MDR Ridgecrest 200 May 17, 2008

Saturday morning came bright and early for us at Pit A. The racers suited up and headed out across the desert to start/finish. 1450-ORG signed up 22 entries, well above what we had thought Ridgecrest would produce. With Geoff Falzone, Melissa Thornton, and Matt Torian on the race roster, 1450-ORG/Giant main pit was left in the hands of Dan Vance and Amber Wasserburger. Cameron was leaving early for a wedding, and trusting the entire days’ events to his crew. AJ Steeber and Justin Mangini were to head up Remote Pit at mile 21.5. Once ORG Alpha had headed out and Dan and Amber got situated, a quiet hush fell over Pit A; now all we had to do was wait.

The radios were quiet as the race began until we heard 1459 call out a few mile markers. Then blasting through Pit A came 1441 Matt Torian, followed a few seconds later by 1404 Randy Shields. The night before (and even weeks before) there was a lot of chatter about 1472 Ross Savage coming out to race and how he would fair against not only the top 1450 racers, but the 1400 class’ times. Even on Lap 1 it was apparent this was a race to watch, Ross came through less than two minutes behind the first 1450 truck of Craig Reynolds and Nicolette Dunn, 1456. This was a race to keep your eye on. As the rest of the pack came through, a static-filled transmission came through from Matt Torian claiming he was down at approx. mile marker 12. After a few minutes of waiting to hear back from him, we radioed over and determined he was DNF on Lap 1. His parents, who had flown in for the race from Texas, were bummed to see him out of the race.

As the race moved on, we determined that we had no radio contact with ORG Alpha Remote Pit. Every once in a while we could get someone to relay, but otherwise we were dead in the water. Alpha Pit was the busiest pit of the day as far as pitting for repairs and troubles. But with the help of AJ Steeber, Justin Mangini, Tom Reynolds, Pahl McAllister, Matt Torian, Brad Lindseth, and Robert Castorina, they had it under control. On the first lap, both 1433 and 1461 were towed to pit for repairs. 1433 was determined to be a DNF with electrical problems and 1461 got back out on the course after fixing fan issues. 1488 and 1453 had the most carnage of the day. 1488 broke a wheel and had to change the tire and put new lug nuts on at Remote Pit and kept on pushing. Dealing with this all day, he still remained in the race and was the last truck to come through for the day on his last lap; everyone stood up and gave him the “windmill” as he came through. Being the last racer to DNF, he received the Version One Vinyl Contingency Prize. 1453 had a rough day, with shearing the upper A-Arm bolt, used a ratchet strap to keep it together to get to pit, pulled into remote pit and they attempted to find a bolt long enough since the arms had moved during the broken voyage to the pit. Tried to set them in closer and let him go, but it didn’t seem to hold too long. Remote Pit did all they could to help John get back out there, he had put so much time and work into making it out to this race. But after six hours, it was determined that the day was a loss and claimed a DNF.

Business was mild for us at ORG/Giant Main. We had the help of Juan Sanchez, Ryan Venegas, Mike Kashak, and a few others. 1479 was running hot on lap 1 and decided to take the radiator guard off to get some more air flow. 1404 had flat tire issues throughout the day. We did a few visual checks and fuel fills and assisted with driver changes for 1456 and 1451. Melissa radioed in before coming in to pit on lap 3 making an odd request for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and after a game of “not it”, Dan made her sandwich cut it in half, and was later told he cut it the wrong way. 1463 pitted with both ORG pits a few times to re-fill the radiator and 1475 Andy Stephens came in for some help with clutch problems. After having no communication to confirm DNF’s with Remote, we began to relax, until 1488 came haulin’ in out of nowhere, needing his exhaust welded. We fixed him up and cheered him on as he took off. Other than that, main pit hung out listening to the non-stop chatter of some other team’s issues, and dealing with constant joking and harassment from Dan Vance.

The race in 1400 was down to two racers by the second lap. 1401 Danny Giannini ran solid all day turning out 46 minute average lap times, while 1404 Randy Shields struggled with flat tires all race. 1403 Mike Bithell made a valiant attempt at third before DNFing on lap 2. The race between Craig and Nicolette and Ross Savage remained hot and tight throughout the day. Their lap times were consistently under a minute apart. Craig and Nicolette came in for a driver change and later had a flat tire on lap 2, losing time that would have kept them literally seconds within Ross’ time. Ross ran consistent and problem free all day, “haulin’ the mail” every time he came through, so after a majority vote, Dan Vance determined that Ross would win the 1450 class WFO Award for the day. The race for 3rd and 4th was tight, as Melissa Thornton and Adam Filbin were on each others’ tails seconds apart as they passed pit every lap. But then noticing adjusted time, out of nowhere was Justin Hampton, who had started seven minutes behind Melissa and Adam but turned out a lap time for lap 1 that beat theirs by almost two minutes. Running strong and solid all day, and with a co-driver change on lap 3, Justin came out with the 3rd place win. Only after the finish, did he experience transmission problems. It was a great day for Justin. Melissa and Adam were happy to take 4th and 5th, while Chris Greeley, in his first race back in a long while, took 6th place. But it wasn’t a fruitless day for Chris, as he received the Fastest Leaf Sprung Vehicle plaque from 1450-ORG, and couldn’t have been happier with it. Congrats to all the winners, all the finishers, and all those who gave it their all.

Overall, it was a great day of racing, with a great group of friends, and everyone was happy to have made the trek to Ridgecrest, and of course start their bets and competitions for Event #3 at the MDR Night Race.

1450-ORG Race Report.
MDR Mojave 250

April 5th, Barstow, CA – We arrived Friday just before 5pm and setup our contingency booth near the MDR registration area at the Start/Finish. Besides the T-shirt vendor we were the only other organization out there supporting the racers. We had a lighting display in our booth from Trailglow Offroad Lighting. On display were their 7”, and 9” HID driving lights along with their lighted race numbers. We signed up 14 racers for our contingency program. These racers included:

Class 1450

Craig Gay 1488 5th Place
Karl Wong 1466 7th Place
Juan Sanchez 1454 DNF
AJ Prince 1486 6th Place
Morgan Wilson 1472 4th Place
Steve Fuhring 1464 2nd Place
Nick Tonelli 1499 DNF
Frank Vernola 1470 DNF
Craig Reynolds 1456 1st Place
Trevor Leach 1491 DNF

Class 1400

Jeremy Burnitz 1403 1st Place
Randy Shields 1404 DNF
Jonathan Libby 1414 DNF
Nathan Strong 1435 DNF

Race Day

The race got underway with the first cars leaving the start line just after 8:00am. There was a steady breeze blowing which helped the racers and made for nice clear course conditions. We found out within the first 5 minutes of the race that calling out to our remote pit over the radio would make for an interesting day of radio communications. When calling out to ORG-Alpha pit it sounds more like “ORGY-Alpha”…so you can imagine we had a lot of fun with that.

1450-ORG Alpha pit was set up at Road crossing #6, race mile 21.5. This pit was open to any racer. The 1450-ORG pit was well staffed by our pit crew as well as a handful of volunteers that came out to help the ORG and support the racers. We had a fantastic group of people helping us out this weekend. Pahl, Brandon, Justin, Tony, Chris, Haley, Amber, AJ and a few people I didn’t get to meet, sorry. I listened over the radio for the first half of the day as the ORG-Alpha crew handled all the racers that needed our free pit support. We helped #1486, 1464, 1488, and 1499 with various issues such as: loose bolts, power steering, brakes, and carrier bearing.

I arrived at the ORG-Alpha pit in the afternoon to bring lunch to our crew and help out for the remainder of the race. Within seconds of our arrival we were informed that 1403 would need to make a stop at our pit and was in need of a welder. Lunch would have to wait…

The 1450-ORG pit crew was waiting for them with the necessary tools, generator and welder standing by when they arrived. Our pit crew was able to diagnose the problem and with assistance from the 1403 chase crew was able to fix it which required welding within 10 mins.

While 1403 was still in our pit we got the call from 1486 that they would also need assistance. As soon as the sparks stopped flying on 1403, we went to work on the 1486 race truck gusseting the driver-side beam mount, again making use of our welder.

It was really cool to see the 1450-ORG pit crew working so well together as a team. It’s even a greater sense of satisfaction to know that both vehicles made it to the finish line to finish 1st and 6th in their respective classes.

Even with multiple trucks pitting simultaneously they worked like seasoned pro’s to get everything repaired and get the racers back on the course. I’m proud of these guy’s and girls and wouldn’t hesitate for a second to pull my own race truck into a 1450-ORG pit.

We offer our pit service solely to support the class 1400/1450 racers. We all know this sport is expensive and having the resources of an experienced pit crew can make the difference between finishing or not finishing a race, or even a podium finish in the case of #1403 Jeremy Burnitz. Contact us if you need to arrange pit service for an upcoming race. 1450-ORG is proud of all the racers that made the finish line and would like to extend big congratulations to:

Craig Reynolds and Nicolette Dunn for driving the #1456 truck to victory in the 1450 class with a 44 Mph average and setting fast lap for the class.

Jeremy Burnitz for driving the #1403 truck to victory in Class 1400 with a 30.9 Mph average and setting fast lap for the class.

Congratulation also goes out to Morgan Wilson in the #1472 race truck. Morgan took 4th place literally drove the wheels of his Toyota race truck. Morgan was the fastest leaf sprung truck that finished the race and set the fastest lap time of any leaf sprung vehicle racing this weekend.
1450-ORG Charity T-shirts

Our Charity T-shirt programmed raised an additional $85 this weekend. Thanks to everyone that purchased on of our charity T-shirts.

Thank you to Armistice Photo for support of the racers and photo contributions.

MDR Night Race
August 16th, 2008
Lucerne, CA

SXS Nationals
June 14th, 2008
Lake Elsinore, CA