A lot of people we all know showed up and ran hard and good. I suck at remembering all who were there, all their names, etc so I will mention a few that haven't escaped my tiny brain yet.
Jack Laude ran really good. Good enough to take first in his class... I believe it was super modified. I've seen him run many times in the past, but last night was the most memorable running I have seen him do. He raced again the big Blazer with the dual carbs for the final win. (Yeah, I know I have met the guy with the Blazer and dual carbs at least twice now but can't think of his name!) Hell of a good final race of the night for their class- they were both running awesome.
Open class was interesting. Jim and James took first and second in the Chevy LUV. The put some smaller paddle tires on the rear (35's?) and some cut boggers on the front. Ran just as good as they always do and the final two races for first and second were times races since they were sharing the truck. 3rd and 4th went to Frank and Karen Newell. They bought that red Bronco II that ran Colville in 2006 complete minus the motor. They put the motor out of their Jeep into it.
It was an interesting bunch of runs since neither of them really knew how to drive that thing. They both got scared several times and kept letting off the throttle to try to keep it from going airborne. The shifter in it is really confusing and backwards from normal... once Frank went first, then second, then first, then third gear. Once Karen sat there at the starting line after the flag was dropped. She swears that she took her thumb off the transbrake correctly but the rig didn't take off at all for nearly a second. Weird. The announcer there forewarned us all... once Frank and Karen master driving their new rig we had better watch out!
Many other good runs and many other sweet trucks. Just about everyone who ran there ran awesome. Chris Williams broke another DANA 44 front- that makes 2 in 2 weeks time. Werner took his big bad truck and broke also- think it was an axle but not quite sure. Skeeter did the most impressive breakdown though...
They made a jump ramp at the end of the mud pit. Skeeter flew through the pits and kept the throttle hammered, hit the jump and soared in a way that Mike Reynolds would have been pleased with. He then proceeded to hit reverse and tried to catch air in reverse but had to let off since a spectator got too close thinking he was done.
by this time he was smoking bad and running hot... so he takes the mud pit in reverse. Made better time in reverse than I did all night forward! Once he reached the starting line his truck caught fire. It was assaulted by multiple extinguishers and no major fire damage occurred that we could see. But we all saw that his front end camber was off like a worn out IFS.. yeah impossible in a solid axle!
He gets his truck fired up again later and hit the mud pit again. Well the cracking of his front axle housing became a split in half front end and he got stuck in 2wd with his front end on the ground. Busted the axle tube clean out of the side of the pumpkin. So he busted his stuff up good...but gave us all one hell of a show!
So the rules were followed pretty well at Big Al's... competitors and coordinators as well. I never heard a single complaint out of anyone so things are starting to get organized and fun there. I would go again!
