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Frank Thing Jr. Owner /Driver TrophyTruck Tony Cortes /Driver Trophy Truck Tyler Poppert /Driver Class 7 Shannon Dierkop /Driver Class 7
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 Outlaw 250
Saturday, September 30th 2006
158- 4th Place
705- 2nd Place
 
158- Laps 1-3 Three Flats (Frank and Marsha)
        Laps 4-6 One Flat (Frank and Brice)
Alot of Flat Tires! We figured out that the reason we were getting flats was because we were running to low of air pressure in our tires, and this track was really rough. We had to slow down the last two laps because we were losing to many tires. Brice cut and flared the hard line on the brakes because they went out on the first lap. Frank and Marsha had their first flat around the 30 mile mark. Marsha said to Frank, "Now you wish you had a Man with you instead of a Girl."
Frank replied, "Not really, grab the lug wrench and start taking the tire off!"
Frank did the jack and unloaded the spare tire and they changed the tire... and were on their way. Leaving the spare behind, to pick up after the race. At the start of lap three Frank and Marsha flew over a jump landing in the corner of a soft sand burm. Popping both passenger side tires. Somehow we had lost one of our spares. They called back to camp and Ronnie and Brice jumped in the Rhino to bring us a spare. WE WERE BACK IN THE RACE!!!! We made it back to the pits for rider swap. Brice jumped in the co-driver seat to help Frank navigate. Frank and Brice got a flat on the fourth lap at approx. mile mark thirty-nine.  Two motorcycle riders helped load the hot tore up tire back onto the truck. Frank and Brice realized that the air pressure was to low to run that fast. We had to slow our pace down to keep from going through so many tires. We finished the race and got fourth place.
 
705- Laps 1-3 One Flat (Tyler and Kevin aka Kenny)
        Laps 4-6 Broken Steering Swing Set (Shannon and Ronnie)
We started fourth of the line and during the first lap were in second place. When at mile nine we were passing a truck in the dust and were unable to see well, when we hit a rock flattenig our tire. We ended up in Second to Last Place. On the third lap when we switched drivers we were back in first place. Until... The Steering Swing Set Broke at Mile twenty-two. Shannon and Ronnie had to drive slow to keep the swing set together to get back to the Pits. They had a bad toe-out and were plowing sand on the roughest part of the track. We were able to get back into the pits where Tyler welded the Swing Set. We lost forty-five minutes and were able to finish in second place.
 A Special Thank You to the Thing Motorsports Pit Crew. To Bea-Con Racing, and the Jeep Speed pit for using their welder.  
 

COYOTE WASH 200

 

The race didn’t go without problems, but we wore down the competition, to get the second place finish.

 

 Lap 1: Stop at pit to remove front clip to cool down water and oil temps.

 

 Lap 4: Frank and Josh M. stopped at check point 3 to repair mal-functioning rear light bar (broken weather-pak plug). Then pit stop for gas, oil and driver/co-driver change. We had an oil leak at the right side valve cover and was losing about one quart of synthetic oil per lap.

 

 Lap 7: No fuel pressure three miles past pits in the sand wash. Brice and Tony radio for help, and then get out of truck to discover that one of the new Holly blue fuel pumps had fallen off and was dangling from the hoses. Tony amputated offending pump and attached lines from full fuel cell to good pump. Sound kinda familiar? Last week when mounting the two new fuel pumps they made all lines and wires long enough to allow switching of aforementioned lines and wires to either pump from either cell. At the end of this lap they stop for fuel and oil again.

 

 Lap 8: This is the final lap. As they begin the lap Brice and Tony begin their now familiar “just finish” chant to each other over the intercom. Mile 198 of 200. Out of fuel. They had lost a lot on the previous lap with the dangling fuel pump. They radio for help and await rescue. Frank, Andrew and Blair showed up to re-fuel the truck. Tony instructs them to add fuel to the front cell. Wrong. The rear cell was the one that was hooked up at this time. He gets out and switch lines AGAIN, only to hook the lines up backwards. He musta been a little tired. Finally Frank figures out why we had no fuel pressure, makes the switch and the truck finally fires up.

 

 They cross the finish for the checkered and go back to the camp/pits, feeling pretty frustrated. The Crew has a couple of refreshments and go to bed. Well most of them did. Brice stayed up with some friends and took another lap on a golf cart? He crawled into bed at sunup.

 

 The next morning Frank’s wife Veva goes to the official trailer for results. She comes back with a second place plaque. Sweet.   

 

 We felt a lot better after that.

 

SATURDAY, JUNE 24th 2006

 

(Mc Kenzie's 400 In Lucerne Valley)

 

We braved the heat in Lucern valley last weekend and raced the wild thing. It was a 400 miler, and really a pretty boring report. The truck ran flawlessly for all 8, fifty mile laps, getting us a second in class one and also a second overall finish. My sons Matt and Jeff co-drove for Frank Thing and myself, as Brice was out killing fish last weekend.  The only issue was a loose spark plug wire on lap five and the loss of BOTH spares on lap one or 2.