03/09/2025
Koh 25 Recap
We arrived on the lake bed very late Wednesday night and just pulled up next to Joe gatlin and we decided that we would figure stuff out in the am since our pits were still muddy.
In the morning we came up with a plan and merged our pits together so we could try and stay out of the mud, in the process of moving the trailer I noticed that I had gotten a flat trailer tire somewhere between the main gate and our pit, bummer, once we were settled in we started to unload the trailer and set up the awning, in the process of unloading the trailer I noticed that my rear bumper/ tire carrier seemed like it was pointing down towards the ground pretty hard, come to find out the tubes had pulled away from the oem cage and now we have repair number 1, i drove it over to the fab school and they were able to strainer it back out and weld it up with some gussets to get me back in action. So, Friday afternoon Kevin and I went out and ran over to pit 2 to do a shakedown run in the newly configured car. The car felt like a completely different car and was driving and running great, so we decided to hop on the desert loop and pre run the desert loop backwards with the desert racers. 2 miles in the car goes into limp mode so we change course back to hammer town. Once there we found out that the intercooler tube had come off so we fixed that (repair 2) made a slight adjustment to the brake pedal and headed back out on the desert loop. Experiencing my first encounter with being passed by trophy trucks, cool and scary at the same time we ran the entire 65 mile loop with zero issues and then decided since we were there we would try our luck at the qualifying course and that went smoothly as well. The only one thing we wanted to try was get the rear suspension off the bumps. Sat/ Sunday we just hung out and prepared for qualifying on Monday.
Monday morning we took the green flag and sent the gap jump, once we made it thru the bronco arch I went to stab the brakes to get the car to dip into the next corner and we’ll no brakes, ok new plan keep the car in low and finish and that exactly what we did placing us in 56th position.
Upon returning we found out that a rock most likely took out the driver side brake line, and then we found out that the passenger side trailing arm was cracked/ bent/ and twisted beyond repair, my heart sank, but after some words of wisdom from Fire River racing and Justin hall, I went on the search for a new set, stopping all over hammer town and asking many competitors turned up nothing, so I drove over to Kyle Chaney’s pit where I was introduced to Alex from ct race Worx unfortunately he didn’t have any with him but a quick phone call had the ct race Worx crew quickly welding up a new set to get out the door and overnighted to the lake bed, meanwhile I had the fab school do what they could with the old trailing arm so we could finish preparing the car for tech/ contingency and race day. Going thru tech I was sweating as I awaited the much anticipated phone call that my trailing arms had arrived, and thankfully that call finally came through and a huge sigh of relief can upon me. Kevin and I worked thru the rest of the afternoon to repair the car and we were able to finish it just before dark.
We quickly hopped in the car and took it for a shake down/ belt break in before parking it and finishing up with pit boxes and fuel. Race day, we had fire river racing , Tom,Joe,Seth , John , Jan, Lauren, and a few others (sorry if I forgot you) at main pit for us and we had sent out a pit box and a spare with Bailey Cole’s team at pit 2 just in case we needed it.
We left the line and sent the gap jump right beside our competitor then we settled in to the dust and shortly after they pulled off and then we quickly picked up the pace catching the next car not much longer, there was just enough wind that the rest of the dust was easy to see through until you were right on top of them, made a slight mistake that found us off course for a few seconds but we were right back in it and we had passed a handful of cars with in the first 10 miles, where one corner got a little western and we found our self on only the front driver tire for a second or too, quick recovery found us on all fours and punching it thru the straits where we found a another group of cars that I quickly started passing, but just after passing the last car the belt decided to leave the chat and we found our self having to change it while almost all the work we just did passed us by once agian, we got a new belt back on and settled into a decent pace as we had to break in the new belt before we could start pushing agian. Having no other issues we passed thru pit 2 and headed to main where we had the crew bring us a new belt too us off with fuel and a Quick Look over then we were off on lap 2 where we seen a few battles and clean air. We set a fast pace thru the desert section of lap 2 and soon found ourselves missing the first rock trail after shock, so I just continued on and got back on course where we made quick time thru off ramp. After off ramp the car just didn’t feel right, the brakes weren’t feeling right, and the steering felt loose, Kevin got out and checked but didn’t see anything wrong, I then got out and still we couldn’t see anything so we continued on, making short work of big Johnson, we found ourselves missing self in claw hammer. Determined to make up time and keep pushing forward I was driving the car very aggressive and once we got to the first hard rock section on turkey claw I made quick work of making it up. Unfortunately this also led to our dnf as I made it up the last ledge the car pulled right but I had the steering full left 😂. Knowing we were broke we got out and seen the carnage and immediately I called it. Seeing bot ball joints broken and the tire/ hub assembly laying underneath the car, I knew that by the time we got back to main to get the parts we needed then get back to the car and try to get it fixed and continue on we would be timed out and in the dark. So Kevin and I winched the car off the trail as best we could so the other competitors could keep going. then We also set up a winch point with our factor 55 equipment so the less fortunate could have a easy winch and some help to keep them moving, after a few hours we walked down the hill and waited for Seth to pick us up where we went back to camp ate some food drank some water and came up with a recovery plan so once the race officials let us go out there we could get to work.
Thankfully the boys over at team Robby Bobby were up to the task and we went out came up with a plan and thanks to some Spectors who showed up we were able to lift the car up on to the back of the buggy and “trailer it” back down to the lake bed. Can’t thank them enough for the help. Although koh didn’t go to plan at all this year as I had hoped it was a great reminder as to what make this sport so great, between catching up with friends you only see once a year, and making new ones, or the generosity of everyone you run into. Between all the help and good times I have with fire river racing and the support from my sponsors and even the support from the vendors and companies that im not partnered with none of this would be possible. So thank you. Can’t thank my beautiful wife and daughter enough for always sticking by my side and fire river racing for all the support and help they give me and can’t thank team Robby Bobby enough for the recovery and help they gave me. More pics and videos to come so stay tuned
