Author Archive

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  Chasing the 43rd SCORE Baja 1000 – The Final Chapter

  May 13th, 2011 by Ryan

  Baja stories don’t end with the checkered flag. We’d won, but we were still 1200 miles from home and exhausted.

  We’d made arrangements for a hotel in La Paz. The problem was that we finished the race eight hours ahead of our projected finish time and our hotel rooms were not yet available. We finally stumbled upon a large field next to the Hotel Marina in La Paz. There were numerous race and chase vehicles parked in the field. We pulled in and went to the office to see if they had any rooms, but they didn’t.
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  Baja 1000

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  Chasing the 43rd SCORE Baja 1000 – Part 6

  April 26th, 2011 by Ryan

  My stomach was in knots and on fire from the coffee, cokes, and energy drinks. I’d taken acid reflux meds and was eating antacid like I had stock in the company, all to no avail. Machelle had been a trooper in the right seat of the truck the whole trip. She may have cat napped a time or two, but she had been a second set of eyes on the road the whole trip. We finally realized something was wrong with her. She had been hiding the pain she was in for hours. She finally told me that her whole left side was hurting and she thought she had some blood in her urine. She’s a tough girl and insisted that we had to push on and she would be OK. We had some pain meds with us, so she took one of them. It seemed to knock the edge off, but she was still in significant pain.
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  Baja 1000

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  Chasing the 43rd SCORE Baja 1000 – Part 5

  April 8th, 2011 by Ryan

  The chase crews got to our next scheduled stop in Loreto an hour or so ahead of the race car. Eric Filar and Ron Lessley suited up and prepared themselves for the final push to the finish. Our driver change and pit stop went off smoothly. We started this race with the intention of a first place finish and we were three quarters of the way there. Eric and Ron had pre run their section three times, so they were familiar with what was ahead of them. Victory was within our reach.
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  Baja 1000

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  Chasing the 43rd SCORE Baja 1000 – Part 4

  April 1st, 2011 by Ryan

  We were halfway there, the sun was coming up, everyone had made it safely to this point, and things were looking good for the 1701 entry in the 2010 Baja 1000.

  We added the two trucks that had been in Baja Sur ahead of the rest of us to our chase crew train, saddled up, and headed for Baja Sur.
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  Baja 1000

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  Chasing the 43rd SCORE Baja 1000 – Part 3

  March 10th, 2011 by Ryan

  We set up our pit at Coco’s and waited to hear from the race car. At one point, through the magic of radio waves bouncing around, we heard Larry call out Race Mile 240 – the car was 60 miles out. An hour or so later, things started looking not so good for us. When Larry knew they were getting close to the pit, he started calling out the repairs needed over the radio. We had lost the rear sway bar, the u-joint retaining tab of the rear pinion yoke was broken, and we had lost something in the front differential. It still worked but it made bad noises if we left the front hubs engaged.
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  Baja 1000

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  Chasing the 43rd SCORE Baja 1000 – Part 2

  March 4th, 2011 by Ryan

  After a good night’s sleep, it was finally race day. The culmination of all our hard work and prep was finally upon us. All that remained was the racing and chasing.
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  Baja 1000

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  Chasing the 43rd SCORE Baja 1000 – Part 1

  February 24th, 2011 by Ryan

  19 of your best buddies…

  2,240 miles…

  54 hours in the truck…

  That’s the short version of what it takes to beat the Baja Peninsula into submission and get back home safely, and that’s exactly what we did.
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  Baja 1000

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  Off-Roading in Ocotillo Wells, California

  January 5th, 2011 by Ryan

  It’s that time of year – desert season. The weather is cooling down and the 100+ degree temperatures are gone until next year. The Ocotillo Wells State Recreation Area is more than 80,000 acres of desert open for off-highway exploration and recreation. Outside the boundaries, to the south and east, large tracts of BLM land are also open to off-highway vehicles. The western boundary and part of the northern boundary connect with the half-million acre Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which is closed to off-highway recreation but open to exploration by highway-legal vehicles.
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  Ford F-150, Jeep CJ, Ocotillo Wells

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  More Power for the F-150 Pre-Runner

  December 21st, 2010 by Ryan

  I’m running 37-inch BFG tires on my 2003 Ford F-150 Pre-Runner. I upgraded to 4.88 G2 ring and pinion gears in the differentials to give the 5.4 liter engine and the transmission some relief. Unfortunately, the larger tires threw off the speedometer, so I needed to fix that.
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  Edge Programmer, Ford F-150

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  Using the Jeep Cherokee XJ as a Daily Driver and a Recreational Vehicle

  December 7th, 2010 by Ryan

  I grew up off roading with my family every weekend. We started with Volkswagon Bajas, then a 4X4 Toyota, then Jeeps, back to Bajas, and now it’s a combination of them all with 4X4 Baja Jeeps. This is my ’98 Jeep Cherokee with the 4.0L in-line six cylinder motor that I use as a daily driver and a recreational vehicle. I chose the Jeep Cherokee XJ because I’m also part of a desert race team that races a Cherokee in the Jeepspeed 1700 series. We can use my Jeep for spare parts if the race car breaks and we’re in a pinch.
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  Dream Rig, Off-Roading Adventures No Comments »

  aFe Intake, BF Goodrich, Jeep XJ, Pro Comp Shocks