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Phoenix Racing Team News | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| December
10, 2002 2002 Baja 1000 race report  Phoenix Racing Team had a very good run going for a while at the
recent Baja 1000 race; unfortunately a series of problems forced us to put the
truck on the trailer approximately 820 miles into the race. Roger Gray
drove the first 520 miles and Brendan Gaughan was scheduled to drive the truck
from there to the finish. Both drivers and their respective co-drivers
extensively pre-ran their sections in the weeks leading up to the race.
Wednesday we took the truck through
Contingency and Technical Inspection, passed both with flying colors and got
many comments on how great the truck looked. Later that day we attended the
drivers’ meeting and then went to bed early for a very long day Thursday.
The driving team and pit crews for the southern portion of the course left
shortly after Technical Inspection as they had a very long drive ahead of them
to be in position for race day. Thursday morning we
paraded out to the start area and finally got the green flag at about 9:30.
Roger did an excellent job through the very tight and technical section from
the start to Ojos Negros and we were gaining on the two trucks that started in
front of us. About 50 miles into the race we started losing fuel pressure and
elected to stop to change fuel pumps. We ran about 15 more miles and again lost
fuel pressure, which indicated it was not a fuel pump problem but something in
the fuel filter. We didn't have the tools to change the fuel filter but
increased the fuel pressure, which worked for a while and then the same problem
occurred. After two more stops we finally made
it to Valle de Trinidad where our crew pulled the fuel filter apart and found
it was packed with dirt. It seems somebody dumped dirt in the fuel cell while
it was parked at the hotel. At this point we were
down about 1-1/2 hours from the pack and ran hard to make up time. After
replacing a faulty master cylinder we finally turned the truck over to the
south driving team at about 8:00 Thursday evening and rode with the chase crews
on down the peninsula to await the truck. Brendan and
his co-driver had a series of time-consuming problems (getting stuck for two
hours, getting lost twice, having the alternator fail and running the batteries
down) that put them way down in time. We finally decided to put the truck on
the trailer late Friday evening as we did not have time to finish before the
cut-off. Even though we didn't finish the race
we were very pleased how the truck performed and are looking forward to the
2003 season. The Goodyear GSA tires were fantastic—we didn't have a single
flat during the first half of the race and when we did our scheduled rear tire
change at the 520-mile mark the tires that came off the truck could easily have
gone the entire 1070 miles. We were very lucky to
have our Hella HID lights on the truck as the fog was terrible past Bay of LA.
With the combination of the fog and dust it took both the pencil beams and
driving beams to light our way. We used over 350 gallons
of Sunoco race fuel during the race (the race truck is not exactly an
“economy” vehicle) and even with the unexpected dirt in our fuel cell
problem the spark plugs looked great. We had our
Globalstar satellite phone wired into our helmets for use as our primary
communications. This is a great set-up and I expect more competitors will be
looking at it as a primary communications source. Some of the benefits we
realized are no “dead spots,” secure communications (no one listening
in), clarity, and the advantage of being able to contact anyone with a
telephone, not just someone with a radio on your frequency. We wish to
thank all our sponsors who support our team: John Bekakis of Beko Radiator;
Borla Exhaust Systems; Danny Darcy at Drive Line Service of San Jose; John Dark
of Globalstar Satellite Phones; Jim Alexander and John Aquiire of Goodyear
Tire; Fred Snow of Hella Lights; Redline Racing Oil; Art, Lauren and Kerry of
Sunoco Race Fuels; Wes Harris of Wesco Performance: and a very special Thank
You to Tom Scahill for a dynamite race engine and all the work he has done
on our race truck. Return to list of news releases. |
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| Contact: Penny Nicolai, Concepts Unlimited,
818-881-6458,pennynicolai@aol.com |
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