Well, just a quick note as to our surprise visit to the MDR Race this morning in Lucerne Valley, a course we know well except for a few changes they had made.

We left a 4:00 this morning to arrive at the track in time to get set up, go through a short meeting with all the crew, sign up, get the truck through tech and start the race at 8:00.

Lap one was VERY dusty as the race started on the lake bed. Without running this race course to set our GPS, we had no idea where we were going and just about came to a complete stop within the first mile. Once we figured out were to go we set our pace to only catch the leader (Steve Hererra in truck number 1408) in our class by mile marker 15 but couldn't get by him for all the dust. We followed him till mile marker 36 where we were 30 feet off his bumper when the course made a quick left and right. That's where I made the mistake and slamed a double berm with the brakes on and snap the spool in the rear end. We limped it in to our main pit and changed the axle's and 3rd member gear in less than 25 minutes and finished that lap in 1 hour and 22 minutes.

Lap 2 was great and clean with a 50 minute lap and started reeling in the leader.

Lap 3 was just a fast with the exception having to pit for fuel and decided to put Lloyd in the drivers seat and Nick Cerulle as co-driver and ended that lap we a 54 minute lap.

Lap 4 was even faster with a 49.04 minute lap and the fastest lap in our class while gaining some 6 more minutes and 18 seconds on the leader.

Lap 5 was just about as fast with a 49.41 minute lap gaining even another 4 minutes and 43 seconds on the leader.

Lap 6 and this being our final lap of the 42 mile long race course of the 250 mile race, Lloyd left the start/finish line with one thing on his mind now and that was to win this race. With this truck running as good as it now and with the pit support we had, Lloyd passed through Pit B at the 20 mile marker 3 and 1/2 minutes behind the leader running in second place and in 4th place in the overall standings out of 92 race cars that signed up.

Now you can only imagine what came over the radio from mile marker 28 to over 25 people that showed up for our team for support and all having radio's listening to only hear: "1438 race to 1438 main", "1438 main to race, go ahead", "we have no forward moving gears, only reverse". This was with no back ground noise like a race motor. The joke was said, "put it in reverse and get going". Well, reality set in real fast and we fell victim to our first real DNF today with a blown transmission. Funny thing is we new that this day was coming as we have won 11 straight races recently and we really went to this race to try for the overall today.

You can check out the lap times at the link below as we ran in the Class 1400 today.
http://www.mdrracing.com/california/race/results_lap.pdf

I don't even know where to start on thanking everyone that came out to help us but I'll try and mention them with there first names at least: Ken and Dan, Eric, Randy and Randy Sr,, Ron, Bobby, Tim, Stu, Shawn, Jeff, Brett, Barry and his nephew, Bradley, Kurt, Dean, Wayne, Cameron and of course, Nick, Lloyd and myself. Anyway, I'm tired, want to go to bed and can't remember all of you but THANK YOU ALL very much for a wonderful effort!!!!

Anyway, NEXT UP IS THE MORE POWDER PUFF RACE IN 2 WEEKS! Checkout the more web site at www.moreracing.net for all the hype and well see you all there and O'h, don't worry, we will have the truck fixed for the girls that race.

http://www.photoahead.com

Make sure you check out these web sites for all the updated news:
www.ubrtracing.com, www.minitruckracing.net and www.hcrracing.com

Thank you,
Bob Schreiner
aka: Uncle Bob 1438
661-618-4405