Ford Ranger Gone Racing

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2008

Richland, WA – RumbleGoat Racing is ready to do battle in the desert southwest. The Best in the Desert (http://www.bitd.com) Bilek Silver State 300 is the venue, featuring wide open desert, mountains, rocks, trees, water crossing, ghost towns and gila monsters. Coming off of a challenging Vegas to Reno race, the RGR team burned the midnight oil in the short one month hiatus to get El Chivo in the best race shape it has ever been in. With the help of crew, volunteers, friends, family and our sponsors Ford Truck Motorsports, Goodyear Tires, Pasco Auto Wrecking, Fastenal and AmericanTrucks.com, the team has conquered engine and transmission management gremlins, replacing the transfer case, building a new rear axle and numerous other much needed fabrication projects on El Chivo.

RumbleGoat Racing’s Crew Chief Jose Ybarra said while welding under the truck, “This race is the terrain we cut our teeth on. We learned a lot of lessons from V2R, and have made El Chivo better than ever. This is our race.” Jose refers to the team’s extensive experience driving offroad in the Pacific Northwest. Every member of RGR actively participates in local offroad clubs throughout Washington and Oregon and have up to 30 years of experience in mountainous driving, navigating and racing.

Fondly referred to as El Chivo is RumbleGoat Racing’s 2006 Ford Ranger FX4, featuring a 4.0 SOHC engine, 5-speed automatic transmission, functioning 4wd and built to Best in the Desert class 7300 Stock Mini specifications. RGR’s is proud to invite its newest sponsor AmericanTrucks.com (http://www.americantrucks.com) to the team. AmericanTrucks.com has the best prices and selection on F-150 aftermarket parts on the web. Go to http://www.RumbleGoatRacing.com for live updates, up to the minute satellite tracking and to support the teams generous sponsors.

 

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Post Race Report

Off the start Fozzie was in the driver's seat and Jose was co-dawg. The crew had rednecked a digital video camera to the rollbar to capture an hour or so of video before the battery ran out. We were 4th off the line with only Gavin Skilton's Honda behind us and 3 other Rangers in front of us. Fozzie power braked the green light and was off into the desert in a cloud of dust. He was running very strong and closed on the leaders by RM10. While physically in 4th, we appeared to be running in 1st or 2nd place on corrected time until RM20. Fozzie blew a corner because of a bad GPS file in the dust and ended up on a rock the size of a VW. No serious damage was done, but the boys were down for 20 minutes trying to get off of the rock. They stacked rocks and used both jacks. They finally got free and went hammer down for the last 20 miles into Pit 1. The RGR crew gave El Chivo a quick once over and a drink for the drivers and they were off again. The only serious damage was a broken rear shock, but we decided to push on.

After Pit 1, Chase 1 got radio contact from Don Blakley, the 1066 Crew Chief, asking us if El Chivo would tow the 1066 from RM72 to RM80 so they could be extracted. Their day was done. The 1066 is a friend of the team and a bunch of stand-up guys so I agreed to relay the message to the race truck and instructed them to render aid. Chase 1 headed to pit 3 for a planned driver change and Chase 2 headed for pit 2 for a fuel stop.

The race truck had one quick flat tire before picking up the 1066 due to driving on the sidewalls in the ruts through the hills, but everything was good and very fast until they dropped off the 1066 at RM80. On the way into pit 2, the silt sucked us in and the guys had to dig out. When they finally got in to pit 2, the crew performed a flawless pit stop and sent the truck on its way back into the Nevada wilderness about 45 minutes behind the leaders and about the same time in front of the pit closing times. Fozzie was fully getting it through the mountains while Don and I suited up to take over the reigns at Pit 3. Then. . .at RM126 the mother of all silt beds buried El Chivo to the frame rails. The pit was within radio contact and we could actually see the dust from the truck when it stopped. The guys dug and dug and dug for the next 40 minutes. Don and I were prancing like race horse with our fire suits, helmets, and D-Cels on. Finally, the pit time closed, but we were given an extra 13 minutes to make it through. Fozzie came into pit 3 to standing ovations from the support crews still there. In the middle of the pit, there was a big silt bed that we had watched dozens of cars and trucks struggle to get through for the two hours we were there. Fozzie floated through it, hammer down, straight as an arrow better than ANY of the other vehicles we saw all day. However, the pit had just officially closed. This is where it gets really interesting.

Because the truck was in good shape, we decided to do the driver change and head to the pit captain to see if they would let us go. Needless to say, they very bluntly stopped us and took us out of the race. Their reasoning was that they had heard that we refused extraction by the BITD retrievable vehicle. The fact is that we would have been very thankful for a tug out of that silt bed, but we were never offered a chance. It was a simple communication error but the pit captain wouldn't budge. I wheeled the truck around back to our pit, switched over to the BITD frequency on the race radio, and explained the situation to the officials. The clock slowed down as they pondered our fate. Finally, Donald told us that we could go, but we were half an hour down on pit times, we probably wouldn't make pit 4 because of the carnage along the way, AND BITD would NOT recover us because it was our decision to remain in the race after time had expired. We were on our own and way behind. . .WAY behind. The odds were against us.

Needless to say, per company policy of NEVER QUITTING, I spurred El Chivo so hard that he screamed in protest. We were off at speeds that a stock truck has no business racing at, let alone racing without the prospect of assistance if something were to go wrong. I was screaming at the truck to go faster as we flew over the rollers on the powerline road several feet off of the ground. Don gave up calling corners because they were just coming too fast. We were on fire. Fozzie would say that we were steppin' and fetchin' like our tails was on fire and our asses was catchin' (paraphrasing Charlie Daniels I think). Off of the power-line road and through a ravine we ended up in a deep silt bed. 4Lo pulled us through with the Devil's Milkshake pouring over the hood. This silt was EVIL, but we kept pouring it on. A little farther down track, we popped up over a rut and I pressed the brake to get back on track. . .and the pedal went to the floor. We stopped anyway. . .no brakes, no steering.

Don jumped out of the truck and immediately told me to shut it down. The passenger knuckle had broken in two places. Our race was over. We had the parts to fix it, but we would ultimately time out trying to get it back together. The chase crew regrouped at the closest accessible spot and, in true RumbleGoat style, started celebrating. Celebrate survival, celebrate life, celebrate the spirit of never giving up. . .I don't know, but they were having a great time while Don and I used some very creative techniques to get the new knuckle on the truck so we could get back and join in the fun. Ultimately, we got it back together and drove it back to the trailer in 1st gear, low range since we didn't have any brakes. It was 150 miles back to the hotel, in bed by 2AM and up at 5AM for the 1000 mile drive back home to Washington State.

We had a blast and learned a ton. One of the things that we learned is that we CAN run with the leaders in our class. Our Goodyear tires performed really, really well, and the Ranger is really only limited by the loose nuts behind the wheel. AND we still have the best crew in the game. We just have to figure out how to keep moving through the silt. Of course, that comes with experience. After inspecting the truck last night, the broken knuckle was very likely caused by the blunt impact of that first rock at RM20. It somehow stayed together until there were too many straws on the camels back. We'll continue to get better and will never quit. See you in Henderson!!!