🏁!!RACE RECAP!!🏁
Ultra4 Racing Rampage at Ridgecrest 2019!
Now that things have settled down, we’re done cleaning and our bodies are starting to feel like normal again. It’s probably a good time for a Race Recap of our most recent race, Ultra4 Racing 2019 PCI Race Radios Rampage at Ridgecrest.
Rampage at Ridgecrest took place this past weekend in Ridgecrest, Ca. This would be a 216 mile desert race, four 54 mile laps though some nasty terrain. Our goal was to finish. Having bad luck earlier in year, we were not KOH2020 qualified yet and really needed to get our spot at Ridgecrest.
Friday started the weekend off with practice. We loaded up and headed out with our buddies Watson Racing #1943. Prerunning the course and marking our GPS of danger zones we were stopped short at MM25 due to a old Military Bomb found near the racecourse! That was surprising and a bummer as that left us unable to prerun the remainder of the course.
Qualifying approached, and we decided to not qualify. Ol Hells Bells isn’t quite a desert truck as some of you may think 😆. Our thought was it was going to be dusty regardless of starting position, and we wouldn’t have to deal with as much passing traffic so early in the race. Unfortunately, and lucky for us at the same time, due to some race ops issues, we started by points which allowed us to move up a few positions and not start dead last.
RACE DAY!! We suited up and rolled out to staging around 12PM, with a green flag dropping around 1PM. We would leave the line around 1:10PM. The first 25ish miles were brutal. Miles and miles of whoops. We found a pace, settled in and started knocking out mile after mile. It was hot out, around MM15 though MM20, we would have to check up and not let the engine get to hot, that would continue in that section for the duration of the race.
We were now coming into Pits for our 1st pit stop, 51 miles later. Truck felt great, nothing to complain about. We radioed in to pits and let them know everything is OK, and it will be a gas and go unless they find a issue. Rolled into pits, and in 4 or less minutes, we had a full tank of gas, truck looked over and cold waters were drank and we were off for lap two!
Lap one, two and three were flawless. No issues besides overheating in one spot of the course, that was it! The sun played a issue on the 3rd lap slowing us down a little bit, but we were on pace for a good finish. Lap 4 came, hit the pits for the last time and we were off for our last 54 miles.
Right after pits we hit a decent size rock in the dust (aprox 2.5′ tall) at around 40MPH that sent us for a ride and to our surprise, we were able to keep it on its wheels, and everything survived. Not far into lap 4, our front steering pump started giving issues! Not what we wanted. We ended up having to keep the truck in 1st gear for majority of the 4th lap to keep the RPMs up high enough for the steering to work. Thankfully we can go around 60MPH in first so we could still keep a good pace.
We had already lost time, and with a 8PM end time of the race, it wasn’t looking promising. Co-Driver got a time check, 30 Minutes to go, with about 20 miles to go. Sal told Matt to drive faster. Faster we did. In the dark, marginal steering, putting #666 though a beating. We were NOT going to time out. The last 15 miles was rough and probably a wee bit dangerous 😂 but we were on a mission and we weren’t going to be defeated.
Mile after mile, the minutes ticked by. At 7:56PM, Matt and Sal piloted Hells Bells #666 across the finish line with 4 minutes to spare!!! Directly after getting the checkered flag, Hells Bells would not steer anymore, talk about timing!!
We did it, we beat 8k pounds of #666 into the ground for 216 miles of California desert. We finished 16th over all and earned our spot into King of The Hammers 2020!!
BIG THANK YOU TO SEI Racing, Moose Motorsports, DsquaredRacing, 303 Racing for your help in the pits for Thorson’s Racing and Watson Racing. We couldn’t have done it without you guys. Our racing family is literally the best out there!
And a very special thank you to Jake Watson, our not so little anymore crew cheif. Your the man Jake!
Also, to our partners. Thank you for everything you have done. We appreciate you taking a leap of faith with us and we hope we are making you proud!
Cheers to KOH 2020….We will see you on the lake bed 🍻
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