastic job, I only wish she would have held together longer. At the rate we were going and with your great instruction, we would have kicked some booty! The suspension felt awesome, your right I did not even tell the difference....

I think it is Kitts way of saying maybe something worse could/would have happened and she was not in the mood to be on the track...

Things happen for a reason, but I can not help think maybe because of our little "superstitions" we forgot... I already packed my lucky bandana for next race...

Thanks again everyone

That sucks that you guys weren't able to race more. 9yrs on a race motor seems like a long time to me though, I hope ours does as well!!! I know you'll get her all fixed up to to race again soon though.

See you at the next race hopefully! Maybe sooner.

Allen

Sorry that was a little miss leading this motor in Kitt is only 3 years old.
Still impressive for winning so many races and running so hard on it to last
three years without even a tune up so yes we did get our money out of it.
In 9 years we have never blown up a motor like this.





Yes that is looking through the top of the motor and through the piston down
into the motor.



We had a motor loose its oil, shut it down and took it in and had
it rebuilt and all was good and other stuff like that but nothing like this!


Ya we missed a few of our little superstitions I guess you could say.
Plus I need to learn to be a better co driver and tell you to pull over sooner
then when it was to late. My bad.

Anyways the motor is pulled and goes to our builder on Friday.
Looks like it is junk and we will need a new one but maybe something is still
use able on it. Maybe?

We will be at the next race on July 18th. It is a night race so should be awesome and we will get a chance to try our new lights out I hope this time.

I hope it is on a track I have raced on before so I can help be a good navigator like this time. We raced on this track a year ago so I was able to tell Pep the turns before we got to most of them and when the track dropped off or when we could or could not pass. Plus when it would be rough and just wait it out and when it would be fast. So that was awesome that's why I hope the night race is the same as a track we have done so I can do the same but in the dark to really help out.


Well I think Pep is still the points champ because all the other cars running against her also all broke down so she is still in the points and currently still the points champ in her class.



I hope everyone who can make it will come join us at the next race.
We have a deal with TrailGlow to be at tech so people can see his lights and panels on our car. So it is fun to hang out there on Friday but if not just show up later Saturday afternoon and watch the night race.

Thanks.



Oh and on a side note if you get the Dusty Times magazine Pepper has a photo in it of her and Kitt because she took first place at the last race!
Awesome.

All I want to know is....did you have some fun?

Because in the end that is all that matters!

Wow that is a good one!!! I'm gonna check to see if we can make it to the next race. What time does it usually start on Sat?

If you need some help let me know and I'll see what we can do.
see ya!

HELL YA we had fun, and no matter what Tut says he was an excellent co-driver! He called stuff out to me before I even got to it which helped me make great choices

I was a little embarrased breaking down right in front of Paul and Brodie with how much he has helped us and supported us, this was supposed to be Kitt's debut with all her new bling....

Paul, We did have a lot of fun! Thanks for being so wonderful and supportive

I do finally see the bear...its not snuggly...more like a rabbid dog or something. haha. And I do need to check with Martee to make sure you didnt pay her to photoshop it.

It seems Kitt has a bear too. In the motor pics you can see a bears face. Again not snuggly.

It was awesome to come see you guys race. And we have you penciled in for the next race too! We love coming to the races and are looking forward to Kitt's amazing comeback. She will look so great all lit up. And Pepper did say we could have a ride. Give Jason a call if you want an extra set of hands fixing her up.

Girls Rock!