VORRA posted season points post Fallon 250 and for some reason that probably requires long math, we’re still in first place, albeit by two whole points. Hawthorne should be a fun time.

If you can close your eyes and imagine Bob “Busboy Bob” Russell as Ken Block and me as Alex Gelsomino (except without the cool accent), this is pretty much what it sounds like inside the car when we’re racing. Also, we’re not going that fast, we’re not usually around trees, and our car doesn’t look anywhere that cool. We do drive through cattle guards, though.

The VORRA Hawthorne 250 is Labor Day weekend.

Shannon and Off Course Racing saved our bacon not once, but twice at the VORRA Fallon 250. First time bringing Richard and Crusty back into the pits after spending two hours in the Nevada desert when 1107 broke a ball joint. Then, when our support F-350 developed vapor lock, he drove back out, picked up Richard and Crusty and helped us replace the broken part.

Shannon built his own Class 1, he coached me on how to put together a radio mast so we might actually be able to talk to 1107 on the course, and he had water misters in his camp. He epitomizes what makes racing fun.

Now, all that being said, Sabrina, his wife and co-driver, is 10x cooler than he is. Here’s a hi-res version of the above photo.

About a week before a race, the organizers drive the course with a GPS unit that records their track. That file gets loaded online for teams to plug into their race car GPS units. This is particularly helpful when you’re driving as fast as you can on dirt roads at night in the middle of the Nevada desert. Which is what we’ll be doing Saturday night.

I take VORRA’s file and reformat it for Google Earth, and will spend the next few days “flying” the course. You can download the Google Earth KML file here. This course looks fast. Very fast. With a little bit of technical stuff, mostly at the end of each 62 mile lap.

We depart Felton Thursday afternoon and arrive in Fallon Thursday night. Friday around 11 a.m. we pre-run the course. Race starts around 6 p.m. Saturday night and we have nine hours to do four laps of the 62-mile course.

Here’s our tentative driver / co-driver line up.

Pre-run Friday morning
Richard / Bill in 1107. Scott on motorcycle.

Lap 1 – Scott / Bill
Lap 2 – Richard / Bob
Lap 3 – Crusty / Scott
Lap 4 – Bill / Jim

Seriously. That’s all I’ve got. Have a happy weekend.

We’ve got a 15 point lead going into VORRA’s Fallon 250 night race. Thursday night we did a post-race debrief on Yerington and Reno. 1107 performed extremely well. We taco’d one rim last weekend but the tire and tube held. Between now and July 16 we’ll moves some tires and tubes onto different rims, we’ll wire all the night lighting and we’ll sort out a couple of comm issues. Otherwise, talking over Bob’s BBQ, pizza and beer, we’re dialed.

Seth has already begun planning for the 1000, which is six months out.

Finally got caught up on sleep and paperwork and stuff. Here’s a collection of shots by Pepper Cote of Tut Tech Racing and me. Check ‘em out.

Thank you Tut and Pepper for insanely driving 10 hours just to hang out with us in a dirt overflow parking lot outside Reno.

Jason Baden with Reno Off-Road Motorsports sent along a couple photos he got of us at the Yerington 300. Team taking the weekend off and working on the car on Tuesday.
Two more photos here.

Two weeks to the Xtreme Outlaws 250 in Reno.

his phone battery was dying. he’ll call back later with deets and will likely be posting an update soon.

I swear this is my last video from the VORRA series this weekend, unless someone wants bloopers and out takes.

Team meeting tonight at Dingo sommelier “Busboy” Bob’s backyard, complete with BBQ. General consensus, last weekend’s racing went as well as could be expected. We need to get there earlier and practice more. The term “hole shot” was bantied about. Longer term we need a second transmission, to completely rewire the car and label everything this time and sometime before the June race in Reno we need to replace the roof and repaint the car.

As of right this moment, we’ve had 806 downloads of our iPhone and Android apps (which you can download by clicking on the appropriate icon on the right). Recent coverage in DesertNewz and Diabetes Health magazine, and we were apparently included in last week’s episode of Baja Unlimited on the Outdoor Channel. A very unique media story in the works.

Much more to come this weekend.

Lefty and Bob, fresh off the first moto.

Wrapping up coverage of the VORRA season opener with this gallery of photos.