2014 Pikes Peak--Nissan GT-R Takes a Class Win...

 I'd be remiss if I didn't start mentioning some of the more interesting Nissan and non-Nissan racing results in the past few weeks.  First up is Mike Skeen and his '09 Nissan GT-R at this year's edition of the Pikes Peak International HillClimb.

A regular in the Pirelli World Challenge series with stints in Grand Am, NASCAR's truck series, as well as entries into the 24 Hours of Daytona and the Baja 1000, Skeen is a well rounded driver.  Evidently wanting to add another type of racing to his resume he entered this year's PPIHC with an '09 Nissan GT-R sponsored by Hawk Performance.

Given he had just come away from a pair of wins at Road Atlanta in an Audi R8, this would be a quick change and adaptation for him.  Equal to the task, Skeen finished Pikes with a time of 9:55.471 which was good enough for 6th overall and first in the Open class, beaten out only by PPIHC champions like Nobuhiro Tajima and Greg Tracy and others.  You can see Skeen's blistering run below.  Given the untested platform and lack of experience behind the wheel at a hillclimb, Skeen is one hell of a driver...

Skeen's website: http://www.mikeskeen.com/

NORRA Mexican 1000--Part 2(c)

Ahh...so we are off to our third day of racing.  The good news is that with the prior days success and 175 stage miles under the tires of the race truck we know that a full tank of gas will get us through any stage without pitting.  The lack of any mechanical issues during the events longest stage gave us great confidence as to its ability to operate in this environment.  With a night's sleep in A/C, a clean and modern hotel and some decent breakfast in our stomachs, things were looking up...

Of course an hour or so of an improving mood was too much and we are back between the grindstones in short order.  While our General Tire A/Ts looked almost brand new we noticed a large screw in the tread of a rear tire and knew we needed to make a change.  So off comes the bad tire and a front tire to swap to the rear.  The spare that was being placed on the front was mounted on a different wheel than what was on the rest of the vehicle--no biggie...except that the difference in offset and wheelspacer on the spare wheel/tires require open lugs in order to seat against the wheel...and....I didn't pack any open lugs so we can't put the wheel on truck and we are left with the option of trying to run on a tire with a giant screw in it or try and track down some open lugs.

Elliott I can tell is about at the end of his rope with my and my nonchalant planning/preparedness and wanders off, likely to keep himself from throwing a punch at me.  Tim retreats to the inside of the van to leave the disaster to me to handle and Paul remains his usual upbeat self, not letting anything shake him.  Me?  I am in period of self loathing, asking how I could be so stupid and feeling like I had let everyone down.

Fortunately Elliott and Paul track down a local auto supply store a few blocks away and run off to grab a few sets of open lugs (the front bolt thread pitch is different from the rear so having a couple sets of proper open lugs is best) and I try and prepare the truck to quickly swap the tires upon their return.  Paul and Elliott return with the lugs and we get the proper wheels/tires on and Elliott and Tim take off in the race truck to find the start of the second of the day's stages (again, due to the late arrival and last minute obstacles we have decided to only try and run the later of the day's stages).

Paul and I take the "screwed" tire to a local shop and get it plugged so that we keep our # of spares sufficient.  We head out of town shortly after looking to meet the race truck at a road crossing about 1/2 way through the stage.  We have a loooong day of driving ahead of us just to reach the road crossing...we're talking like 6+ hours just to get to the half way point of the second stage.  The day is again filled with lengthy road construction resulting in near brownout conditions from the dust and seemingly endless straightaways.  We do however reach the aforementioned road crossing in fair shape and sit down to await our drivers with some burritos from the roadside family shack located here.  We watch other vehicles cross and wait...and wait...

Then we begin making inquiries as to if anyone knows what has occurred to our team hoping someone has had radio contact with them.  "Hey" says a course worker, "I think I took some photos of that truck when it crossed the road a while ago!"  Sure enough, looking through his digital files our drivers had actually passed the road crossing BEFORE we even arrived!  Here we are sitting here eating our burritos and relaxing while our guys went through the area an hour or more ago and were out there racing.

Well, Paul and I take this as good news...the race truck must be running well if it made it here that quick and just kept on going.  We hop in the van and begin sprinting down the road hoping that we can catch our guys as they come out on the other end some hour or more down the road.  By the time we reach the other end of the stage the sun is about to set and none of the course workers here have seen our truck.  Then we begin hearing radio transmissions from race controllers that there are up to a dozen or more vehicles stuck in a series of silt beds shortly after the road crossing we had just left.  We wait, and wait and then find out that our truck had stopped in that silt bed area and ceased any movement.  Oh, boy...with a giant van with only 2WD and a trailer we have absolutely zero way to get to them, let alone retrieve them.  Remember...this is Mexico and Baja racing...driving out onto a hot race course is perfectly fine here.  No need to wait till the course is deemed "clear", afterall these are public roads that are never shut.

So we are faced with a dilemma, we are a tad low on gas and the nearest gas station is over an hour away, in the opposite direction from the road crossing we hope to get back to.  Do we spend more than two hours just getting gas before we even begin looking for our guys or do we risk running out of gas in the middle of nowhere (there are NO gas stations for multiple hours in the direction the road crossing requires) but begin looking for our boys right away.  Paul and I decide to take the risk and figure it out as we go and head after Elliott and Tim.  It takes us about an hour to get back to the general area of the road crossing where we hope to pick up the race course and get as close to them as possible and discover what has happened.  We find a couple of roadside stores/houses/shacks that have their lights on and we pop our heads in with Paul using his Spanish to inquire as to the particular road the course is located on.  We grab some additional water and supplies and ask if there is any gas around (as we are running very low now).  We are directed to a local farmer down the road who is known to have some gas in containers for his personal use.  Upon arriving at his house Paul inquires as to the availability of gas and the farmer agrees to supply us with some at a somewhat inflated price.  Gas siphoned into van by blowing into the top of a large container of gas held higher than the gas tank and now tube running to it, we are just about back on the road when a truck with some gringo faces hanging out the windows pulls up.

Come to find out, these NORRA workers had been told to look out for a big Ford van as it might be a couple guys looking for their race truck and drivers.  They had passed us while we were fueling up roadside with the farmer, noticed the van and swung back on the off chance they could talk to us.  Turns out they had left Tim and Elliott just a little while ago a little further up the road where they were located with the race truck!  Paul and I speed off down the highway, our hopes rising now knowing we won't have to search the desert in the dark for our compatriots, nor have to worry about somehow recovering the race truck.

We arrive on scene to find Elliott and Tim waiting and smiling--thank god.  The hood of the truck is off and obviously not running.  We greet and embrace looking to hear just what had happened.  Yes, they had been running well, crossed the road and kept going as they had plenty of gas.  The roads had been beautiful and fast, stage rally type roads that they had made great time on.  Things went downhill quickly however when they hit the silt beds.  Running down a small incline and into the silt a huge wave of the fine powder crests over the hood and windshield of the truck, blotting out all visibility and rapidly pulling the truck to a halt.  In the process of the rapid deceleration the Nissan's engine somehow throws its serpentine belt which rapidly becomes chewed to pieces in the fan.  Without a spare and deep in the silt things looked fairly hopeless--that is, until "luck" takes over and located at this spot (obviously aware of the likely result of numerous vehicles trying to run through the silt) is an individual with a tractor.  Words are exchanged between Elliott and the tractor owner and the tractor pulls the truck out.  Without a serpentine belt the engine isn't going to be doing much of anything.  Some redneck engineering places a series of shoestrings in place of the shredded belt and gets the truck a short distance before that fails as well.  I am a tad fuzzy on the remaining details on Tim and Elliott's remaining trip back to the main road but I believe another competitor's crew or similar flat towed the race truck back to where we now found it.

I may not have supplied the race truck with a spare serpentine belt itself but we did carry one in the van so we conduct some quick field repairs and in short order the truck is back running just fine.  We joke that they can go back and try the silt again and finish the stage but we know that this day too is over for us from a racing perspective.  Driving on the highway with the race truck behind us we travel a few more hours, getting into La Paz quite late again...11??  Midnight??  Later???  We park our vehicles and again crash into our hotel room.

NORRA Mexican 1000--Part 2(b)

So we left the team and I on a beach in Bahia de Los Angeles on the East Coast of the Baja peninsula the morning after our first race day that ended in a broken tierod and upper control arm after 95 miles.

Not reaching our "hotel" and bedding down till after 2AM and feeling utterly exhausted, we knew we would be in no condition to begin racing that following morning and so we decided to take the day's first stage (136 miles in length) off and try and recoup ourselves physically and mentally to tackle the event's longest stage of 175 miles in the afternoon/evening.  It was already apparent that we were woefully underprepared in terms of our chase/recovery vehicle, scheduling, spare parts, mental reserves, etc.  Our goal now had changed from finishing the entire event to merely trying to finish a single stage each day, using the morning hours when we should have been racing to make sure both our vehicle and ourselves were as prepared as we could make them.

So while the other teams had gotten out on the race course, we sat down with our maps and tried to plan out where we could refuel the vehicle during the stage and grabbed some food and water from what seemed to be the only store in town.  Now Bay of LA is not exactly a bustling metropolis.  If you want to make a call you should probly have a satellite phone as cell service is non-existent.  There are no banks, no ATMs and no locations (either gas or otherwise) that take credit cards for payment.  Not good for a group of guys who were running low on Pesos and had a full day of travel to somehow get through.  The single grocery store in town filled us up on bottled water and snacks for the day and look!  Low and behold, behind the counter was what looked like a little swipe machine!  Too bad the woman at the counter had never used it before as the device was brand new to the store.  She fumbled through the transaction, I signed a piece of paper and we left.

Sitting at a table discussing our plans a few blocks away, our conversation is interrupted 20 minutes or so later by the counter worker arriving in a fast moving SUV.  She jumps out and runs over to me saying something in Spanish.  After some minimal translation I understand that what I signed at the store was actually a rejection receipt and not a confirmation and she and the store's male owner were under the belief that I had been attempting to "steal" the $30 worth of supplies we had taken.  I agree to return to the store and settle up using a different card and the more knowledgeable male swipes me through correctly this time.

On the move again we head out of town in separate vehicles.  Myself and Elliott in the chase van and Tim and Paul in the race truck.  Just the transit to get to the start of the second stage of the day is an adventure.  Massive construction zones, road stoppages for cliff blasting, and beautiful ocean views all pass before we get near the start in San Ignacio.  Along the way we realize that there is no physical way for us to service the race truck at any point on the 175 mile stage.  There is simply no road that the van can traverse that will reach the race course.  If we had started out as the chase team about a half a day ahead of the racers we could have transited around the Southern end of the course and approached it from Western side where better roads were present but at this point, time did not give us that option.

So plans change on the fly and as 175 miles is outside of what I considered the range of the vehicle under stage rally conditions...so what to do??  Well, we do the only thing we can think of...we ratchet strap two five gallon race jugs into the bed of the truck and wish Tim and Paul well (after a delay at the San Ignacio gas station when they experience a power loss for a period of about a half hour...).  We express to the drivers on this day that they are on their own, without a net.  We're out of or never had significant spare parts, we'll be out of contact with them, night is falling while they are out there and due to our late start, there likely won't be many peoples behind them coming along--other than that, go out there and have fun!

Elliott and I have a great time wandering our way down Route 1, marveling at the near suicidal downhill, canyon carving it does into Mulege, disgusted by the oceanside landfill blowing its refuse in a constant stream of plastic bags into the ocean, loving the incredible roadside tacos (again) and stunned by the ancient volcanic landscapes and endless unpopulated valleys.  We arrive at the end of the 175 mile stage and park.  The only thing we can do now is wait and hope our boys come out the other end.  The sun is gone and we can see the lights of each vehicle from miles away as they approach the finish.

After a wait of about a half hour I return to the race truck to make my first attempt at communicating with Tim/Paul by radio.  I am stunned when on my first attempt I get a response from Tim saying they are only a few miles from the finish!  Truly after my disaster the previous day I had little hope that the truck would finish the longest stage of the event.  But there they are a few minutes later, crossing the stage finish.  At 175 miles it was longer than any FULL stage rally even in the States and they had done it non-stop, unsupported over some incredible terrain.  They had passed a number of vehicles on stage at speed yet taken their time, stopping for some 15 minutes to perform a driver change so that each individual would get some time behind the wheel.  They had taken incredible care of their equipment, babying it through the rocks and ruts.  We are all rightfully proud of this run--but its late...again.

We transit into Loreto finding that because of our late start time and generally slow speed of our vehicle that while we finished, the daily party was already over, the food and drinks all gone, most of the racers retired to their rooms.  The team sits for a moment, grabs a drink and then moves to our room, once again not bedded down till after 1AM.

 

June 11th...The Next Era In Nissan Trucks Arrives...

Nissan has begun hyping its pickup history of late and it has revealed that they will reveal the next generation Nissan Frontier on June 11th.  The video below every so briefly covers Nissan's 80 year pickup history and closes with the shot of the new vehicle under a sheet.  You can see the new LED headlights and the standard Nissan "V" grille.  Also seen are a roof rack system of some kind and an almost bowtie shaped shadow on the lower front grille that I am unsure of...

The big news is that it will be in showrooms (at least Australian showrooms, manufactured in Thailand I do believe) either at the very end of '14 or the very beginning of '15.  Hopefully that means it will be here in the States at the same time as well.  My poor '09 will no longer look like a "modern" Nissan truck...oh, well...maybe I can tow it around with a new Cummins Diesel Frontier!

NORRA Mexican 1000--Part 1

 Boy oh boy...as you might have noticed I didn't post much while I was away for this event and even once back it has taken me 4 or 5 days to catch up on everything at home to feel like I could dedicate any time to writing about it.  I'll divide the tale up into three parts.  Getting to the race, the race itself and getting home.

In truth each part was more challenging than I ever anticipated.  The whole adventure taught me more than I thought I could learn and humbled me like few things ever have.

Part One:  We (in this case myself, Tim Meunier and Matthew Stryker) left my home in Windham, NH on a late Monday afternoon.  Towing the Nissan Frontier behind a 270,000 mile, 1999 Ford E350 van was perhaps one of my first errors in judgement.  While I had provided brand new tires all around for the van and two new tires for the two axle trailer, I neglected to consider the fact that the van or trailer itself might not be in the best of operating conditions having assumed that as they were used to transport a separate team's racing efforts they would be fully examined and prepared.

Early miles fly by and we are determined to make great headway and arrive in San Diego early.  Unfortunately early in the afternoon on Tuesday the van develops an awful popping noise from the engine.  Pulling over we discover that the 10th cylinder of the engine has a chronically dislodged spark plug that due to its aluminum heads and 4 threads worth of seating grip is impossible to install without a complete job on the heads and/or helicoil work.  So we stuff the 10th plug in the best we can, eliminate the noise resign ourselves to operating on only nine cylinders and carry on, inhaling the gaseous fumes that go unburned and continue to pass by the 10th cylinder every time one would step on the gas. 

Having driven straight through the first night and on into Tuesday afternoon we reached St. Louis in the early evening.  I make a wrong turn in directing the van and exit the highway almost right at the St. Louis baseball stadium.  No big deal we think as we can just turn around and be back on our way again--except when I attempt to slow the van at the first light we encounter my foot goes straight to the floor.  No brakes.  We pull into a McDonald's parking lot and discover that the rear brake lines are shot...rusted through and spilling their guts on the ground.  No stopgap repair would suffice with so much mileage to go so we bed down in St. Louis for the night hoping for a swift brakeline replacement in the AM.

Come morning at a St. Louis auto repair facility (we turned down the offer of our hotel desk clerk to have her brother in law come over and fix the brake line in the hotel parking lot!) we are told that the entire brake line system lines from front to rear had to be replaced as it was rusted through in a number of spots with smaller, piecemeal repairs not feasible.  So off we wander around downtown St. Louis, a quiet and attractive downtown area, taking a tour of the famous Gateway Arch.  Upon return to the garage we are told that yes, the brake lines are replaced but in doing so they have discovered that the brake master cylinder and its seals are completely shot as well and needs to be replaced.  No having or not having confidence in your brakes is simply not an option for a trip of this magnitude and so we have that replaced as well.

By 5 PM we are finally on our way again and proceed to rip off another 24+ hour driving shift.  This time we reach Yuma, Arizona (now Thursday) and bed down on the border knowing that we only have a few hours left the next day to reach San Diego where we plan to pick up our other two drivers.

We drive on to Lemon Grove, CA in the morning where we pick up at the local post office a new alternator and our IRC satellite tracking unit, both of which had been sent General Delivery to this location.  We also stopped by Offroad Warehouse which was practically next door in order to grab some more suitable gas cans.  While we pick these quick fill jugs we meet Jeremy Johnson of Weldtec Designs who has some welcome but critical words for our effort.  A former Class 1 pilot and top notch fabricator Jeremy sees our unsupported suspension crossmembers and lack of front limit straps as being particularly concerning for as long and as rough a race we are about to endure.  Quickly I decide that I need to do everything I can to stay in the race as long as we can and enlist Jeremy and his shop to install some limit straps for the front and create some additional bracing.  His quick work is excellent in form and function and we are out the door in time to grab Paul Hartl from the San Diego airport.  Our fourth driver will not show up until after midnight (this is now Friday afternoon) as he missed his initial flight from Chicago due to multiple flats on his way to the airport.

We install the new alternator in the race truck (original alternator was diagnosed as going bad the day we loaded the truck on the trailer to leave) in the parking lot of our hotel, grab some food, hit up Home Depot and Wal Mart for some last minute supplies (water, air mattress, loctite, etc.), send Matt to pick up Elliott Sherwood while we slept and prepared for our entry into Mexico the next day.

Leaving Matt in California to wander around on his motorcycle while we are away the four of us (myself, Tim Meunier, Paul Hartl and Elliott Sherwood).  Entering Mexico was a breeze.  A quick glance at our passports, a quick look at our registrations for van and trailer and we are in.  Tijuana is a shanty-town and truly worthy of third world status.  Luckily we fly through there in short order and are heading toward Ensenada that Saturday morning.  We arrive at contingency/tech in the late morning and queue up in line while checking into our hotel which was quite nice, as nice as almost any hotel I've stayed at here in the States.  We have lots to do--installing satellite tracker, grabbing cash, fueling vehicles, obtaining GPS files (some of which tasks are easier than others)--which keeps us from attending the opening night party (we already missed the pre-event party at the Horsepower Ranch but not arriving in Mexico until Saturday vs. the Friday arrival we had planned on, due to Elliott's late flight in) and we are working well into the dark to feel ready for the first day of racing.  Our spirits are upbeat however as afterall....we're in Mexico about to begin a 1000 mile race!!

Rally Trinidad 2014

I had brought up the Rally scene in Trinidad and Tobago a few weeks back mentioning that they had a regular event there for many years now.  Well the 2014 Rally Trinidad has now passed and it looked awesome.  Great sights both on and off the sandy roads.  The event ran over three days and 24 competitive stages.

Winning the event was what looks to be a Ken Block inspired livery Suzuki SX4 WRC driven by Neil Armstrong (no, not THAT Neil Armstrong) a native of Barbados.  Finishing 6th of the 29 original entries was a Ford Escort MKII.  Attrition was quite high as there were only 12 finishers.  Some photos from the event and a link to the results for the finishers below.

Rally Trinidad Results... 

2014 WRC Rally Mexico--Don't Cut!!

Perhaps his codriver should have warned him of this corner which looks probly like any other--oh, except that nice dip on the inside of the corner...This is Andreas Mikkelsen and his codriver Mikko Markkula in the 2014 WRC Rally Mexico. They finished 19th in the event but evidently did finish in their VW Polo R.

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Classics and Ari Vatanen and More...

The 2014 Australian Rally Championship is now underway down under with Brendan Reeves taking the National Capital Rally win this past weekend in his Mazda 2.  In a case of "this sounds like a bigger accomplishment than it is" there were only 17 national class entries in the event and 10 of them DNF'd.  Not that Reeves isn't a fantastic driver, he is, its just that national class entries seem to be as limited there as they are here in the States.

More interesting to me at least, is the always quality "classic" stage rally vehicles that come out to these ARC events.  For the Nat. Cap. Rally we have an old Mini, your typical gathering of Datsuns and Fords and, for one stage at least, Ari Vatanen behind the wheel of an epic looking Audi.  The classic class win was taken by the Toyota Celica #70 of Neal Bates.  Enjoy.

National Capital Rally...